Memento Mori: August 2021

As July closed out, I told myself that I’d look forward to reclaiming insurmountable amounts of time and freedom in August.

That didn’t happen the entire month of August. HOWEVER, the first two weeks? I felt like I was on a neverending cloud of happiness. I anticipated the 4th of August with every anxious nerve in my body. That was the day I signed my divorce papers.

There are people who don’t consider divorce to be a good thing and good for them. I am not one of those people. The idea of marriage, the wedding, and the appearance of a union is honored more these days than the actual partnership and responsibility involved in a marriage. It’s become a norm these days to value performance and aesthetics instead of everything included that are the nuances which will determine if the alliance succeeds or fails.

I grew up WISHING my parents would get a divorce. They separated and got back together so many times that I stopped counting by the time I reached my 20s. The outside world only counts the combined total of years they were together… they were together 48 years and married for 46 years. My father passed away a month after their 46th anniversary. The outside world doesn’t care that my mother only had one genuine year of happiness during those 46 years. The IDEA of four and a half decades spent tied to another person MUST be a beautiful thing, right? It must be for two people to stay attached in this way… right?

That’s what we want to believe because years are romanticized in ways REAL love and growth aren’t.

I got a divorce because time spent in misery isn’t a ministry I ever committed to preaching. The ex and I were friends (with benefits) for 3 years before the magnificent bundle of greatness was birthed, our daughter. We were legally married for 9 years but separated for 7 years. During these past 9 years, I’ve experienced some of the worst days of my life.

I could never imagine reconciling with a man who intentionally put me through his house of horrors in order to extol multiple decades of marriage. We create a belief in our minds that a person MUST love us BECAUSE they (repeatedly) asked us to marry them… they MUST love us BECAUSE they married us… they MUST love their child BECAUSE their offspring is flesh of their flesh and blood of their blood. Then reality settles in and some of us accept that sometimes people don’t love us or the child(ren) they created and what they really enjoyed was the idea of it all. Some people even convince themselves that others just show love differently, even when that “love” is toxic, abusive, dangerous, and soul sucking.

I promised myself that I wouldn’t dedicate decades of time to anyone who made it clear, I was not loved. With every year that passed since we separated, I was shown that love was just another four-letter word to this malignancy appearing to be a human. Divorce wasn’t the quick in and out process a lot of people were determined to imply it should be… as if they’d ever had to divorce anyone. There were lots of stop and go moments that could have been eliminated. Lots of stress that was shouldered more by me than him.

So to be divorced completely from a life draining entity is… divine.

Signing those papers gave me a lot of freedom back that was tied up in possibility. It released a level of control you’ll only know if you’re married and seeking a divorce, are a family law attorney, or just care to know how marriage works in every state of this united America. I woke up happy for two solid weeks… something I haven’t experienced in 12 years. So… divorce is a good thing for me.

My two weeks of breathing easy dissipated because life is still happening. There’s still a pandemic popping off, white supremacy is still running rampant and affecting my everyday life, parenting is non-stop with very little to no Me Time, STILL grieving a load of shit, but also still choosing to breathe, smile and laugh through it all.

The kid started middle school 5 days after the signing of the papers. This was another reason to stay on the cloud of happiness. Seeing her push through her anxiety was a proud parenting moment. It also assures me that I’m still capable of getting some shit right since she isn’t turning out too bad. Watching her growth sometimes gives me that tiny nudge I sometimes need to keep moving forward. If she’s this great at oney-one, who will she be at 21, 31 and my age (41)? I guess I gotta keep taking my mother’s advice to “keep living” so I can find out.

So, what do I look forward to in September? More easy breathing, love, peace of mind… hell, an ABUNDANCE of everything that’s good for me and less to none of what isn’t. Sounds simple enough but we’ll see…