11 GETAWAY CAR

It’s a quarter after two, and my partner in crime is on her way to pick me up. She is driving me downtown to the courthouse for a free legal consultation. She is driving instead of me because “I don’t knowwwwww where it issssss.” (Whining.) It’s not like it’s 2013 and I can’t look up the address myself on Google Maps or anything. I really just needed a partner to shove me out of the car. I have never even gotten a speeding ticket, much less stepped one foot into a courthouse building. Metal detector? What? I gotta empty out my purse? Nope. I can’t do this.

I’m sorry, Mr. Officer in gray polyester who has a stone face. I need to get out of this line and go back to my car, back to my apartment, and back to my marriage. Could you just excuse me and let me scoop up my wallet, lipstick, and tampons off this conveyor belt and act like this never happened? Thank you, good day, sir.

She grabbed my elbow and said, “Yes, you can. Look at all of these people. They are fighting battles much bigger than yours. If they can figure it out, so can you. Good Lord, Heather, people get divorced every single day. Keep walking.” I had spent years ready to walk and start a new life, but until that day, I didn’t know how heavy my shoes were.

The truth is, with each of those steps into that courthouse, I grew more and more courageous. Kinda like someone who is training for a marathon—I just had to take one step at a time until I reached my destination. I don’t usually run unless I’m being chased. And even then, I might trip and play dead just to get out of running. But this race I couldn’t avoid. I had played dead long enough.

We got back in her car with a stack of papers and some homework. I had multicolored sticky notes, multicolored highlighters, file folders, every office supply a girl might need to become Judge Judy. I became a mad researcher… 20 Smart Tips to Get through Your Divorce Hearing with Ease, How to Get a Divorce When You Are Broke… Clicking on everything, every helpful hint, reading every word on every website about the procedures of divorce in the state of Colorado. I was ready for my legal career. I took a long, deep breath right there outside of that courthouse on Tejon Street. That deep breath was the beginning of the rest of my life. Then she drove me to Sonic for celebratory cherry limeades, because that is what real friends do! (Note: this was before I knew I liked wine. If I had known, that last sentence would have ended differently. Perhaps the whole day would have ended differently.)

It’s like rolling someone’s yard when you’re in high school. You gotta delegate the responsible one who will keep a lookout for the cops—this is also the one who never leaves the car. Watching the surroundings, gripping the steering wheel at ten and two while the necessary work is being done outside of the vehicle, ready to call out and hit the gas pedal at the first sign of danger. The Transportation and the Security.

Months later, that same friend and the same getaway car drove me two hours north to the final day in court with my husband. She shopped while I divorced. She shopped for a replacement ring for my left hand. The divorce was a business transaction at this point. All the words had been said, all the tears had been cried, and all the shattered dreams were on their way to the emergency room for stitching up. All that was left to figure out was the money. Seriously. That’s what it came down to. Who pays the money, and who gets the goldfish? We had two kids to support, and I had $78.12 to my name. One hour, in and out. Signed on the dotted line. I got back into my getaway car, and it was over. Then we had a burger and fries. Possibly a milkshake.

I make it sound easy, don’t I? Well, I was still in no shape to drive. I was just sitting there staring out the windshield. The kind of stare you see in a country music video. While she drove, I just kept saying, “I am divorced? I am divorced. Divorced. The big D. Just like that, divorced. Now I have to check a new box on my taxes.”

When you are babbling on and on in a state of PTSD, you need a driver. Who is going to deliver you safely from point A to point B when you can’t even make a complete sentence? Who is going to keep you from driving straight to Free People for retail therapy? Who is going to console you or strangle some sense into you with that seat belt? You’re gonna need both. Who is going to let you sit in silence or let you talk? You’d better know the answers to these questions before you choose the driver. That is the kind of friend you need. The Thelma to your Louise.

All the hard work had gone down months before. Fear jumbled up my brain, and my heart was like a tangled ball of yarn with no beginning and no end in sight. Just a big ball of mess. What am I going to do? I am a stay-at-home mom with no income. No one will hire me. I can’t raise two kids without a job. I have no skills. I am a singer-songwriter, and we all know that inconsistency doesn’t pay the bills. Where will we live? Oh, my God, where will we live? Not only am I taking down my life, I am taking down two children with me. Up to this point, I thought pushing out two beautiful eight-pound babies was the hardest thing I had done and would ever do. I was wrong.

I have to stay in this marriage. I am stuck. I am shackled, because I can’t live out there on my own. Carrying the weight of this toxic marriage has to be easier than carrying out the fate of my family as a single mom.

By the time I had gotten to the courthouse, I was done emotionally. Totally and completely done. Emptied out. I didn’t want to fight with him anymore. I didn’t want to struggle in my marriage anymore. The thing that nudged me through was envisioning a better home for my children. I would daydream about the other side of all this drama. A home where parents didn’t fight all the time. A home where we had peace. A home where I was putting food on the table and clothes on their backs. A home where we were all thriving. Even their dad. The positive thoughts of surviving pushed me. Excited me. Those thoughts plus the encouraging words from friends gave me the energy I needed to keep pushing for what I wanted. Out.

Name a doubt. I had it. Name a fear. I owned it. I thought of every possible terrible scenario that should make me stay. I felt incapable, unqualified, and underrepresented. When I didn’t have a drop of strength left in me, I would sit behind my keyboard and just pour it all out. It got ugly. It got snotty. I found myself writing about all of my disappointment in how life and marriage had turned out. Those piano keys have caught many tears, and they have helped me express many feelings that I otherwise couldn’t speak.

Recently, after my show in Augusta, Georgia, I received an email from an audience member who said she just came to the show to laugh, but what I shared about my divorce had the most impact on her. That night, I sang “This Ole Radio”—a song I wrote about the long drive out of Colorado back to Tennessee. I was forty and moving back in with my parents in my hometown with my kids for some emotional rehabilitation and to get back on my feet. She said in her email, “I am preparing myself to leave my marriage of fifteen years.” It was all too familiar. I knew exactly where she was. And now my story was her metaphorical getaway car. I was someone who had been there, done that, in every sense of those words. I had walked the hard steps. I had started over with hardly two nickels to rub together. She needed to hear what my “now” looked and felt like. She needed to hear what is possible on the other side of the pain and struggle. She had the strength; she just might not feel it right then. She needed a little hope when she thought all she wanted was my humor. She needed to know how to push the gas pedal.

But this isn’t really about divorce; this is about the moment that I realized I CAN DO HARD THINGS! We can do hard things. You can do hard things. You have the strength within you to do the one thing you think you cannot do. One step at a time and one job interview at a time. You have it in you. And when you don’t have it, your friends stand in the gap, wait in the getaway car, and remind you of your truths. They remind you of the alternative. They remind you of why you started fighting for it in the first place. I couldn’t wait on the resources or the “right time,” because I would have been waiting forever. The only resource I needed was desire. The desire wiped the tears from my eyes so that I could see to take the next step. I didn’t know where I was stepping, but the desire for a new life was just poking me until I moved. Forward.

I had to repeat these words to myself often: “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”

And if Ralph Waldo Emerson said that his obstacles were TINY MATTERS in the 1800s, when indoor plumbing and electricity had yet to hit the market, then I am pretty sure you can overcome your obstacles, too! That means that the power within your heart, soul, and guts far exceeds, outweighs, and overshadows any circumstances of yesterday or tomorrow. Do you believe that? Can you believe that for just one second? Just long enough to stare courage square in the eyeballs? Can you believe it long enough to step one foot into the courthouse or rehab facility or doctor’s office? Can you believe it long enough to go start a better life?

Now that I am seven years removed from this story, I have the hindsight to understand that leaving was only 5 percent of the hard that staying was. Once the fear released its grip on me, I could see the freedom I was able to attain. I did it. And I fought the guilt and shame the whole stinkin’ way.

I don’t know what your tipping point is. We all have different struggles. And maybe your hard includes reconciliation and staying for something beautiful. All I know is that you are far more resilient than you think. You are going to survive to tell about it. And I hope you will tell about it. Other women (and men) need to hear about that one time you didn’t think you could hold your head up. They need to hear about those bills that you couldn’t pay and the checks that bounced. They need to hear about the prayers you whispered over your children while they slept and you wept at their bedside. And if you experience a speed bump in this journey, get up and remind yourself of the strength within you. Define the boundaries again and again if you have to. Define what it is that you will not tolerate any longer. Decide what the “other side” is going to look like for you, and determine the steps to get there. You may have tried plan A and plan B, but there are twenty-four more letters in this alphabet to try.

I am living proof that God’s protection and provision are a solid foundation on which to cast your cares. I am proof that anything of value is worth the work. Sure, you’ll be tired and grow weary. Sure, you will have to take steps forward without knowing exactly where to place your foot. Bet on it. People will come along on your journey and bless you. People will come along on your journey and make a place for you. People will speak truth. Some people won’t, and some people will judge you, but that’s OK. You take the high road. You take the road that leads to your freedom. And you’ll take the people with you who have encouraged you along the way.

One day, you’ll have enough of your own strength to drive your own getaway car. You’ll have the strength to pick up your heavy shoes, push your own gas pedal, and squeal your tires with a hope for new beginnings. And the day you do, those friends who once drove the getaway car will be standing in the rearview mirror waving at you as you drive yourself into your new horizon.