What Can You Possibly Say...

My best friend since college sent me a text yesterday and said that her husband of over six years was done, finished. And he left her.

Out of everyone I know, this is one marriage that I truly believed it would be forever. And now, my best friend is broken and I can't do anything to help her. If I lived there, I would have packed up the kids and drove. Even if it was 4 hours. But it's a 4 day trip now. I have never missed home so bad in my life.

After having children, there are so many changes you go through. You go from you to a different version of you. The old you is still in there, but there are other things that become more important. It is so hard to balance a child, job, and relationship. Women wear so many hats: mom, wife, sister, daughter, worker, friend, and the list just keeps going. I once read in one of my Social Theory classes that the most common form of depression is when women experience role strain: i.e. wearing too many hats.

Am I the same person that I was 5 years ago? No, probably not. 5 years ago I was a single mom who was just beginning to put myself back out there. I only had one child, one job, and no boyfriend/husband. I was able to go out and have a few drinks when my son was at grandma's house.

Then I met Jeff and got pregnant with Isaiah. My friends started changing because I wasn't going out when I had a free night. I was home with my growing little family. Shortly after Isaiah, I had Elizabeth. So more and more of the old me fell away and was replaced by the new, more adult, me. Now, if we have a babysitter for the kids we usually end up going grocery shopping by ourselves. How fun does that sound? Go from fun to mundane.

I guess what scares me is that this will happen to me. What if I wake up one morning and Jeff says I'm not the same person he fell in love with. Have I already changed so much that I am unrecognizable? Sometimes I feel like I have. And some days I feel like it is a good thing. But sometimes I just feel like a portion of who I used to be. All of the stress and sleepless nights have just added up to make me a tired, boring, mean person who is too busy just getting through the day to really stop and see what is going on around me.

And in the midst of trying to figure this out, how can I possibly be a support for my friend? What do I say to possibly make things better, because nothing I say can change or fix anything. What do you say to your best friend whose world is falling apart? Because I've been there. My world crumbled at my feet and it is not pretty.

But you eventually pick yourself up and move on. Not because you want to, but because you have to.

So in the meantime, I pray for peace for her. Because I don't know what else to pray for.