A person I greatly admire made the suggestion weeks ago that I journal my experiences. I am currently in the process of getting a divorce. So, the thought was that perhaps I can use my writing skills to share what this process is like. It could help someone else, I was told.
It could help me.
I thought about it. Liked the idea of helping other people. Of helping myself by helping other people. Of writing. At the time when the suggestion was made, I wasn’t really capable of putting feelings into words, regardless of the fact that I’m a writer and that’s what I do. I’m not sure if I’m able to do that now. But I think it’s time to try.
Forget About the Why
I moved out of the home that my husband and I shared in early August, after twelve years of marriage and sixteen years of working with him at the newspaper he hired me to write for. I have known him most of my adult life.
I took very little or I took a lot, depending which of us you ask. It’s odd that the third most-asked question I get from people in my small town, when they learn of this separation, is what did you get? My answer? I’m not sure yet. I will get back to you on it.
The first most-asked question by people when they learn that I’m in the process of getting a divorce is: Why? And to that, the reasons are many and it probably isn’t useful to talk too directly about them, as the other half of said marriage and divorce is not here to offer his side. I will say what I have said before in response, though: I needed to exist. And in order to do that, I have to breathe.
As little as one year ago, I was unable to drive a car in traffic. Or, perhaps more accurately, I was unable to attempt to drive in traffic because I was convinced that I would cause a wreck. As little as six months ago, I had never applied for a credit card. I was never solely, or even actively, responsible for paying monthly bills. Even to this day, I have very little experience with the notion of “girls’ night out” or “evening with friends.” I was busy raising my kids. I was afraid of crowds. I was busy writing (about things I could only imagine). I wasn’t a friendly person. I was busy editing. I was too busy for friends. All these reasons were valid reasons if only because I believed them. I was told this and this is what I told myself because it was easier than admitting how, for years, I have felt alone.
I taught myself to drive in traffic. I remember teaching myself that. I remember telling myself to look at the cars and the lights as beautiful things. As poems. The world is full of them, I would say to me, and its good to know them.
I think I sort of fell in love with the idea of forward motion. I wanted my own credit. I wanted my own space. If my head is a house, then I guess you could say that I wanted just one room in that house where I could believe that anything was possible.
Or, as I said before… I needed to exist. In order to do that, I have to breathe. There’s a lot more to it than that, of course. But that is a part of any reason I could possibly give.
Can You Tell Me How to Do This?
It wasn’t very long after I moved into this little rented house of mine that the nervous energy kicked in. It was an annoying thing in the midst of days of things that ranged from equally annoying to downright terrifying. Equally annoying: That first week or so when services were slow to arrive. When the trash company hadn’t brought a dumpster, the phone company hadn’t installed my home phone or internet service. I was living out of boxes in a house that was unfamiliar to me (and had a mouse in it).
The terrifying: The mouse. The sounds and signs it left. The trapping and removal of it. The arrival precisely one month post-separation of a mailbox full of bills in my name that were all due at the same time. That I was, and am, terrified of failing. That I was, and am, trying to guide my daughters – ages 19 (and in college in another state), 17 (a senior in high school), and 12 (the subject of a current 50/50 custody arrangement) – through the trauma that my decision caused for the entire family. And yes. Trauma. For the entire family. Caused by the decision I made to leave.
I was, and am, trying to get past the guilt of being the one who decided to get a divorce. That caused trauma. That caused upheaval like you wouldn’t believe.
I was, and am, trying to make decisions that – if not governing the rest of my life – will at least govern what happens in the near future. Decisions that could open doors or close them.
I accepted a job in an entirely different field than what I have been working for years (I went to being a reporter for the town’s only newspaper to being a waitress in the town’s only restaurant). It is a job that provides constant, yet different, contact with the public. With people who knew me for years for the job I had and the person I was married to and the kids I was raising. But who don’t really know me. People who can’t help but ask the questions.
And meanwhile, the nervous energy kicked in. I seemed to have lost my ability to sit still. Or to carry on a conversation. Or to watch television or read a book or listen to music. Or to write. That idea of forward motion that I loved so much became constant motion. Became this strange feeling that, if I walked the same stretch of floor for long enough, I would find resolution. To something. Anything.
The second most-asked question that people asked, and still ask, is if there is anything they can do to help me. I remember thinking once, in a restaurant rush when I was feeling like I had been standing at one table too long, trying to intelligently answer one person’s question while other people were waiting for service, that my answer would be: Can you tell me how to do this?
It nearly made me cry, the need to ask that question while knowing it was an unfair question and one that I didn’t have time at that moment to get an answer for. Actually, it did make me cry… Just not right then.
Later, the inevitable pity party came. Why won’t anyone tell me how this is done, I wondered. Just give me some instructions so I can follow them.
I thought you wanted to do this yourself? I reminded myself. Don’t you want your own space?
Is It Weird That I Liked The Parenting Class?
The nervous energy has mostly subsided, though it still sometimes comes back in full force. I still can’t listen to music very much. I still have my pity parties from time to time. I will go from fine to pacing the floor in three seconds or less some days. These days, though, I try to convert that constant motion back into forward motion.
I make lists. I make lists of what I need to do. What I want to do. It helps when I start panicking to look at the list and make the decision to hold off the panic until I accomplish at least one thing on my daily list. One of the have-to-do things. And then, when I get that one thing done, I tell myself that I can do one more.
I wasn’t looking forward to the court ordered parenting class. That was one of those things that stayed on the list for many days. According to Colorado Law, people who are getting divorced and have minor children are required to complete a parenting class.
There’s just something about the phrase “court ordered parenting class” that sounds frightening. And unenjoyable. Like it’s a punishment or correction for the wrongness of divorce. Like I needed someone to tell me that divorce is probably not the best parenting decision that can be made.
The class was available online. Upon successful completion of it, I read, I would receive a certificate of completion to prove to the court that I had taken it. I had three days to complete it after registering and paying for it. When I finally registered, I had only a couple of hours before work and figured I wouldn’t even start it until the next day. I hoped I would get it done in time. I wondered what would happen if I failed the class. Could I keep taking it until I passed?
By the time I left for work, I was more than halfway through. I was reluctant to stop. My mind was dancing with information. Finally, I thought. It wasn’t that someone was telling me how to do this so much as it was someone making helpful suggestions. Giving me information on how to answer my child’s big questions. How to communicate effectively about the divorce with her and her sisters. How to communicate effectively for the sake of making parenting decisions with my ex-spouse. Someone was saying this is where you are right now, and here is where you’re hoping to be. Here are some ways to get there.
Back in the days when I was able to sit and read for long periods of time, I remember reaching the end of a book and feeling sort of sad that it was over. I remember thinking, with particularly good books, that I wasn’t ready for the story to end. For weeks after, I would be imagining what happened to the characters after that last page.
Wait. Scratch that. The past tense, back in the days part. Just a couple of weeks ago, in the midst of feeling like everything in my life would be marked as before and after, I took a parenting class. I really enjoyed it. I started imagining what would happen next. I still am. I’m not ready for the story to end.
So What Did You Get?
Of those three most-asked questions, I still don’t feel like I have very complete answers. Why did I leave? Because I needed to breathe. Because I couldn’t stay. What can people do to help me? Realize that the answers I come up with will probably change. That when I write about this a year from now, the answers will likely be different. The story will likely be different. Believe with me that it’s ok. Hope with me that different means better.
What did I get? I hope I got a full life. I hope I have the ability to be a good role model for my daughters. A good support system for them. I hope I can be a good mom. Maybe even a better one. That I remember all the things I learned in that class.
I hope I can keep writing about where I am in the process. I hope I can help someone. If not with this, then something else. I hope I am the sort of person who wants to help. And I hope I can be a friend. I hope I can learn what that means. I hope I always look out my window and see poems in the traffic. I hope I can keep going forward and that, someday, I won’t say I can’t quite as much as I still do.
I hope. I guess if you want to know what I got, it’s this. I hope…