The Brutality of Empty Arms

I want to embrace the life I live now, and not consistently long for the life I once lived or for a life I dream of. 

John is no longer my partner. He is no longer my confident. He is no longer my protector. He is no longer my spiritual head. He exists in the most beautiful parts of my past, but he is unable to exist in my future.

And I am left to accept the true brutality of empty arms. 

To accept the fact that a man did not rush into my life the moment I was ready for one (how rude). To accept the fact that I am a single mother to a preteen who doesn't always like me. 

I hate describing the loneliness that is widowhood and single motherhood. I don't want to sit here, in my blessed life, and make it seem like grief and loneliness is the only story I have to tell. But it is still a very real part of who I am...and I have always tried my best to share all the gory details of my beautifully broken story. 

When I am weak and feel like I cannot manage this life alone, there is no one to pick up the slack or to recover my fumbles. I have no partner now.

When my heart longs for someone to sit with me in the silence and hold my hand, there is no one to coax the broken words from my lips. I have no confidant now. 

When something horrible happens, there is no one to wrap me in the safety of their arms, whispering the promise that they will protect me. I am the protector now. 

When I am troubled and long for the sacred words of prayer to be spoken over me, there is no one there in the silence of the night. I am the spiritual head now. 

I am on my own. I have a support system, a multitude of counselors, and amazing people who will step up and step in. But I am the head of my own family and I exist in a reality where I must be able to maintain my family without an unhealthy codependency on someone outside of it. I must manage my home. I must provide financially for my child. I must be able to manage her health and her safety on my own. I must be able to teach her love without sacrificing her mental health and forcing her to grow up before her time. I must be ok with being alone.

I must accept that I live in a home where love existed so strongly before but exists mostly in broken ways now. 

But, it does still exist here, even in the brokenness. 

It is here, in the brutality of empty arms.

It is in the offering of love every day to a sweet girl who doesn't quite know how to accept it yet. 

It is in the holding out my arms to someone who doesn't want hugs from me...hoping that someday she will run into them. 

It is in the sister who comes and cleans my bathrooms the day after I failed so miserably at being my own independent person. 

It is in the quiet moments of the night when I am desperately alone. When a loving God sits with me in the brokenness and whispers that He is all I need. 

And healing lives here too...

It is in the accepting that longing for partner in my weakest moments will not bring one here. It is in acknowledgment that there is no life in those desperate longings...there is only the thief of joy. 

It is in the moments I choose to open myself up to a new person, and even in the realization that I chose the wrong person, the wrong moment, or the wrong vulnerability. 

It is in the aftermath of these things...when I am able to take a long hard look at myself and choose to be someone wiser than I was before...choose to be someone stronger.

It is in the brutality of empty arms. Knowing that there is no person who's arms offer comfort for me anymore...but that, maybe, I will be ok with that soon.

It is in facing these challenges one day at a time...failing just as often has not...but choosing to try again anyway.

I am the author of my own story, the creator of my legacy, the shaper of the culture that surrounds me. 

I chose this life...and these are my choices:

I choose to believe that vulnerability is always worth the risk.

I choose to rely, just enough, on my community.

I choose to build my strength and courage in the space of loneliness. 

I choose to believe that empty arms do not mean an empty heart...and I choose to live a life worthy of the love I have to give and the love I have been blessed enough to receive...as if it has never broken me before.