Like a Badge

The divorce was final on January 14, the same day my sweet old man cat died.  He was the cat I had insisted we adopt into our fold after we bought our house and some time had passed of him running to us after school like clockwork everyday.  I loved him so much.  It was cancer.  Cause, you know, fucking cancer...it was a heartbreaking loss for the kids and I.  

I didn't know my divorce was final until a few weeks later when the car insurance guy wanted to remove me from the policy.  So both my (ex)husband and the car insurance guy found out I was divorced before I did.  I will admit there was a tear inside (and a pissed off call to my lawyer), but I think there were only four tears.  And I haven't cried again since.

He doesn't know our cat died.  I know he's happy to be rid of me (I could absolutely see his family throwing a party, probably happened); but I think he would be quite sad to know our friend died.  I do still believe that he is mostly good.  He is too unfortunately a great big bullshitter and a coward, too, and that really gets in the way of all the other good qualities of a person.  So it seems.

He is a quitter, and a liar, and a deserter, and he hurt my kids while knowing better.  I feel these thoughts, and the love only lingers a little still.  Mostly I just feel myself growing stronger by the moment.

Surviving

3/4 of the school year, almost

With the most challenging students of my career;

A sick child and months of tests,

All the appointments;

Juggling and hoping so hard nothing falls;

Being divorced- I mean, someone else doing the divorcing, and you are the one who is left,

And especially the void of where he used to be in this house;

So many sad dreams, almost nearly gone now;

Celibacy;

Then Christmas;

The first snow storm, and the second, too;

Single parenthood,

Now Death.

Everyday I learn 

Since you left,

I tried to nurse our sick cat back to health and failed.  I had to teach my son about hurting so that a soul you love can be free.

I have bucked against heartbreak in these months since you left, 

in my damaged child

in the emptiness of our home 

in the broken pieces of a future

You promised.

I have dug my nails in and I am climbing to a place you will never see.  We weren't meant to have forever, and I can see that now.  You can't go where I am going.

One day soon, all that will remain is pity for you, if there is anything at all.

I wear each day like a badge now.  

The One Thing I Had

I signed the marriage dissolution agreement today.

Like the first time I signed divorce paperwork, I felt nothing.  

I've come a long way since dreaming of him every night and waking up in disbelief and heartache.  I've come nearly all the way in my mind, believing again that I am so much better off and most certainly better than him.  

I saw him on the 4th of this month.  I had made it 6 months without him, and I grow stronger by the day.  I always told him that I could not make it without him, in an effort to reassure him; but it was never true.  He knew it, too.  I was always too strong for him.  And the one before him.  I am unrelenting when it comes to my children.

Yes, it is the hardest time of my whole life just like he said It would be, and I am utterly abandoned but not alone.  I grow strong from the incredible women around me, my mother and my sister.  It was always us.  It will always be us.  And now my children, too.  When I think of that brief time in my life when I felt, completely, in love, I remember that the cost was at my children's expense.  I could never do it.  I never did.  I never will.

He asked it always; he threatened it, really.  What would I do without him?

I still play those conversations in my head: what awful things his family must say, the way he's spun his side of it.  Oh to be a fly on the wall after our mediation when I stormed in with my dark hair and my demands.  And I got everything I asked for, immediately.  My mother said it best, "who exactly does he think he is fucking with?"

Today is our anniversary.  We were married by a Justice of the Peace in our Chuck Taylors on the day the world was supposed to end (again).  It just worked out that I signed the marriage dissolution today.  And still, all these painful things before me, I just kind of felt nothing.

There was a printed email waiting for me after I signed the MDA with all the account information he had that I needed.  I walked to my car and looked it over...he refers to me in it as his soon to be ex-wife.  Yeah, I bet he can't wait.

The one thing I had was that I felt nothing.  But he feels glad. 

Hit and Run

I remember the exact moment he told me that he loved me for the first time.  I wasn't ready for it.  It made me uncomfortable.  I didn't want to use that word so soon.

But he kept saying all the right things over and over and convinced me that all he wanted for his life was to take care of us, rescue us.  We were doing fine, but I let it happen.  I let him in.

Because of love.

And from my lips came years of I love yous, adoration, and praise to anyone who would listen.  He was our hero, and how he shined in our eyes.

Then one day he just left.  His promises were not easy to keep, I suppose.  Marriage is hard work, but I did nothing wrong.  I was a good wife and loved him so much with all my heart and was faithful and true.  I tried so hard.  I worshipped him even and never lied.  I never cheated or betrayed him in any way.  I let him in, and I was all in.

Because of love.

My lawyer informed me today that he filed divorce papers on July 9.  He truly doesn't want me.  No second thoughts, no regrets for breaking all the promises he ever made.  He doesn't love me. 

It was just a word.

And he was only a hit and run.