Jana Remy
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Jana Remy

  • Writing
    • Disability
    • Making History
    • Digital Humanities
      • dayofDH
    • Canoeing
    • Creative Nonfiction & Essays
    • Feminism
    • Bibliographies
      • Pacific Worlds Bibliography
    • Social Media
      • Mentions/Links
  • Scholarship
    • Awards/Fellowships
    • Conferences & Invited Talks
    • Collaboration
    • Workshops
    • Conference Planning
    • Technical Skills
  • Teaching
    • Blogposts About Teaching
Daily Archives

March 10, 2015

Random

a small list of advice for getting through a divorce

A few friends have recently asked me for advice about getting through the tough few initial weeks of a divorce.  My advice to them, based on what I did well during my first few weeks separated from my then-spouse:

  • I exercised every single day. This was my obligation to myself because I knew I would have imploded otherwise. I lifted weights/swam/yoga’d/paddled/rock-climbed/etc.
  • I surrounded myself with a tribe of supporters that I could call or text at any time of day or night. Most of these friends had been through a divorce themselves, so they “got it.”
  • I threw myself into meeting new people that had no idea about my divorce. I met them online or in cafes or at the gym or at the Huntington (where I was on fellowship at the time).
  • I re-made my home into a place that I loved, room by room excavating every bit of my ex’s junk out if my life. I started with the bedroom–new linens & rearranged the furniture. If something brought bad memories of my marriage, it went into the trash. I only kept the things that I loved and that made me feel good.  If there were “important” documents that I couldn’t face in the moment but I also couldn’t throw away, I put them into a box to deal with later (FWIW, I just barely went through that box and I’m glad that I waited a few years so I was clear-headed as I made choices about what to keep).
  • But perhaps most importantly, I kept working.  I didn’t miss a day of being at my desk and in the off-hours I was pounding away at my dissertation.  Despite the turmoil in so many aspects of my life, work was a bedrock-constant dependable thing and that kept me well-centered to face everything else.
March 10, 2015
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About Me

About Me

Hi there friend, and welcome to my blog. I started writing on the internet two decades ago. Since then I've started and finished a PhD program, left the Mormon church and became a Quaker, got divorced, remarried, found full-time work in academia, took up rock climbing and outrigger canoeing, and traveled across the globe (China! Belgium! Italy! Chicago! Montana! Portland! Gettysburg! and oh-so-many points in-between). This blog is eclectic and random--it has poetry and cooking and books. And cats. And flowers. And the ocean (my ocean). But in that sense it's a good reflection of me and my wide-ranging, far-reaching, magpie curiosity.

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