One Decade of Divorce

Monument Valley, 2007

On July 30, 2007 at 7:37 p.m., I sent out this email to my closest friends:

Dear Friends,

I hope you'll forgive the mass email approach here and bear with me.  I
learned yesterday that xxxxx is in love with someone else and plans to
remarry and start a new family.
I wish I could tell you all in person one-to-one over a good stiff drink,
but I'm afraid I'm not up to that at the moment.
What I need mostly is advice, and for those of you who are local a couple
of contacts.
1) therapist for me-not too far west
2) a divorce attorney
I know news like this can shake things up a bit for everyone, especially
old friends.
Thanks for listening.

Wish all of us luck.
I don't think I'll be able to talk on the phone in case you were thinking
of calling.


But just to be clear, my decade of divorce is not counted from the date of the decree of divorce. That happened a year later. And the division of joint assets was not in place until July 11, 2011. So there will be more anniversaries to "celebrate," but to me it's the end of the marriage that is most significant. The end of that 30-year relationship was, for me, a loss of identity and the loss of a family that I loved. This decade since the end of the marriage, I've constructed a new me--a person related to the person I was then, but also quite a bit different. I don't miss the old me. But, if I'm honest, I still miss the family. That us. That unit. I don't idealize it. It was awful some of the time, (as most families are?) but there's something lost that's irreplaceable. It's gone. Permanently.

"Really, do you want that?" I once said to a friend who was playing around with the idea of an affair. "You may never have Thanksgiving dinner with your family again." That and a million other things large and small will happen.


What I regret most is the small hurts that accumulated over the years of my marriage and not really having the skill and the strength to mend them.

I do not want to be a gatherer of small hurts.

I do not want to be a deliverer of small hurts. 

The beginning of this last decade was almost insurmountably difficult. I remember every kind thing, dear family and friends. Cups of tea, glasses of wine, home-cooked meals, your hospitality, your love, your words, your open ears, your waiting arms. I slept in so many comfy beds under so many roofs. You walked with me, drove with me for thousands of miles, held my hand on airplanes, sat with me in hotel lobbies and in parked cars, and sang to me. You told me things would be okay, and somehow, somehow you made me laugh. I have lived my life this past decade because of your help. My life has been a litany of love.

Thank you.