Finality
it's the end of my marriage as i know it, and i feel fine
My divorce is final.
It happened yesterday. My attorney called, all chipper and happy. “I’ve got great news,” she said. “You’re divorced! It’s been finalized!” A deep sadness washed over me and I eked out a “Thank you for everything” and hung up.
I wanted to be happy about it. Another thing that was hanging over my head was gone, done with, over. I got my closure. I could move on with my life now. I am no longer married, no longer just separated. I am divorced.
Oh, I’ve been divorced before. But there’s a marked difference between being the one who initiated the divorce and being the one the divorce is thrust upon, unwanted. I was still in a hazy stage of denial that this was happening at all. While the papers were sitting on a Judge’s desk somewhere in Matrimonial Court, while they were still unsigned, there was still a spark in the back of my mind that this was all just a fever dream, or that he would come to his senses, that we could work it out. And with one phone call, one stroke of a pen, I became an ex-wife, he became an ex-husband.
The finality of it hit me hard. There would never be another moment with us as a couple. I thought about all the things we did together in the last two years or so. Our final dinner out, at a Portuguese restaurant just before the pandemic hit. Our final vacation in California. Our final conversation in our house, which was just five minutes of him saying he wanted a separation and he already had a place to live and he was leaving now. The final act of him signing over the house to me.
It’s been over for almost a year now, but the divorce being final is the last nail in the coffin where our marriage lies. We’re buried now, six feet under, covered in dirt, no coming back. It’s upsetting and heartbreaking.
Yet there’s a part of me that feels free and happy, like I can move on with my life now instead of being in the state of limbo that permeated my life since last January. I’m unburdened, unencumbered by a quasi relationship that was over but wasn’t over. That piece of paper signed by a Judge is something that gives me permission to carry on, to proceed with my life without taking anyone else into consideration besides myself. And that may sound selfish, but selfish is what I intend to be now. I spent fourteen years catering to the needs and wants of someone else; it’s my turn now. I will cook what I want and go to bed when I want to and eat at the chain restaurants he hated and blast the music he didn’t like. Maybe I was doing those things already since the separation a year ago, but they feel more powerful now. I am relieved of the need to please him. I am a single person. I am on my own, and that’s going to be a good thing.
I have been seeking closure for some time now and that phone call should have been it. The door is closed and locked now. We are no longer a couple, not just in our eyes, but in the eyes of the law. I should wipe my hands and be done with it, and I will get around to doing that. I think I’m just going to take some time to be sad about before I accept all the congratulations aimed at me. A day or so. Then I’m going to celebrate. A new life, a new world, a new me. I’m fine. Really, I am.
The word finalized rings out at me. Your divorce is finalized. The end of your marriage, the end of a fourteen year relationship, the end of love and trust and honor, it’s all been finalized. There is a before and after now, a date to mark, a date that will erase all our anniversaries and special days. Who I become after all this is up to me. But who I was before is no more. That’s final.