Two Years

Dojo Diaries #35

Two years.

24 months, 730 days, 17,520 hours, 1,051,200 minutes.

In this space of time, I did two things I never thought possible — one incredibly good and one incredibly horrible.

The incredibly horrible event was a divorce.

This isn’t something I talk about often.

It isn’t something I’m proud of.

But it happened.

The only thing I can compare it to is the Dark Island in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader where dreams come true.

But not the good kind.

Your worst nightmares - those are the ones that come true at Dark Island.

And much like Lord Rhoop, I was forsaken on Dark Island for a long time… for two years with nightmares coming true in waves like aftershocks of an earthquake.

Unlike Lord Rhoop, this was not a dream. I could not leave the island to escape. No matter how hard or long of a road through a terrifying valley it was, I had to walk through it.

I went into the divorce broken, shattered, and unsure.

However, the proceedings broke me in new ways while having to hold it together for three young girls who didn’t deserve one ounce of this.

I found myself surrounded with broken dreams, a broken marriage, and a broken life.

For a long time, my solution was to try to scrape the brokenness together and mend it somehow. But like broken glass, I ended up being more hurt in my frantic struggles to fix everything.

Many counselors told me to hang on, and I did for many years, but as I was on my bleeding knees holding pieces of a broken life in my hands while the pain continued, I did something I never thought I would or could.

I let go.

I gave the mess to Jesus.

That’s when His light touched the broken glass and turned the broken into beautiful colors.

Then I stood up, brushed myself up, and began the long healing process.

Part of that healing process is the incredibly good thing I did - I signed myself and my three girls up for karate.

At the time, I didn’t see how it related.

But when a friend of a friend started teaching karate in our town, which had no martial arts before this, I knew it was time to step up to my lifelong dream of learning.

The ironic part of this that I didn’t see at the time was that it was almost the same day which I filed for divorce.

I had seen the first Karate Kid in a movie theater and was thoroughly fascinated. We lived in small, rural Montana and South Dakota where there were lots of cowboys but no ninjas.

In my senior year of college, I met some people who taught a little. That took me from a causal desire to a small fire. Thankfully, that spark stayed lit until the time was right for me to cross paths with my sensei.

You know the hardest part of it was?

Walking into the first class.

I had lived through severe criticism, I had experienced rejection, and so many other things that it was absolutely terrifying to put myself in a vulnerable spot.

My first class was with the 11+ age group. I was the oldest.

By far.

What if I couldn’t do it?

I didn’t want to be seen. I didn’t want to fail.

But I loved every second of it.

That love drove me forward.

So I disciplined myself to practice. I watched the senior belts. I tried to apply everything our sensei said to do.

Slowly new skills began to sink in. I grew in confidence, and the belts began to turn different colors.

But something better happened.

The people in the dojo became friends and now family.

In Goju-Shorei karate, there is something said often -

People that teach and train together become family.

This group of people have seen me when I was a very beginner. They have seen me without any skill - only rare grit and determination to do this.

They have encouraged me every step of the way, challenging me, pushing me, and celebrating every win.

They have been helping me become the best I can be.

As I try to help them become their best.

And slowly they have become my family.

What Lord Rhoop didn’t know was that a ship was sailing straight for him.

On that ship was a crowd of people willing to fight for him before they even knew who he was. A ship filled with people who were already his friends and family.

But he had no idea until the rescue.

Neither did I.

And I never expected my “ship” to be filled with gis, punching pads, mats, and so many amazing people all over the nation.

This month has marked two years in my martial arts journey.

It has been an incredible two years of growing in my confidence, of seeing a skill set I thought I would never have to chance to develop, of meeting incredible people from all over this nation.

I have laughed. I have cried. I have conquered challenges. And I have grown.

I don’t know how I can have two hugely different experiences in the same two years.

But I think of it like a tapestry.

On one side, it’s a mess. Threads knotted, twisted together, ends poking out.

There’s no pattern, no rhyme, no redeeming quality.

It is ugly.

But on the other side of the tapestry, we find a beautiful picture that has been carefully woven.

All the time I thought I was losing everything that I loved, that I lost the love of my life, that I thought I was alone, God was slowly building me a huge group of people who love me deeply and encourage me to better things.

Sometimes it all depends on what you choose to look at.

Choose wisely,

Vicki Virginia