Packing Boxes, Packing Shame

After the crash of 2006, I knew something had to change.
The attempt, the therapy, the medications — they all made one thing clear: I could no longer stay in the marriage. By the fall, I had asked for a divorce. That single act should have felt like freedom, but instead it ushered in months of limbo.

From my late 2006 journal:

“I really am ready for a divorce. I cannot stand him any longer. I’m tired of feeling invisible. I need out.”

But divorce doesn’t happen overnight. There were logistics, children, school schedules, and a hundred reasons to wait. So I stayed through that long winter in Illinois, outwardly going through the motions while inwardly preparing to leave.

Those months were strange.
Half of me was already gone.
The other half was still folding laundry, still cooking meals, still pretending to be a wife.

From December 2006:

“I’ve decided I’m moving back home this summer. If he wants to come, fine. Otherwise — see ya.”

That decision became my lifeline. I circled June 2007 on the calendar — the month Emily would finish school, the month I could finally go. Every day felt like moving through molasses, waiting for time to pass, waiting for permission to start my life over.

By the time June came, the boxes were more than cardboard. They were evidence of both endings and beginnings. I packed clothes and dishes, but I also packed years of disappointment, loneliness, and grief.

From June 2007:

“I have thirteen more days then I’m finally moving back to Minnesota… he has agreed for me to permanently move the children back home.”

Packing is humbling.
Packing is tedious.
Packing is revealing.

Each box reminded me of what I was leaving behind — a life I had once believed in, now reduced to taped-up cartons. The shame clung to me like dust. Shame that I couldn’t make the marriage work. Shame that my kids were caught in the middle. Shame that I was moving “back home” instead of forward into something new.

But here’s what I see now: those boxes were not failure. They were survival.

Every dish wrapped, every toy folded away, every truckload carried was proof that I left. Proof that I chose life over suffocation. Proof that I carried my children out of a house that no longer held love.

It took me a long time to understand that the shame didn’t belong to me.
The boxes weren’t evidence of weakness. They were markers of strength — the kind that doesn’t look pretty or polished, but the kind that saves you.

If you’ve ever had to pack your life and your dignity at the same time…
If you’ve ever looked at a stack of boxes and seen failure staring back at you…
If you’ve ever wondered whether starting over was something to hide instead of something to honor…

You’re not alone.

With heart,
Rebecca