Two days before Christmas and twelve years to the day he had asked me to marry him, I sat across a table from my husband with my future aching thick in my throat. It was time to give words to the tension that had been palpable between us for months, maybe years. I didn't believe that it was a mere coincidence that this was the day I was also going to ask him for a divorce. It was a tragic full circle moment and I felt acutely aware of our beginning and ending. I was trying to make it through the holidays before saying a word like DIVORCE. After all, Christmastime isn't the time for marriages to end right? The illusion of what wasn't there between us anymore felt like death to my soul and I couldn't go on any longer without speaking my truth.
The words came easily and without tears. I reached deep for them because I felt guilty that I didn't have any to cry. I had given him thousands of them over the years, most of which fell to the ground lonely and lost. He cried more than I expected him to. He wailed and sobbed and I had only ever heard him cry like that one other time when we had to give our dog away a few years back. I wasn't sure what to do or say. Sorry didn't feel appropriate and I knew I couldn't fix whatever he was feeling. He could tell I was firm and settled in my decision; that I was already gone and had been for a while. He walked away from the table that night visibly rejected and wounded. My emotions were all running one in to the other - relief and hope. Deep sorrow and heartache, especially for all I knew I would cause.
We went separate ways that night. My phone started blowing up with text messages and phone calls from concerned friends he had already spoken to, shocked by the news. It wasn't the time to talk or answer questions. Desperate to feel something else that night, I put the conversation and my marriage on an emotional shelf to be looked at later.
I walked into a bar without my diamonds sparkling on my left ring finger. I drank until I was warm and head fuzzy, and until someone elses's lips had touched my own. And it was sad.
