should I stay or should I go?

day 3: maybe this isn't the right question at all

If you're asking this question, you already know the answer. Sorry, but that's the honest truth.

Let me backtrack.

I was recently reading through my old journals to retrieve parts of me that had been lost over the years—parts I shoved aside due to busyness, survival, or the part that pains me most: denial.

Each entry captures a story of a woman—from young motherhood to a working woman in her 30s—who sounds like a broken record spinning the same sad song. No, for real. She sounds like a damn broken record, and I'm still over here trying to wrap my head around how that woman was me.

No one told me that the greatest shame post-divorce isn't that I didn't make it all the way through—

It's that I stayed for far too long.

I don't want to bore you with all the positive traits I carry—my strength, grace, empathy, loyalty, and the ability to love deeply, forgive wholeheartedly, and take care of those I love. These are valuable traits I nurtured over years of growing as a mother—traits I'm sure many of you have as well.

But none of these traits mattered in the face of a connection that was already broken at its foundation—no matter how hard I tried to fix, resolve, or control what was never meant to be whole.

Nothing worked.

The truth is, love can be refined over time through fire—but its essence must already be there, woven from consideration, kindness, empathy, respect, patience, trust and something sacred.

(And sorry to break it to you, but simply standing at an altar or receiving a certificate from a pastor or priest doesn’t make a marriage sacred.)

Without such threads anchoring the foundation, it’s bound to collapse—unless one person throws herself into the flames, burning away piece by piece, trying to keep it alive.

Yet I kept trying—because I thought giving up meant abandoning my kids. Or breaking a sacred contract that, over time, became nothing more than a piece of paper I was the only one still honoring.

These days, I've been processing a lot of heavy emotions. And contrary to what others might think, it's not the heartbreak.

The heartbreak was already processed— pieces already recovered and gathered over countless years, like fragments of a shattered mirror reflecting who I used to be.

The real heaviness that sits in my chest?

It's the shame. The shame that comes from how long I've abandoned myself. How many years I spent as a stranger to my own heart, living in a house that was home for others but not for myself.

So maybe the real question isn't, Should I stay or should I go?

Maybe the real question is: How long have I been abandoning myself?

And the longer that answer is, the more shame you'll feel—not about the other person, but about the woman in the mirror who stayed silent for too long.

Because this entire journey—marriage, motherhood, divorce— was never really about them.

It’s about you. And it’s about me. Learning that leaving isn't always abandonment— that sometimes leaving means returning home to ourselves.

Damn.