I met B on Sunday morning at Starbucks. I was all business and he was desperately trying to have a prolonged conversation. He asked me about every member of my family, which is amusing, given how little interest he took in them while we were married. It was kind of sad, I guess, but I was ready. He again (!) asked to come to the condo, saying he "missed" it, but I told him it wasn't going to happen:
B: I don't understand why it is such a big deal for me to come to the condo.
Me: That's okay. It isn't important to me whether you understand. But it isn't going to happen.
B: *stunned silence*
B read through the proposed final court orders and said he would just sign them on Monday (today) at our court hearing. He didn't need to come to the hearing and I certainly didn't expect him at it, so I was insistent that he sign them right there. He kind of joked and smiled and said he would do it the next day, but I was not going to take the chance of him not showing up. I told him that there was no reason whatsoever for him not to sign right then and actually put the pen in his hand. He said he would come to the hearing because it was the right thing to do. I knew as he was saying it that while he believed that to be true, he wasn't going to do the right thing.
We both signed all of the papers and I got up to leave. B's eyes were pretty misty and he said "K, it isn't like we're never going to talk again. There is no reason we can't be friends." I sat back down, grabbed both of his hands, and told him that I needed to break up with him. That I needed a line in the sand between then and now, and that line can only be created with time and distance. I told him that I still and would always love him, the way you can only love someone you have known intimately for fifteen years, but in order to keep loving him that way, I needed to really break up our relationship - all of it. I told him I wanted to keep loving him because we meant something. We did. We always will.
The only way I can keep loving him is if I stay at a distance and really move on with my life, sans B. I know this in my bones.
Today, I woke up, putzed around the house and the internets, then got divorced at 10:05am. As I expected, B didn't show up at the hearing. I put my hand up, and swore under oath that our marriage was irretrievably broken, and I meant every word. When the judge said "this marriage is dissolved," I felt equal parts relief and sadness. It is so disconcerting to feel two extremes at once.
As I walked out of the courthouse, I texted J and emailed P, both of whom extended their fondest congratulations. I suddenly felt lighter (say, oh, 250 pounds lighter) and heard this song in my head. I should be embarrassed to admit it, but am not. It was the song that played in the final minutes of the series finale of Sex and the City. I felt....hopeful.
(Ignore the video clips, it was just the song that played loudly in my head. But if you want a true sense of what I felt when I walked out of the courthouse, hit play and start again from the beginning of this post. My life has a soundtrack.)
I am so very grateful for family and fanfuckingtastic friends who walked beside me during this whole process, including the people who read this. I promise that, in 2008, I will be better to all of you. I extend the most heartfelt 'thank you' to all of them and you.
1 comment:
Have a wonderful year.
For absolutely no reason I woke up with the conviction that this would be the case for me, and I would hope to pass this on.
I bet you're off to a great start with your family today. :D
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