The #1 Divorce Lesson

To love someone with all your heart and all your soul and all your being and then it ends. How is that possible? How does that happen? And how can you even survive that? I don't know the answer to any of those questions. All I know is that you do survive, somehow. You learn to go on.

I survived. I went on. And in the process, I learned one of life's lessons - that life isn't fair and life doesn't follow your plans. Once I accepted that lesson and relinquished my plans and my dreams and allowed my life to take a different course than what I had envisioned, I was able to stop trying to control my life and I was able to breathe. I was able to start living, really living.

And through this lesson, I've gained a happiness that I've never experienced in my life. I used to have a life I didn't even like but I was bound to it because it was the life I had planned. I tried to make it work and I tried to make it look like the life I had envisioned but I was trapped and unhappy. It's been 5 years since I got divorced and I now have a life that I didn't plan at all, and I'm happy, genuinely happy every single day. And more surprises keep popping up and I look forward to every twist and turn in my life and what new adventure lays ahead.

My suggestion for happiness is to quit trying to control your life and be open to the gifts that you are given. Life is more beautiful than even you could have planned if you'll stop and give it a chance.