Awake: A Memoir

by Jen Hatmaker

My body is frozen. I can’t even cry. My whole world is slipping away click by click. I float above myself watching my brain absorb the impossible, watching my heart splinter. So this is what it looks like when a life unravels in real time. It is quieter than I expected.

Dad walks in to find me and Mom weeping, my head in her lap while we both unravel, me from humiliation and Mom from the brutal heartbreak of parenting.

I have a sense of deep care, that I belong, that I am protected and cherished and known here. But it isn’t with my parents at my childhood home. It is with myself.

I was so busy looking out for the girls, I forgot to look out for the boys. Why weren’t we vigilant to protect our sons too?

We are the keepers of the family stories. We know all the shorthand. We were a team.

Bodies won’t be tricked out of mourning. They know too much.

I decide to wake up and live.

Now listen, I’m not a lawyer, but I don’t believe we are legally allowed to disobey Brené Brown. I think there is some sort of legislation that requires us to do whatever she commands. So even though Brené tells me she once threw that book across the room, I still plunk down $12.75 and purchase my own copy.

Blessings, blessings, blessings, they keep coming. Somehow they keep coming. One at a time, just on time, they keep coming, sunlight making it to the forest floor.

Apparently they have to live their own stories, including the hard parts, and it isn’t my job to fix any of it. I guess my job is just to bear witness and hold vigil with them.

I didn’t know then. It was true to me that day.

How do I reject the systems without disparaging the people I love?

I can barely say the words divorced or ex or single without wondering who on earth I am talking about. I wear them like the most ill-fitting coat. These were never, ever, ever meant to be mine.

My forever looks different than I expected, but sometimes beautiful things do.

I am noticeably unpracticed at telling this terrible story.

But somehow love keeps mattering. It seems to be pulling through as the lead story. I guess it is true that love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. What a miracle. What an absolute miracle.

A boat is built on land before it sees the vastness of the ocean.

I feel utterly, completely awake and alive.

And my life is right now. I am not waiting on anyone or anything to “happen to me.”

“Oh, Jen, detachment isn’t about loving him. It is loving peace and freedom more than chaos and anxiety. Honey, it is loving yourself.”

Our life’s work is to reject the message capitalistic, patriarchal systems have conspired to craft. They have a vested interest in keeping us at war with our bodies.

We cannot fast-forward or short-circuit this. It all must be felt, admitted, faced, owned, examined, allowed. All of it. There is no other way. It will seem impossible, then too slow, then just hard… … and then you make it.