Aloha from Hawai’i! This week I write from beautiful Kauai, which is by far my favorite Hawaiian island. There are more greens and blues here than I knew could possibly exist. The mountains are tall and covered with lush foliage. The waves crest and crash on every shore. The center of the island is rainforest, while the perimeter is mostly beach. It’s perfect.
So perfect, in fact, that I chose it for the first stop on our Hawaiian honeymoon in 2012. I researched our two-week trip endlessly, choosing Airbnb’s and VRBO’s carefully, reading reviews, and getting the best prices so that we could stay on three different islands during our two weeks there.
And even though Kauai was my favorite, there was definitely one night at a nearly deserted resort on the West End of Molokai that would make for a great scene in a romance novel if you know what I mean. A night when Darth (my ex’s real name is not Darth. If you want to know why I chose this pseudonym, see my Divorce Story post here) and I were very much in sync with one another, if you know what I mean.
On this trip though, we’re anything but NSYNC (a boy band he always hated me for loving). He’s back home with the girls, and I’m battling with him over email, our deliberately chosen method of amicable communication, about cell phone policies for Belle and Thanksgiving holiday swap times.
So when I’m here in Kauai, standing on a volcanic rock and letting the warm waves at Nukolii Beach crash over my toes, or watching the surfers at Kalapaki Beach, the waves lull me into memories of the last time my toes touched the shores of these Pacific Islands. Already countless times I’ve thought of the way Darth used dried palm fronds to tie my hiking sandals together when a strap broke as we hiked the Kalalau Trail to see the Nā Pali coast. I’ve remembered the way that we peered into tide pools on Secret Beach, and of course there was that night in Molokai. We pretty much spent two weeks beach hopping, eating fish, searching for sunsets, and making love.
This time is very different. I’m at a writer’s conference. I’m staying at a resort hotel rather than carefully chosen Airbnb’s. I sleep in a king-sized bed alone. It’s rainier this time. Colder, and much windier too. When I lay in bed at night I can hear the waves crash on the shore and the wind howl through the slats in the sliding door to the lanai. The palm trees bend in the strong winds, their leaves all pushed southward by the north wind.
Coming back to this place where I chose to start my life with Darth is, in short, giving me the feels. We all have those places where we made memories with an ex. And going back to them alone can be strange. For me, it brings up memories that I don’t often think about. Memories that make the pain of separation come up to the surface, even five years after we split. How can the person who spent those nights on Molokai with me, who tied my sandals back together, who visited every possible beach on the North Shore with me, now be creating memories with someone else?
I’m back in denial all over again.
And then there’s the self-flagellation: am I really still upset about this? I thought I had gotten over it already. After all, wasn’t I just checking out one of the single dads at after school pickup last week?
But place and presence are closely connected, and Darth isn’t far from my mind each time I put my toes in the Pacific.
In fact, tears spring to my eyes as I write this, because one of the toughest things about divorce, for me, is the coexistence of the tenderness that Darth and I shared in our marriage and the full-blown anger, resentment, and sadness that I still feel at the person who has become a distant coparent. Just because our marriage no longer exists doesn’t make a decade of memories disappear.
So know, dear reader, that if you too still have sad moments when visiting a place where you made memories with an ex, you’re not alone. Not even if you’re five years out from separating. Well-meaning friends, neighbors, and acquaintances might tell you to get over it already. You might not even share your feelings because they seem irrelevant. But I won’t tell you to get over it. I’ll say “yeah, that’s a tender thing. I’ve been there.”
Isn’t it funny that, to express empathy, we say, “I’ve been there?” As if pain is a place that we all visit from time to time. For me this week, it’s a rocky shoreline where warm foamy waves break over my toes and bring the past, and my separation, closer to my present. The same waves remind me that each time they crash on the shore, they change the coastline in some miniscule way.
This is how we heal: we change in small, miniscule ways while the world crashes into us.
