Divorce Anniversary
Today is my one year divorce anniversary. This time last year, I opened my email to the subject ‘Final Orders’ and ‘The Commissioner has reviewed and signed your orders for divorce.’ in the body of the email. A tidy pdf attachment rounded out the technical and unceremonious dissolution of our marriage.
Depending on one’s circumstances, this day might be cause for celebration, or sorrow. I find myself somewhere in between. A space that encompasses all emotions with a skin so thin I might flinch at the softest touch.
As I sat down on my backyard porch steps this morning, watching the hopeful rays of morning sun dance across the view before me, I wrote out a few words about what this day meant to me…you know, a poem. Like one does.
So here are those words and some links to my musings on this divorce journey thus far. This journey has been one of the more humanizing experiences of my life. It will continue to be that, and I am all the more enriched for it.
‘May 14’
It starts and ends with a stack of paper.
Jubilant and hopeful at the start.
Confident signatures composed with care.
At the end, exhaustion after battle,
With little fanfare save an emailed receipt.
We did this.
We made these choices at each turn.
We unraveled while unraveling ourselves.
I expected finality.
A rubber stamp to signify a before and after.
Instead, there is simply and beautifully a continuation.
This anniversary is another marker.
Not a bold proclamation of love between two people,
But a milestone that says, quietly, we choose the four of us.
I chose you once and I would choose you again.
The fear and the hope, all of it.
Our ability to break and repair, for us, for them.
Those stacks of paper, have become bound in our book.
My posts on divorce, love + kids
Life After Divorce - How It’s Going One Year Later
Telling my Kids About Divorce and How we Survived the First Year
I’m Just a Part-Time Mom (and other shitty lies I tell myself post divorce)
Sending love to anyone who is thinking about this journey or on this journey.