When my son and I left, we took a few changes of clothes and some of his favorite toys. Woody and Buzz Lightyear made the trip, as did a mall Batman and Spider-Man figurines.
A clear plan for the rest of our lives did not.
My parents gave us somewhere safe to stay. That mattered enormously, but somewhere safe to sleep wasn’t the same as knowing how to handle everything that came next.
Decide what needs attention first
My list included a temporary restraining order (TRO), separating our finances, and figuring out what to do about the remaining months on our townhome lease.
I was also caring for Little J who needed me while I was trying to work out what our new life would look like. Those things needed attention, but they didn’t all need the same kind of attention, and I couldn’t resolve them all at once.
If you’ve recently left a marriage or relationship, you may be discovering that yourself. There may be custody questions, paperwork, work obligations, and a child asking something you don’t know how to answer.
Meanwhile, people tell you this is a fresh start. That may be true. It may also be the last thing you feel ready to celebrate.
Everything feels urgent
One of the difficulties of starting over is that the problems arrive together.
Where will we live?
How much money do I actually have?
What happens when the kids go back to school?
Do I need a lawyer?
Have I made everything worse?
You can spend an entire afternoon moving between those questions without doing anything about any of them. Then you get to the end of the day exhausted and tell yourself you should have accomplished more.
It’s not that you’ve been avoiding these issues, but trying to solve several enormous problems at once can be exhausting and often be ineffective.
You need a way to decide which one gets your attention first.