There’s an old saying, “When one door closes, another one opens.” When I was growing up it was just something that old people said but as I became an adult, it became clear what that phrase actually meant. It was not only a metaphor, it was also instructions. It wasn’t until most recently that I realized the latter part of that. If you follow my writing, you know that I am divorced. My ex-wife and I were together 15 years, 7 of which we were married. We were considered “couple goals” by our friends and family.
We traveled together extensively and supported each other’s professional aspirations. We struggled together through financial hardships, family drama, and health issues. We celebrated milestones like degrees for her and international tours for me and through it all we rarely argued. I literally can count on one hand how many times we argued. I know now, that was a problem. We’ve been divorced for over three years now and up until recently I was still grieving the end of our relationship. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what I had done wrong or what I could have fixed to save our marriage until I realized that there were two people responsible for the end of our relationship. Just like with any break up, there’s lots of the blame game, wondering what went wrong, and of course, grieving the memories of what once was. But at the end of the day there was a lack of communication and honesty that was ultimately the true reason for the demise of our wedded bliss.
Over these last few years of trying to heal my heart, I realized that I had not closed the door. There are things that I didn’t even acknowledge I was doing and I was still leaving space for her in my life. Little things you don’t even notice you’re doing. Like for me, I never deleted photos of her from my phone, I still have our wedding album in my closet, she was an artist, as well as an intellectual, and I still have one of her paintings on my wall that I absolutely loved. I haven’t even deleted her number from my phone. I only changed it from being an “I.C.E.” contact in my phone a few months ago! We haven’t spoken in over 2 years but I was still leaving the door open for her. Silly right? So what changed you might ask? Don’t laugh but, Facebook did!
Some of us who have way too much time on our hands, play those games on Facebook that tell us what our future might hold or what our dream car should be or what celebrity we look like. I’m not immune to the mindless distraction of it all but recently Facebook, (or maybe the universe,) have been reminding me to close the door. I would have conversations with friends or family about how I didn’t want to get married again, how I was happy being single, even though I am not even really dating. I shifted my life to start doing more things that I used to enjoy before my marriage. I acknowledged the things that I did during my marriage that did not bring me as much joy and just stopped doing them. I shifted how I interacted with people acknowledging those who were in my life because of her and those who were there because of me. In this growth, I found that I had been lying to myself in order to protect my heart and keep the door open if only a crack. I realized I DO want love again, maybe even marriage. I love traveling with someone I care about and I intend to do it again. I want romance. I want that deep friendship and most of all I want to build with someone, but I was hindering myself. Like the old saying says, “when one door closes, another one opens.” Well, I hadn’t closed the door so therefore, there is no opportunity for the new one to open. So I played a Facebook game that simply said, “What do you need to DELETE from your life in 2024?
And just like that, it hit me like a brick! I can’t get that new door open without closing the old one. The night after I played that game, I dreamt that I had put that painting up for sale, that I had gathered all of those photos and little reminders of her and purged them from my home. And last but not least, I deleted her contact from my phone. Just the thought of all of that gave me the most freedom I had felt in a while. I consciously decided that I want that new door to open. So if you are like me in anyway and realize that you’ve been keeping the door open that should be closed, take this article as another sign from the universe. Close that door, even if it’s only open a crack, and let that new door open to bring in the fresh air you need to breathe life back into your world. I say all that to ask…Does anyone want to buy a pretty dope painting?
@ImmaniLove
She/Her
(And yes, the painting really is for sale if you like it, reach out to me)
