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“When people show you who they are, believe them, the first time.” ~ Maya Angelou
I was on the floor, sobbing, my daughter crying next to me. That was the moment the marriage ended, in my mind at least.
For over a decade, I’ve lived in tune with the rhythms of the Sacred Mayan calendar, the Cholq’ij, an ancient 260-day cycle kept alive today by Mayan daykeepers in Guatemala, where I’ve made my home since 2009. It is built around twenty day-signs, called nawales, each carrying its own energy, medicine, and teaching, cycling through in combination with the numbers one to 13. Thirteen days form what’s called a trecena, each with its own arc and focus.
I found this calendar here at Lake Atitlán, studying with Mayan spiritual guides who’ve kept this knowledge alive for untold generations despite centuries of colonization trying to erase it. I track my days by the sacred calendar, and over time it’s become a rhythm I live in a practical sense, a lens through which to pay attention to the texture of a day.
This past week, that attention paid off, even though it delivered a painful clarity. Seven days, seven nawales, and by the end of it I had written a sentence I hadn’t planned to write: I accept that my marriage is over.
Here’s how it unraveled.
The trecena of Tz’ikin arrived last week, and the eagle has landed. Tz’ikin is the nawal of vision and freedom, the one who soars high enough to see the whole landscape from a birds-eye view. Monday, September 14, 1 Tz’ikin is the day I mark as the ending, though our partnership had been slowly cracking apart for untold years. That day, animosity raged between us. We provoked each other to entirely new levels. Things got physical in our house, a place that feels less and less like home.
Not coincidentally, 1 Tz’ikin is my future or destiny sign in my personal Mayan cross. It’s the energy I am growing into in midlife. It began stirring in my early forties and will reach full expression at age 52. Tz’ikin teaches that vision matures with time and clarity comes from perspective. Tz’ikin sees beyond fear into bliss, lightness, and prosperity.
This is the energy of seeing my life as a whole: the winding path and its detours. It invites me to lift my gaze from the immediate drama and trust the long arc of becoming. To notice patterns instead of diagnosing problems. To choose gratitude as a form of vision. Today brought clearer sight because I was willing to look.
After our altercation, I cried from the shock more than anything else. I fled to my safe haven, a room at the hotel where I work, a 30-minute walk or swift tuk-tuk ride away.
By the next day, 2 Ajmaq, I was mentally separating from him. Ajmaq carries the energy of forgiveness, peace, and acceptance. There was still aggression and anger flying between us when we saw each other later that morning. I sat in the garden and sobbed. He apologized. ¿Me perdonas? Do you forgive me?
I said yes but didn’t mean it.
I went to my neighbor’s house for acupuncture that afternoon, needles in, letting my exhausted body process the grief and rage. Removing the needles, she saw bright redness along my left shoulder blade, heat rising to the surface where I’d been carrying more than I realized.
A truce was offered that evening, albeit from my daughter not my partner. A text message inviting me home for dinner. But I had already eaten. Nonetheless, I felt myself almost sliding back into the old habit of smoothing things over, slipping back into the ease of intimacy and the comfort of forgetting. I replied “Okay,” but then deleted it, and said no instead.
Whereas before I would have run back into his arms, now I said no and meant it.
Wednesday, 3 No’j brought clarity through meditation, reflection, and conversation with trusted old friends. No’j is the nawal of wisdom, ideas, and thoughts. Decision making. Problem solving. On this day, my mind finally saw clearly what my heart had been avoiding for so long. My inner critic was yelling about how long I’d let this cycle perpetuate, and how much I had enabled unhealthy and unsafe behaviors. I had to forgive myself for staying as long as I did.
4 Tijax is the obsidian blade, the double-edged sword, a day for cutting away what no longer serves. I moved through a full day of errands, yoga, work, emotional release, journaling. I had my third healing session with a massage and Reiki practitioner I’ve been working with, and it let loose geysers of tears. I’ve committed to four more sessions with her over the next few weeks.
That afternoon there was an icy silence between my partner when he came to pick me up in town, and I chose to walk home alone instead.
That night, I sent my partner a message, naming the pattern of 13 years without blaming him for it.
Got no reply.
None expected. None needed.
Tijax is the energy of truth telling, health, and healing. Tijax cuts both ways. It can wound or free; I used it to free, at least that day. I free myself from needing to defend my honor or rationalize any delusions about me.
On 5 Kawoq, the day of the midwife, turtle, and rainstorm, I sat with the concept of reconciliation but did not act on it. I realized I don’t want to reconcile. What a revelation! I want to end this cycle, exit as gracefully and peacefully as possible. (Though, as my friend Joe says, there ain’t no way to slaughter a chicken with grace.) In this metaphor, my marriage is the chicken. Kawoq’s medicine can be tough love. Despite the urge to flee yet again, I stayed in my home and chose to sleep upstairs in my daughter’s bed.
Saturday, 6 Ajpu brought the energy of the sun, the hunter, and the ancestral hero twin who outwit the lords of the underworld through cleverness and heart. I woke at dawn and did my pranayama practice on the balcony.
I wrote a sentence I didn’t expect to write: I accept that the marriage is over.
Then, 7 Imox. Imox is the nawal of water, dreams, visions, ancestral memory, names, and living by the codes of love and honor. It’s raining lightly, the third day in a row, a blessing in the middle of an unprecedented drought. I’ve cried several times today, as I have most days this week, which is fine and to be expected. I am processing mountains of grief. I am letting go of the dream, the illusion of a happy marriage.
Here is what I want to say, for accountability, because I need to hear myself say it more than anyone needs to read it: my marriage is ending. A shared home, daughter, cats, and dogs. A shared history that encompasses tenderness, love, and growth, as much as difficulty and harm.
Many things are true. He is a good dad. We are not a compatible couple. I can hold both truths simultaneously.
The truth arrives on time, once we are ready to see it.
I am done staying in a pattern that has kept repeating no matter how many times I told myself it wouldn’t, or tried to Pollyanna my way to “everything is fine, nothing to see here!”
I always stayed because leaving felt impossible. Until now. Until I was pushed too far. Accepting means I stop arguing with what is. I stop trying to fix what isn’t mine alone to fix. I let go of the past, the dream, the fantasy. Illusion. Delusion. Being swept away. I let go of repression. Depression. Denial. Avoidance.
I let go of resistance to what is. I let go of self-doubt and self-limitation. I let go of my identity and role as wife and partner. Now we are co-parents, nada más. I still love him. He has been my greatest teacher, my greatest love. But I let go of the need to stay together, to maintain our marriage, to not divorce.
I let go of the vows.
I let go of expectations.
Seven days, seven teachers. Vision, forgiveness, wisdom, storm, sun, water, all came together in a push that ended this relationship for me.
If you are living through your own ending right now, I hope you find whatever calendar, ritual, or revelation helps you tell the truth to yourself first. Everything else follows from there.
“If you have had someone who repeatedly hurts you, it is far better to release the relationship than to renew it.” ~ Archbishop Desmond Tutu
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