Women like their wine, divorcing women LOVE their wine.

Or what I jokingly refer to as the Wescape.

A pretty little place you get to run away to for a few hours to forget your worries.

One day in the beginning of my divorce I found myself in the wine aisle of the grocery store. Like a heat seeking missile, my eyes darted from wine to wine. Then as I locked in on a bottle of St. Francis cabernet, my beleaguered brain had an epiphany.

If I am going to drink, perhaps I should be drinking with the saints. 

I mean, I need all the help I can get navigating this disaster. It was the perfect Catholic girl rationalization.

So I began to ‘Wescape‘ with St. Francis and St. Michelle and on occasion other saints I could find. 

I figured a variety couldn’t hurt, right? The more saints the better.

It seemed either that or a stroke from all of the stress. Oh, and don’t worry this guilt-ridden Catholic school girl didn’t over do it. The worrier in me wouldn’t allow it but that first year I definitely spent more time with the saints than I ever had in the past.

And pretty soon instead of ‘Wescaping’ with the saints, I was carrying them around with me.

Or what I now refer to as thirty pounds of ‘Ralph’ (name changed to protect the not so innocent soon to be ex) and feeling physically not just emotionally ‘weighed down’ (love a good pun) by divorce.

Sure, I tried to lose the weight but it was hard to do during the prolonged divorce adventure. 

It’s no secret that our emotions are what generally cause weight gain, yet we tend to ignore what emotionally ails us in favor of losing those lbs. I am no different. I blamed the divorce. I believed I was addressing the emotions and just not in the space to correct them. I would lose the weight once the divorce was finalized.

Then something happened which made me realize the true emotion which was causing the weight gain.

It wasn’t the stress (at least not in my case) it was the feeling of being controlled. That I couldn’t get away even in divorce. It’s amazing it took me so long to pinpoint exactly the origin of the emotion which was keeping me from having the energy to get back to my happy size.

Just like that, I felt the desire to reclaim my physical self. 

The relief is remarkable. I no longer feel weighed (there I go again) down.

I have burdened the saints long enough.

However the other day I did spy a bottle of wine called Angeline and I grabbed it.

So as I am losing those lbs.  every now and then I will be thanking the angels for getting me through this divorce.

(Photo courtesy of Pexels)

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