Notes on a Divorce

The News

I used to be married, and now I’m not. Everything feels daunting. Especially breaking the news. I started a new job when we first decided to separate. Suddenly, I was presented with a new set of people whom I didn’t know, and didn’t know if I liked. Immediately, I had to decide how to refer to my soon to be ex, and by extension, how much of my actual self I would reveal to these strangers.

A few times I talked about my wife, but I’ve never worn a ring at work. Now, I’m going to have to not bring her up for a few months, because I can’t have them thinking I’m a sociopath who tells the Math department he’s married while telling the English department he’s single.

Telling people is weird. It feels like watching the double dutch ropes spin and wondering how to jump in. On a phone call with a good friend, we were having a normal conversation. I knew I had to tell him, but I didn’t know how to shift the conversation away from being pissed at jackasses not wearing masks and how good Brockmire is to my own personal life news.

Or, maybe you write for a quaint online literary magazine. And once a week, you have a video conference with the other people who write for that quaint, online literary magazine, some of whom you feel close to and have hung out with in person. But some of them you don’t really know at all. How do you tell those people? When would it ever come up? Do you blurt it out at the beginning of one of the weekly video calls? That would certainly create a weird tone for that week’s meeting.

Maybe it’s been half a year, so you just submit a personal essay about it. Like an emotionally healthy adult.

The Spiel

Like anything repeated frequently enough, a rote explanation naturally emerged. An elevator pitch for the end of my relationship. It’s not a glossy version, everything in there is true, but telling and retelling resulted in natural editing and tightening of the story. Like a monologue honed so the other person doesn’t have to decide if they can ask follow up questions. I will tell you why in a tight 30 seconds. Come on, let’s walk and talk.

The Stuff

After we first decided to split, I felt overwhelmed with stuff. Everything in our apartment was an item to be divvied up. Whose bookshelf is that? Which pots and pans become mine? What about the spice jars? The last time I went grocery shopping, I thought we were out of garlic powder, so I bought more, but we already had a full container of it. For a split second, I was annoyed before realizing, no, that actually works out. Now, we’ll both have garlic powder.

Even the dog had to be accounted for. We both knew the dog was hers. Now, everytime I pet the dog, everytime I walk the dog, I’m acutely aware of the finite amount of those moments. “Not many more of these,” a voice in my head says, “better appreciate it.” [Update: We’re splitting custody of the dog, like a couple of weird-ass dog people.]

Music

Oh god! Why is every song I like a breakup song? “Train in Vain” is a toe-tapper, but now it makes my lip quiver. It sounds triumphant, which always allowed me to avoid confronting the actual pain expressed in the lyrics. Not today. I dare you keep the beat awash in sadness. Stupid Clash.

The only music saved on my phone are an album and an EP by The Get Up Kids. Every Get Up Kids song is either a sad uptempo song or just blatantly sad. And that shit auto-plays when I plug in my phone and start the car. There’s a difference between understanding the sadness in art and feeling it. I believe the kids refer to it as “hitting different.”

Silver Lining

It’s all very sad. My ex and I are both sad. We’re fond of each other, still, which makes the realization that we are better off not married more difficult, because it relies on the premise that we let something good and important slowly fall into disrepair.

And yet, that didn’t stop us from commiserating over a shared positive. We’ve spent 10 years finding a delicate balance between our personal styles. Before, my tacky kitsch and her love of austere negative space were constantly on the verge of falling out of balance and one of us feeling overtaken. But we had a mutual realization of impending creative control of our living spaces. Now, I can hang up my Vespa pinup girl calendar without it clashing with whatever it is that she likes to put on walls. And she doesn’t have to worry about me buying more ugly, yet objectively cool, pieces of decor.

And my new place has a bathtub. I can finally get in on the bathbomb trend.

Sad About Other Things

Whenever I attend the large, multi-generation family reunion of the paternal side of my family, I’m reminded that a stoic, reserved demeanor is not one of MY personality traits. It’s an aesthetic brought over from the Old Country and baked into my DNA and the dozens of other dry-witted introverts I share it with. I will forever be unsettled by meeting a third-cousin once removed and realizing within five minutes that we have, essentially, the same personality. I am not special.

It’s not that my fellow Mersmns and I aren’t in touch with our feelings. It’s that we have to tell you how we’re feeling, because you can’t read our emotions, and when we tell you, you won’t believe us. I once had to continually reassure my brother-in-law that I was, in fact, giddy with excitement while walking around the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Whether happy or sad, my face never gets the message..

All of this is to say that, even when I make  a point to acknowledge this sad thing I’m going through and sit with my emotions, it never hits me with the force I feel that it ought to. The sadness is a garden hose left half-on, not a sudden downpour. And if you want a steady stream, you’ve got to put your thumb on it. Apply some pressure.

For my emotional hose, the thumb takes the form of things like YouTube videos where Dolly Parton watches videos of people covering her songs and then THEY watch her watch them (it sounds convoluted, but it’s great), the chorus of “Fairytale of New York” while out running, or the last episode of The Good Place.

Recalibrating

Oh god. How much milk do I drink in a week? How often do I need to buy toilet paper? How often do I need to run the dishwasher? How long will this jug of laundry detergent last me? How quickly does the garbage fill up? I have no idea, because there’s always been two people using those things. What is my own personal level of consumption and waste?! Why hath another layer of uncertainty been draped across my very existence? Cruel consumerist society.

And nights in (which they all are in a pandemic)? My god, so boring. Going from (almost) always having someone to hang out with at night to (almost) never having someone to hang out with takes some adjustment.

The Reminders

A medical professional recently told me that people who have lost limbs or the use of limbs are, generally, bummed for a couple months. Then, when surveyed, they report that their quality and enjoyment of life has returned to the same, all-limbs having levels. Someone who could walk with their legs and then suddenly needs a wheelchair will be over it by the time another Marvel Cinematic Universe or Star Wars movie comes out.

Humans, like all living things, are strong, resilient, and they keep it pushing. After a few months, these people who were surveyed weren’t really upset about having less than the usual number of limbs—until some normie reminded them that their life was hard and bless their heart. So brave.

People mean well. They want to know how I’m doing. So they check in. But sometimes they check in when I’m having a good time. Watching a seasonally appropriate motion picture. Having a drink with friends outside seven feet apart. Doing the dishes in my sunny kitchen listening to Pat Benatar. I hesitate to even write this, because we should check in on each other, but it’s hard to tell someone who’s just checking in, “Yeah, I’m great” and keep on feeling great. I’ve just been reminded that I should be feeling a collapsed aluminum can.

When Does it Hit?

Still waiting on that crushing wave of grief and despair. It’s kind of annoying actually. I feel like Barney Stinson waiting for his slaps. (Remember How I Met Your Mother???)

I started packing today. My books and DVDs. Two sides of the same coin. Most of my books, I haven’t read yet and might not ever read. Most of my DVDs, I’ve seen and might not ever see again.

I really thought that packing would hit me hard, like, this is it, I’m really moving to my own place. Nope. I expected to be overwhelmed by complex emotions of loss, but instead, I’m just feeling  disgust that I still have a copy of Plan Nine from Outer Space. I’m not a sophomore in college in the mid-Aughts anymore. I continue to be upset about the wrong thing.

Wrapping Up

I told you there was a spiel. The basic thesis is that it’s sad, but not devastating. I’ll be fine. It’s hard, but I married a good person, and that, however counterintuitively, makes breaking up less depressing. I didn’t waste 10 years of my life being married. I started a career while married. I found and pursued new interests while married. I had friendships that didn’t hinge on me being a member of a couple. I gained a family. I call my ex “my ex,” but I don’t know if I’ll ever call my brother-in-law, mother-in-law, and father-in-law my ex-in-laws. My ex and I valued our independence, that allowed us to have a successful relationship, and even now, when the sadness is fresh, I know that it was mostly a good relationship. When you marry the wrong person, they don’t crack you up with jokes during your divorce.