So, tomorrow I am officially getting divorced. I feel like
that statement should be accompanied by a thunderclap, perhaps – or maybe a
drumroll, but actually, this feels kind of anticlimactic. I mean, I haven’t
laid eyes on my husband in over two years; how much different will my life
really be when this is “officially” finished? Still, it seems as though I ought
to mark the occasion in some significant way, so here I am. Writing. Surprised?
I think I’ve always felt that the real moment of our divorce
was the morning I rode away from La Canourgue in the back of a car driven by my
honorary French parents (who were, at that time, little more than strangers to
me). It was November; it was raining and cold, and I have never felt so
completely empty – before or since. I wanted to be strong, and instead I cried
silently and tried to answer questions that my hosts had for me without
sounding all slurpy. I turned around in the backseat and watched the tiny
village I had thought would be my home dwindle into the distance, and wondered
why I couldn’t live in a book or a movie. If this were a story, then as I drove
away my husband would come running out of a nearby building and chase the car
down, then apologize with tears in his own eyes and beg me to stay. Instead, I
rode silently for seven hours in the back of a car and wondered how in the hell
I had managed to screw this up, too. That
was divorce.
Tomorrow, I just have to go stand in front of a judge and
answer a few questions. He will sign some papers, I will take them to a clerk
and arrange for copies to be sent to my ex, and then that part of my life will
be done. Over. I will even have my own last name back. It will be as if I never
met Patrick, never fell in love with him, never moved across the Atlantic to
try to build a life in France. Only, I don’t think that I can ever pretend that
any of this just didn’t happen (no matter how that man chooses to behave). It
makes me question my sanity a little. Will I ever look back on this time in my
life fondly? Oh, God, I hope I can grow into that, because the bitter taste of
the loss is still in my mouth, and I truly don’t want to keep that with me
forever. It’s not there every day, but it lingers … kind of like black
licorice-flavored things. Ew. You’ve gotta do a lot of mouth-rinsing to eliminate
those. Yep.
It seems such a big thing, getting married. (At least, it
did to me.) I didn’t do this and then think to myself, “Well, there’s always
divorce!” I intended to stay married, to live with my husband for better or for
worse (and the house in France was “for
worse”, believe me), to adjust to being part of couple instead of eternally
single. And here I am. Life is just a fucking hoot, isn’t it?
I know that, at the very least, I will feel immeasurably
lighter after tomorrow morning. A task which has been waiting to be finished for
two and a half years will be completed, and there will be a sense of closure
with that, and perhaps even a small sense of accomplishment. (Filed divorce
papers? Check. Stood in front of judge? Check. Sent copies of documents to
ex-hubby? Check check.) But I will still have all of the same questions in my
head about why I did this in the first place, why I agreed to move to a foreign
country, why I loved him, and why, ultimately, he didn’t love me. These are
questions that have no real answers. I will live the rest of my life without
ever knowing what that man was thinking or feeling within the context of our
relationship. I’ve gained enough distance and perspective, I think, to say that
having no answers: it will be okay. It will be okay because it has to be. I have gotten all the
closure I am ever going to get, and I just need to be thankful that things didn’t
turn out any worse than they did. I’m a little bit broken, but it’s the kind of
broken that eventually mends. I’ll be all right, because I’m me, and because I
have the most amazing and supportive family and friends, and they will continue
to love me and laugh with me and simply be there to help me up when I fall
down. Not everyone has that kind of support system, and I am so, so grateful.
The people in my life are a gift – thank God I am near them, and not far away
across the ocean.
So bring on the courtroom, then. I will go, I will become
Erin Andress once again, and I will officially shake off the shackles that
bound me to a man named Sacleux. In case you didn’t know – he didn’t deserve
me, anyway. Vive le divorce!
