Changes

I’ve been back in Seattle now for almost three months and finally feel like I’m at a place where I’m ready to share something important about my life with the people who read this blog. It’s a public place, but still affords me my privacy and an ability to control the content of what is shared.

Fragments started over three years ago, on the cuff of an international move to Chile. I shared my daily life, many of my intimate thoughts, and some of my writing journey. I’ve been careful not to over share, or create the sort of environment where my life becomes food for crowds to chew over with passionate zeal. Perhaps, in some ways I’ve been too careful. I’m not sure. But, after consideration and the advice of a few close friends, I’ve concluded it’s time to tell you what’s going on in a more specific way.

So here is what is going on… 

When I made the decision to leave Chile several months ago, it was multi-faceted and had various shades of shadows accompanying it. It was not a decision to simply leave a country or a piece of land I’d grown to love, or to abandon a dream that had consumed my heart for much of my adult life, but I made the difficult and painful decision that I needed to return to Seattle alone.

There is no easy way to talk about these matters. There is no simple way to tell a story that is shared between two people and intertwined into one, while still holding separate individual sides. Marriage, no matter how beautiful or how painfully broken, is always sacred, because it deals with two lives that somehow, mysteriously become one.

I do not think it wise to share all the nitty-gritty details of why and how and what happened to bring me to this conclusion. These are private matters that belong to me, and also to Rodrigo, whom I want to honor. And because of how deeply I care for him and what we have lived through, I’d like to remain silent for now.

There are, of course, many people who know large portions of what has transpired, and there are friends and family who are giving me invaluable support and unwavering love, but  I’ve decided not to splay my private life all over the internet for everyone to pick apart and make judgements about or evaluations thereof … I will say that I’ve made my decisions under great travail and have spent long amounts of time with friends and family from both cultures and in the presence of God, in silence and in all severity, trying to make the best choices I can for me and my children under the specific circumstances I find myself in.

The last thing I want to do is over-spiritualize an incredibly human situation — but I do want to share that I have sensed God’s nearness to me in a different way these past few months than I have in a long time. Some of that is probably the nostalgia of being home and among people who have a long history with me, but I think there is also something in God being near to the brokenhearted and the hurting, and somehow proving himself faithful even in all of this mess. He is the God who is near … even when we fail and are no long able to hold to our promises or stay in a painful relationship with the people we vowed to love. He’s God even in that.

I’m thankful God loves me with an unfailing love, that he calls me by name, and invites me to a closeness with himself, just as I am.

My life has been in the public eye for most of my adult life … I only ask that you show discretion and care in how you proceed with this knowledge. Rodrigo’s life is his own, and he gets to choose with whom and how he wants to share it, despite the public nature of our circumstances. My children are dealing with profound change right now and we’d like to provide them with as much stability and love as possible, which means that if you see us in a store or at the mall or at a church, we’d prefer not to answer questions in front of them.

Thank you for being the sort of people who have stayed with me through many changes … I realize some of my readers will probably decide this is more than they wanted to know … I understand. For those of you who remain, thank you for your love and your friendship. I covet your prayers.

Much Love,

Tina