D-Day

Monday night, Ex and I went to dinner. We went to dinner to celebrate over 13 years. Yes, today is the day our divorce becomes final but it hasn’t been all bad. In fact, when we were good, we were fucking amazing. I brought all the photo albums and we sat in the restaurant and reminisced for hours. We cried, and we laughed and we promised to always always always be there for each other. No one can take away those memories but it is still so hard to say goodbye to the hopes and dreams we shared.

Were we ever completely and totally head over heels in love with each other? Honestly, I don’t know. There were times when my love for him felt like it would completely consume me, that if I didn’t have him to share my life with that I wouldn’t be able to take another breath. Yet there were times when I was so alone sitting in the same room that I wondered how long it would be before he noticed if I just stopped breathing. Ouch? Yeah, ouch. In my desperate aloneness I gave myself to another man. Ouch? Yeah, ouch. We both hurt each other pretty badly over those 13 years. But you know what else we did? Over 13 years, our friendship grew stronger. Our respect and compassion for each grew stronger.

You have no idea how much I wish we could have loved each other the way we both want and deserve to be loved. Intimately and passionately in a partnership that would last a lifetime. For some reason it wasn’t... and we didn't... or something like that. I’m not going to psychoanalyze the end of my marriage here. Honestly, there is no one on Earth who can understand what went wrong but him and I, and we’re still baffled by some of it. What I do want to do is share something that is so rare:

That man, that wonderful man that I shared over 13 (actually it was 14+) years of my life with; I’m blessed that I can still call that man my best friend in the entire world. We may not have done marriage right, but no one can beat us when it comes to being friends. And I’m lucky enough to be raising my children with this man. We don’t live together any more. But it is still a partnership and there is no one else I’d rather be doing it with.

Is it hard to say goodbye? With tears streaming down my face I can tell you it’s like acid destroying you from the inside out. Luckily, I don’t have to say goodbye to everything. And that’s good because I’m still not convinced that I could keep breathing if I thought Ex wasn’t going to be there tomorrow or next week. Some friendships are like that. They sustain you in ways that nothing else can.

Today, I’m free. And I can enjoy that freedom knowing that my best friend is still there, to listen and laugh and even catch me when I fall.
Ex, today WE are free and I’m so glad we are doing it together.