An Anniversary of Sorts

it's been one year since you looked at me

I’ve always been one to celebrate anniversary dates; I like marking the passage of time and noting important events in my life. I could probably do an “on this day” calendar and fill it up, everything from the day I bought my car to the day I got to Barcelona, to the date of my first marriage. I mark every event down in my brain calendar, I make notations about the day, and when the anniversary comes up I’m able to bring up pictures through my flickr or my old tumblr. It’s a way for me to recognize the events that make up my life and to mark how fast or slow time seems to be moving, depending on the memory.

Sometimes those events are somber ones. I mark off the anniversary of my dog’s death by posting pictures of her on twitter or Facebook and sharing memories of her. I feel it’s important to note the sad days in your life and contemplate how you’ve moved on, mentally, emotionally, from things that happened.

Which brings us to January, and to a rather sad anniversary. January 30th will one year since my ex left, ending an almost fifteen year relationship and seven year marriage. That day is also my son’s birthday and I will save it for that celebration, and get this memorialization of the collapse of my marriage over with now. Because who am I if i don’t write about it and commemorate it?

My sister Jo-Anne and I drove to Connecticut that morning to meet our sister Lisa for an exchange of belated Christmas gifts. Lisa lives in Rhode Island and there’s a rest stop in Connecticut that’s exactly halfway between us. Because of the pandemic, we didn’t get together for Christmas and would not get together now, except for a masked-up meet and greet in a service center parking lot. We parked our cars next to each other with the doors open and talk-yelled for about an hour before it got too cold to stay any longer and we started the trek home. All told I was gone maybe 4 1/2 hours.

I got home with the intent of napping for a bit and then doing some cleaning. I was on the couch about to sleep when he came in the living room and sat down on the couch opposite me. I felt an immediate change in the atmosphere. Something was amiss. I sat up, looked at him and waited for him to tell me what was on his mind. His father had been very sick so I thought he was about to tell me some bad news.

“I want to separate.” He practically whispered this and barely looked at me while he spoke the words. There was no introduction, no softening of the blow. He just came out and said it and, in a way, I’m thankful for that. It shortened a painful conversation. He cut out unnecessary words.

I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. I was not expecting this. I knew things had been quiet between us for a while, but I attributed it to the pandemic depression we were both feeling. I thought once we were able to go out again, do things normally (ha!), our lives and relationship would pick up again. Instead, I got this. He explained very briefly that he was profoundly unhappy and needed to get out and I just nodded as he spoke, trying so hard to keep my insides from spilling out in the form of throwing up. My world was upset, my stomach was upset, my heart was upset. I fingered my wedding band, twisted it around my finger nervously. I didn’t know what to say so I just said “Okay.” That was it.

I asked him when he was leaving and he said now. He had packed up while I was in Connecticut visiting with my sister. His clothes, his guns, his myriad work papers and books, all gone. The X-Box, the velvet Elvis, his collection of hot sauces. A friend had helped him rid the house of everything that was his in those few hours I was gone, and drove them to his new place - an apartment he signed a lease on weeks before.

He knew. He had planned this out meticulously and he knew weeks before he told me that he was leaving. I felt deceived. I felt stupid. I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. I felt whatever happiness I had left drain from me. I didn’t do anything to stop him, I didn’t say anything like let’s talk or let’s get therapy or please don’t go. I just watched as he put his coat on and said goodbye. I stood at the door as he pulled out of the driveway, shell shocked and devastated. That’s it. It was over. An hour ago I was laughing in the car with my sister and now here I was, left alone and scared and sad. It felt absurd in a way. I had been abandoned.

I’m having a hard time believing it’s been a year. The pandemic had skewed my sense of time already, and this anniversary has really thrown me for a loop. Where did the year go? What did I do besides cry and wallow and be sad?

Well, for one thing, I filed for divorce when it became obvious that this was permanent. The divorce was final in December. I refinanced our house to get it in my name (the only decent thing he did was hand over his share of the house to me). Those were two big things, but in between all that paperwork and all those phone calls and office visits, there was just a pervasive sadness, an endless darkness, a real loneliness. I missed him. I missed his laughter, his booming voice, his presence. I missed coming home to him, I missed him walking in the door at 9:00 coming in from one of his AA meetings. I missed the stories he would tell, I missed him talking about work. I sat on the couch for most of a year wallowing.

But in that time I realized several things. I am stronger than I thought I was. I am a hearty plant, able to bloom again after being deprived sunshine and water for a bit. I am good company for myself. I have an amazing support system of friends and family. I may not be resilient, I am still not over this and I still wallow in deep periods of grief sometimes, but I am strong enough to survive this.

The grief seemed insurmountable at times. I mourned our relationship, I mourned the person I was when I was married to him. Then I would think about the times I stood by him during his drinking days, the times I stayed in the hospital with him when he had drinking related seizures, the times I held us together as he was falling apart. I’d think about how got sober and I don’t get to enjoy those sober years with him and I get angry, so angry. Grief mixed with anger is a volatile emotion; it swirls around inside you and causes such emotional turmoil that it makes it hard to function.

Here we are a year later, and that grief and anger are somewhat muted. I’m divorced, I’m free, I am making a life of my own, on my own. I listen to Cake’s version of “I Will Survive” a lot. I listen to Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone” a lot. I’ve tried hard to put the sadder music in my collection on the back burner. I need to move on, I need to become a happier version of who I am. I don’t feel like I really have a lesson to learn here or any growth to do. I just want to be happy again. A full year’s worth of grieving is enough.

A lot happens in a year. I celebrated birthdays and holidays with my family. I inched ever closer to 60. I put more effort into being a good worker, a good mother, a good friend. I needed to take those areas of my life in which I can do good and do better, just to feel like I was able to improve in other areas as I fell of in another. I like to believe I was a good wife, a good friend to him. I like to believe this isn’t on me.

We talk often enough, through texts and emails. We talk about being friends, getting together when we’re both comfortable enough doing so. I just need some time. How much longer than a year do I need? I don’t know. It’s been long enough that I forget the sound of his voice sometimes. I forget how he looked in the morning, how he felt next to me at night. I forget what it was like to hold his hand, to eat dinner with him at a restaurant, how blue his eyes are. I haven’t seen him in person in a year and that seems like a lot, yet it seems right. Not seeing him has given me a chance to make a clean break, to move on without feeling like there might be something to pull us back together again.

I’m marking this anniversary, the way I mark all anniversaries. I will note the day, the precise time of the end. I will probably listen to some sad music and feel nostalgic for the us that used to be. But when all is said and done, it will be an anniversary that marks another step forward. It’s been a year, and that should be enough for me to finally shut the door. I will survive. I have survived.