Rachel Hollis - Didnt See That Coming

THREE DAYS INTO EDITING THIS BOOK, MY MARRIAGE ENDED.

A sixteen-year marriage to the father of my four children. An eighteen-year relationship with my best friend. The foundation of my life, everything that once was, crumbled between one breath and another.

This book isnt intended as a confessional, as a recounting of the how and the why this seismic shift in our lives had to happen. I honestly dont know that Im capable of unpacking that and still staying uprightId like to believe that someday I might be strong enough to examine exactly where the fissures took hold, where every small disconnect eroded and made inroads over many years until they cracked us in half, but today is not that day. Like so many couples, we patched over the cracks with kids, with work, with the parts of us that did work. We looked great from the outside because our friendship has always been a tangible thing, even to strangersbut friendship and a romantic relationship are two very different things. Eventually, we became two very different things and that disparity meant that something had to give.

Which is where I find myself today: something had to give.

And it did.

I set out to write this book because I have survived crisis and grief many times and I believed I might have something to share that could help others walk through it. I wrote the first draft as a sort of Sherpa, believing I could help guide you over the mountain of grief. Now I find myself back inside grief and editing from an entirely different perspective than the one from which I wrote. Im no longer a Sherpa, leading from the frontnow Im also trudging through it with you, which means this book has the unique duality of a creation both outside and inside of pain. As someone who lives by a plan, who has imagined in detail the next two decades of my life and how they might play out, I can honestly tell you, I never planned for this. Honestly? The fact that I didnt see this or plan for it makes me feel like an idiot. I will add a bit more honesty to this introduction and tell you something in confidence. I considered pushing this book away or scrapping the idea altogether. I didnt think I was readyI wasnt sure Id ever be ready. I questioned whether I could teach and learn at the same timebecause this lesson, this work, feels like the hardest Ive ever done.

Even though the words were written, even though I believed they could be helpful to someoneI knew it was impossible to keep this book in its original form without acknowledging the fresh destruction I find myself in. And the idea of writing about something so new goes against everything I have believed about my work. Theres an old expression that says we should teach or write or share only from our scars, never from our wounds, and I have lived by it. Meaning, I have been intentional about never processing the hard parts of life with you but instead have only ever shared what has been effective for me after Ive done the work.

But here we are.

Everything feels fragile and scrubbed raw. Everything feels unreal and uncertain. Everything feels absent of all that matters and simultaneously too big to carry.

And so, I sat with it, and prayed and journaled and obsessed and prayed some more. I didnt have the words for anything eloquent and so my prayer became a plea, became the same two words over and over. Help me.

These were the only two words I could think.

I was asking for Gods help as I moved forward day by day. As I made decisions. As I answered the questions my children asked. As I faced the changes in my work. As I sat with my husband and we talked about the future. As I contemplated how to finish this book. And so much more.

Help me. Help me? Help me!

I prayed unceasingly and always aloud, falling back on a childhood superstition that if I didnt speak the words out into the ether God might not hear. Those two words became a litany, became lines in a journal, became the last thing I said before falling asleep at night and my first thought upon waking. And somewhere through the darkness of all that was, if not an easing of the pain, at least a seed of clarity.

My work has always been honest. Whether approved of or ridiculed, my books have always been a big offering of my truth in the season they were written. To remove that truth from my work now would be too great a loss in the midst of so many others.

So here we are, you and I, standing in the midst of pain. Some of us are trying to make sense of the scars of our past. Some of us are holding gaping wounds together with hands that tremble and shake. But were still here. Together.

I believe we are strong enough to do the work of healing, even if at times the effort makes us feel weaker than before we began. Dont fear your own weakness, fear drowning in despair for the rest of your time on earth because you were too afraid to confront your pain. In the following pages I will try my best to do just that. I will examine the pain and break it apart and laugh at it when possible and cry over it when necessary, but I will notnot ever again in my lifecover up my pain to make other people more comfortable.

And neither should you.

This book is my work as much as it is yours. Lets do it together.