It is Finished...

...and besides the excruciating pain that shot through my heart when my ex-husband erroneously stated our date of marriage, and also my middle son's birthday - it was just fine! Fifteen minutes. In and out. Here you are married, and now you aren't! Slick, ah?

The director of my department went with me. She ordered me to find someone to go with me (Yes! Like homework!) and then when I could not round anyone up, she canceled a four hour department seminar so that she herself could go sit in an empty courtroom with Jerry and I and his lawyer and the judge for 15 minutes. And she cried.
And cried.
And sniffled.
It was very sweet.

Sweet but scary because...

When will I cry?

Will I?

Am I dead inside now? Or is there nothing to cry about?

Not that I want to cry. I just want to have assurance that my current emotions are genuine.

My current emotions are... happyrelievedfreeexhiliratedsadlonelyangryecstaticcurious.

...Yeah. :)

Better Left Behind Closed Doors

I am a mess. A freakin' mess.

Friday I will sign papers that end the last 22 years of my life.

I will be a single mother of three children. One of them a teenager.

I have had to start worrying about utilities and credit card bills instead of road trips and drink money. The kind of worry that makes you vomit when you think about amounts due and due dates. Makes me feel like I have wasted the past two decades only to start again at less than ground zero.

WTF?!

Want to know what is the worst part of all of this? Watching my youngest child disintegrate into a rageful puddle of violence and irrational behavior. Right now he is sobbing in his bed because he lost at UNO and I wouldn't let him trounce his older brother into oblivion for winning. He is so angry and thinks the world is against him...I don't want this for my baby.

I didn't want this for any of my children. I want them to be able to to experience normal emotional growth, and deal with normal childhood worries. Not this all pervasive fear and anger.

This is why I don't believe in divorce.

I don't think I believe in marriage now, either.

Sorry, Mom. I will be drinking myself to sleep tonight.

...how proud you must be.

Last Call - and other Bothersome Phrases

(the last enjoyable day of terri and Jerry - and of Nela and Howie too, come to think of it. Hmmm.)

So, the union between T & J has almost wound down to it's final death throes. Please read no disrespect when I say that I always thought this process would kill me, and yet I have found that my experience has been one of the opposite - it has brought me back to life. I hope it has done the same for him. He deserves good things, too.

I have found that almost every one of my core relationships has changed based on my marital status, though. And that really bothers me. It originated with my MOM of all people when I was out in NH this summer. (I know that I haven't written about that particular experience- but someday I will. It is still too hurtful right now to put into actual words...I can't even talk to HER about it. Actually, I can't even talk to HER. I want to. But I can't. I will though.) My dad was next...but he is getting better. Even my old neighbors have no idea what to say to me, and I end up comforting THEM and telling them that everything will be okay! Friends that we have had all along are just so awkward in expressing their emotions...some won't even attempt to speak to either one of us.

I hope I will never do that to a friend. Especially during a process as extremely important as divorce.

On a different and much more interesting note: I am dating. I know I will be tsked and should not even broach this subject for another 11 days. But I can't help it. I am so intrigued by why anyone would ever NOT just date for the rest of their lives! (Security and finances aside, of course.) The one discussion that I am dreading and never thought I would have with anyone? Birth control. Oh my holy hell...how do we expect teenagers to arrange for such things when I, a 37 year old worldly woman, am breaking out in hives just THINKING about having a talk regarding methods, beliefs, STD's, etc...?? Criminy.

And yet - it must be done. When the time is right, of course. In 11 days. Or so.
:)t