May Your First Divorce Be As Glorious As Mine
Sometimes life needs a “controlled burn”
They tell you a divorce can be like a death in the family.
Some wise voices of experience snark that it’s essential to get that first bad marriage out of the way.
In 2015, my wife of 14 years lit the match on my world.
I had sensed there was something brewing in the winds.
Geez, mix metaphors much? (Love ‘em)
We began on strong footing. I still remember the very first time I saw her. That’s not some cringy admission of a sad soul clinging to emotional residue. That “first sighting” tale had become one of our personal history touchstones. So I remember it almost like the stuff of legend.
The lore of Russ and She That Shall Not Be Named.
(Okay, I have to admit something here. In the wake of the break-up — as support systems tend to do — my ex got saddled with a sobriquet that J.K. Rowling could take legal action over.)
I’m going to assume & make peace with the idea that my ex didn’t write sonnets of praise to me during the split. And I’m sure many an unflattering anecdote has flown about her circles skewering my shortcomings. Fair game.
But you won’t catch me badmouthing her. She’s actually an amazing person.
It just didn’t work out between us.
I have always been a wonderful human being. It’s this jackhole who keeps showing up in my mirror that can be a bit of a pill. I’m indicting that SOB with at least 50-percent of the blame. Minimum.
Yeah, the first several years danced by like a sprite in spring.
The romance between us was a springboard to the romance of an idyllic Joad-family venture out to southern California. I was to be a screenwriter. That was her show of support.
Not that there wasn’t something in it for her. She had been a technical writer, but she had found her heart lay with GIS.
Unless you’re a geology & ichnography nerd, you likely have no idea what the hell GIS is.
Stands for “Geographic Informations Systems.” Has to do with map making, geographic measurements, mineral deposits. Getting in touch with the ground, man. Local government civic planning. That sort’a business.
Now, I don’t have to tell you that Cali features some at-times grouchy tectonic plate action. Hence, it should come as no surprise that California universities have some of the best GIS programs in the country.
My head wasn’t on straight about my life.
She earned her way into GIS, which led to opportunities for her down the line. I, by contrast, struggled to scrape a living together. Which made the pursuit of cinematic writing aspirations null.
The Joad’s hit the road out west to try to find better fortune. I found my Dust Bowl.
I didn’t realize it then, but that Dust Bowl rested between my ears. Also the fault of that Mirror Man.
Long nightmare short, at some point during those often nail-bitingly lean years, the romance faded into a pale camaraderie of coexistence. Cohabitation. Toxicity.
If the story of my life were a flawed-but-engaging action movie, the time between the heart-death and the end of my first marriage would be the ‘Bad Peter Goes Jazz Dancing’ sequence of SPIDERMAN 3. Just dragging on.
And on.
For years.
(Seriously, if you get nothing else out of this one, find your first available exit ramp when shit goes sideways. Life is, in fact, way too short.)
It wasn’t a complete shock when she announced her desire for a split. As I said, it was in the air.
I had begun to bond with my next-door neighbor of two years. Today, I consider him one of my very closest friends. But in early 2015, we had just started to open up and have deeper level conversations. Which included the kind of bared-soul grousing about the State of Our Unions with Respective Significant Others that people engage in when the sparkle’s soured.
My ex and I knew THIS couldn’t go on forever.
She started finding excuses to be absent more. There was some kind of class she was taking. Eating better. Exercising.
There was a woman at her new job she began to pal around with. At her place. Out. On the phone. Like all the time.
I suspected there was growing “you can do better” talk. You feel it in your bones when someone has your partner’s ear more than you.
Given where we were, there was either going to be an effort at counseling at some point or papers were coming. I was just on this side of the “We Should Try” Mason-Dixon Line. She moved across it first.
In those days, I essentially lived behind the wheel. And I spent the bulk of the next week driving & singing “She’s Always a Woman” along with Billy Joel. Blubbering like a widow.
Aww, Jesus, dude. Have some self-respect. (I hear ya. Rippin’ off band-aids here.)
There was a weird period of dragging an inflatable mattress back and forth between my buddy’s garage and living room. Man, am I grateful for that.
The ‘alignment with the universe’ aspect of all that was the awakening to a call to authenticity. It was a foundational cornerstone shift I made. It cemented the relationship with my new friend. It supported the new structure that made it possible to house the relationship I have with my now-wife. And it stands as a True North for the New Chapter journey I’m on.
I’m Russ. Raw & Real. Today, 50 years old. But in some truly profound ways, I’m just over 5 years old.
Getting to know me post-2015 is a different experience than before the end of my first marriage.
I am not perfect today. I was not irredeemable then.
This about a cleansing of the proverbial windows of perception. Or doors.
Vents.
Skylights.
Your HGTV metaphor of choice…
But it was the Great God of Dissolution of Marriage that handed me the Windex.
Thanks for letting me bend yer ear.
Get More Guamanian Winter!
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