Read the longer, more public version on Elephant Journal
The trecena of Tz’ikin arrived this week, and the eagle has landed.
Last Monday, September 14, is the day I mark as the ending, though my marriage has been slowly rotting and dying for untold years. That day, he turned physical with me. Never before. Not once in thirteen years, until this one.
My partner wrestled with me and pushed me down to the ground. Right in front of our 13-year-old daughter.
Immediately and into the next day, 2 Ajmaq, I was mentally separating. Ajmaq carries the medicine of forgiveness and sin, peace and acceptance. I forgave myself first. You cannot skip to forgiving someone else before you’ve forgiven yourself for staying as long as you did.
3 No’j brought clarity through meditation, reflection, and conversation with trusted old friends. No’j is the nawal of wisdom, of ideas crystallizing. I recognized a manipulation for what it was, a peace offering that was a ploy. I said yes, deleted my yes, and said no. Thanks but no. Whereas before I would have run right back into his arms. An unexpected opening appeared, an entry back into that old toxic cycle of love and attachment versus hate and repulsion. I said no. No is a complete sentence.
4 Tijax, Thursday, held the energy of the obsidian blade, a double-edged sword. A day for cutting clean I moved through a full day of work, yoga, a call with a dear friend I hadn’t spoken to in months.
That same day was my third healing session with Kitara, of deep massage, craniosacral, and Reiki. I had some big emotional releases and felt energy moving and shifting. I’ve committed to four more sessions with her over the next three weeks, before I leave for Texas.
I also sent him a message naming the pattern of these past 13 years without blaming him for it. Tijax truth telling. Tijax cuts both ways. It can wound, or it can free; I used it to free, at least that day.
On 5 Kawoq, the day of the midwife, turtle, and the rainstorm that cleanses the ground, I sat with the concept of reconciliation but did not act on it. I realized I don’t want to reconcile. I want to end this cycle, exit the dynamic, as gracefully and peacefully as possible. Kawoq’s medicine can be tough love. I stayed home and chose to sleep upstairs in my daughter’s bed.
6 Ajpu is the energy of today. Ajpu is the day of the sun, the hunter, the hero twin who outwits the lords of the underworld through cleverness and heart. I woke up at dawn, did my pranayama on the balcony, and wrote something I didn’t expect to write: I accept that the marriage is over.
What I want to say plainly, for accountability, because I need to hear myself say it more than anyone needs to read it: my marriage is ending. Thirteen-plus years. A shared home, daughter, cats, dogs, a shared history that includes tenderness alongside harm.
He is a good father. We are not a compatible couple. I can hold both truths simultaneously.
I am no longer viewing separation as defeat. It is the truth arriving on time. Giving up would mean staying in a pattern that has kept on repeating no matter how many times I told myself it wouldn’t or tried to Pollyanna my way to “everything is fine, nothing to see here!” I stayed because leaving felt impossible. The good times outweighed the challenges and pain. Until now. No more.
Accepting means I stop arguing with what is. I stop trying to fix what isn’t mine alone to fix.
I let go of the past, the dream, the fantasy. Illusion. Delusion. Being swept away.
I let go of repression. Depression. Denial. Avoidance.
I let go of resistance to what is.
I let go of self-doubt and self-limitation.
I let go of my identity and role as wife and partner. Now we are co-parents, nada más.
I still love him. But I let go of the hope that we can stay together, the need to bond, to maintain our marriage.
I let go of the vow.
I let go of expectation.
Leave a Reply