Divorce: Its What You Make of It

Well, today is the day; its over, no going back. I feel so isolated in my secret ending, but what good would it do to call him now? He is out having moved on, and truthfully I am moving on as well, but for twelve years of my life, I was his and he was mine. In a sense, I suppose part of us will always be together, but I'll never see him again; at least not the same way I saw him then. I walked outside, looked over his way, and through my teary eyes, I stared. I felt a sense of loss that I cannot explain even though I lost it a long time ago. He was my first true love; the first man I ever lived with, shared a bed with, shared the bills with, had a child with. He was my best friend. Is it ridiculous now to thank him for all we shared? Can I thank him now for all I learned from him? From Us?

These memories, they are like a flurry in my mind. My wedding day, so beautiful, even through the stress of my to-be mother-in-law, the botched rice pilaf at the reception with raisins in it, our first fight as a married couple on the second day of marriage, the pine cone he brought me after taking a walk to let each other cool off, our first apartment with no electricity because we simply could not afford it, long talks at night well after the lights went out, sharing the only car we had and learning to work our schedules around one another, the birth of our son who weighed in at 8lbs 7 oz after 18.5 hours of labor and his first birthday when we were so proud that we made him a sugar free carrot cake.

And the dreaded day he told me that we just are not working anymore. "You don't even know who I am", I shout..."No, you're right, I don't", he replied.

A few months later, after many tears and long talks with friends, I drove away in a moving van. My son sat in the passenger seat of my U-Haul and in tow were all of our things...everything except my life. I was driving away from the only life my son and I had ever really known and I was devastated. The tears just kept coming and if not for my little boy, I would have deliberately driven off a cliff. I not know't know who I was anymore, and sure that I could never love again, I wrote my life off as a loss and decided that from that point on, I was going to exist for my son and only for my son.

In the first months after the separation, I half expected that one of two things would happen. Either a) he would come back and say he'd gone temporarily mad and simply could not stand to be without his family for another moment, please come home, or b) Id wake from this nightmare to a beautiful sunny morning, my beautiful husband gently shaking my shoulder, saying to me, "its OK, its just a dream, wake up, I'm here". Neither one of those situations ever came to pass, and as the months drew on, my small boy asked less and less when his daddy would be "coming home".

Well, today is the day, my divorce is final and I can look on, with grace and not the pity and grief I felt for so long. Its behind me now and my son and I are strong and happy. Our bond is closer now than it ever would have been in a less than loving household, and the friendship with my (now) ex-husband is something I consider a blessing. We raise our budding man together as a team and look out for each other's best interest. If I'm hurt, I know I could call him and he would come to hold my hand and vice-verse. When the chips are down, when there is a child who needs us, when we have a story to share or an event to attend, we are one. But today, Part One has officially ended.