My refrigerator door was once covered in satirical cartoons — the kind that skewered politicians for some recent hypocrisy or gaffe.
But after my husband abruptly left me, I started tacking up a different kind of cutout. Kinder and gentler ones. Short, uplifting quotes along the lines of “you are enough.” The type that I, a cynical child of the ’80s raised on a “no pain, no gain” mantra, might have mocked in the past.
Why the switch? After my husband announced that we were “better off as friends” and that he was moving out to “find” himself, I suddenly craved sympathy over snark.
I came across my first motivational quote as I was scouring social media, trying to distract myself.
”Know your worth,” it exhorted, vague enough to target anyone in despair — including me.
Simple, strong words plastered on a neutral backdrop that paled in comparison to their power.
Soon I began checking Facebook every morning and every night before bed. Thanks to the all-powerful Meta algorithm, the more I “liked” sayings about self-love, breakups, and healing, the more they appeared.
Some were clichéd. Some were novel. They all served as a salve for my shattered self.
“It’s OK to feel broken. It’s OK to feel overwhelmed,” soothed R.M. Drake, one of my favorite creators.
“He’s not running from you, babe, he’s running from himself. Let him go,” Stephanie Bennett-Henry, another go-to source, wrote.
These two-to-four-line snippets became my lifeline of support, especially as months went by and I felt embarrassed to keep telling my friends that I still felt devastated and raw. They had shown up for me like an army protecting a crumbling castle, but even with their love, I still hurt. I was crying every day. I still didn’t know how to navigate life without the person who had been beside me for my entire adult life.
Was my marriage perfect? No. But as a wife, mother, and human being, the sentiments I now clung to reminded me that I deserved better…
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