Thoughts on my Recent Divorce

My husband and I divorced last Friday morning a decade after we met in 2012. It was something I thought I had wanted for so long--we had never had much in common, and we both made so many mistakes in our relationship, which I won't discuss here. When I walked out a year and a half ago I was resolved to move on, to pick up the pieces of what I had left of both my life and my possessions and try and find someway through the addiction and mental illness that had slowly engulfed my life over the past decade.

I was fresh out of rehab, and with a new job I had taken since quitting my old job at the factory a year earlier it was a new start for me, in a city I barely recognized. With the pandemic the city we knew and loved had been decimated.  The mall at which we had met shuttered its doors after 50 years, along with the majority of the Brightleaf District along Peabody Street:  the coffee shop to which I had gone every weekend with my father for two decades, my favorite boutique--open since 1969--and a favorite restaurant I had frequented since I was a young teenager. In this strange new world I moved into an apartment across town and tried to heal and make new memories. Gone was the Victorian Era furniture I had once loved--replaced with a vintage plaid--gone were my photos, my kitchen lemon decor, and nearly everything that reminded me of my old life. I meant to heal this year. But I found myself not leaving the house--not even to see my parents--not answering the door to friends, not answering the phone. I haven't done much healing this past year at all.  I haven't even done much of dealing with my feelings:  not related to him, not related to our marriage, and certainly not related to the trauma of my past which drove me to addiction and exacerbated my mental illness. 

My ex and I kept in touch sporadically, thanks in large part to my mother who would shuttle our two dogs across town for playdates: Stormie Weather, that I let him keep, and Columbkille, who had always been mine. Then one afternoon I received a photograph and a message that had devastated me almost as much as my childhood coffee shop closing its doors--the church we had gotten married at and attended (which was across the street from our house) had left town and was now abandoned. It was the church that his family had attended for generations, and had just celebrated its 100 year anniversary a few years prior. It was a thought that I couldn't get out of my head. 

I walked into the courthouse with my father for support, dressed to the nines the way I always went to church--although minus the gloves and hat--and sat in the hallway. I was scared. I had never been in a courtroom before, and as I looked out over the city from the sixth floor I think part of me was scared that the memories I had loved from my adolescence of downtown Durham would somehow all be overshadowed by this day and this building which loomed ominously over the horizon. We had spent our wedding night in the former CCB Building which has since become one of the most expensive hotels in town; I remember opening the curtains and looking down to see a giant hole in the earth, which would gradually fill to become the tallest building in town. Durham--long before the pandemic had started--was changing. It was one of a million thoughts that filled my head as I quietly shuffled into the courtroom and noticed my ex, whom I hadn't seen in over a year.

We sat on opposite sides of the courtroom in silence. When the judge called our names it seemed like the whole world stopped. I gave my full legal name and the date we were married in what seemed like slow motion. Yes, it was my intent to live apart and remain legally separated, I said. And then: Yes, it is my desire for divorce. And then the judge told us that the bonds of matrimony were dissolved as of this date: October 21, 2022. I went and sat back down in silence with the feelings that had plagued me over the past year: resolve, sadness, emptiness. But then a feeling overtook me that I wasn't expecting: regret. I brushed tears out of my eyes. When I looked up again it was to see my ex walking out of the courtroom, newly-signed divorce papers in hand. My father and I left shortly there after, taking a moment to sit on the bench outside the courtroom and look out onto the city that I had seen just minutes before as a married woman. It was over now.

I suddenly felt very alone, the same feeling I would get as a child when my friends would leave and suddenly the house was filled with silence, and I was left with my feelings in the pink and orange skies of late afternoon. I thought suddenly of the church at which we were married, and imagined myself sitting alone in the sanctuary in an empty building,  morning sunlight streaming through the stained glass windows across a now-abandoned room which had held so many memories. A vast emptiness overcame me that I've never experienced as I sat there in the echoing hallway; I knew now I was truly alone in life. Alone.

It's been over a week now since my divorce. Regret and depression have kept me up on more than one restless night. I'm having trouble coming to grips with the fact that--as one divorcé once wrote--I've broken my own heart. But I'm not sure why I feel this way. The reasons we divorced should I go back now would still be there. The problems. The loneliness I felt in my marriage. The emptiness that drove me to drink. But the uneasiness of my current feelings won't go away: now that I have what I wanted, why do I no longer want it? Is it the stability of a decade-long relationship that I suddenly need again so badly? Or is it the fear that someday I'll die alone? I could have resigned to not be alone--albeit unhappy--for the rest of my life. There was nothing stopping me from staying. So why didn't I? And is the emptiness I feel now less than it would have been had I chosen to stay? I'll never know. This new reality is so strange to me. I'm starting out on my own in a city I no longer recognize. Perhaps it's the familiarity I'm so scared to live without.