On ending a marriage
This was quite a week for me. On Wednesday, a significant chapter of my life ended as I stood before a judge in a small courtroom in Ellsworth, Maine, and raised my hand, vowing to tell the truth in a proceeding that would bring to a close a marriage of twenty-seven years. It was a moment fraught with emotion. Though the decision to part was difficult to arrive at, it was the correct decision. That certainty, though, did not make being in the moment of divorce easy. As I gazed around the room, taking in quirky details like the fact that there were two American flags and a framed print of U.S. presidents ending with Lyndon Johnson, it occured to me that a marriage begins and ends with the words, "I do."
What exactly do we promise with those words at the outset of a marriage? All the traditional things--to have and to hold, from this day forward... But more than that, we promise to love each other forever. To stand united against the burden of time and the pressures of daily living. To stay united after the thrill of new love wears off and throughout the things that put stress on a union: children, disappointments at work, worries about money, problems with siblings and in-laws and friends and life in general. It is a tall order, and one easily filled for a while but not necessarily forever.
My marriage came to its official close this past Wednesday shortly ater 9:00 AM. It was a moment marked by an astonishing void of feeling--I was as emotionally empty as the courtroom was of spectators. No one, save a kindly judge and disengaged bailiff bore witness to its end. In that silent room, I took a step toward the future. It is a future, like most, that is entirely unknown. But it holds within it the seed of hope, the joy of possibility, the energy of promises yet to be made and kept.
And, as Emily Dickinson would instruct, I choose to dwell in that possibility.
I bookmark the day of my divorce with two poems: "Release the Gulls," which comments on the ways a marriage can go wrong, and "On searching for sand dollars," which celebrates a new sense of self--one that rises joyfully to the challenges of a solitary life and is open to the possibility that that life could be shared in a way that surpasses my present powers of imagination. Here's to the journey...
What exactly do we promise with those words at the outset of a marriage? All the traditional things--to have and to hold, from this day forward... But more than that, we promise to love each other forever. To stand united against the burden of time and the pressures of daily living. To stay united after the thrill of new love wears off and throughout the things that put stress on a union: children, disappointments at work, worries about money, problems with siblings and in-laws and friends and life in general. It is a tall order, and one easily filled for a while but not necessarily forever.
My marriage came to its official close this past Wednesday shortly ater 9:00 AM. It was a moment marked by an astonishing void of feeling--I was as emotionally empty as the courtroom was of spectators. No one, save a kindly judge and disengaged bailiff bore witness to its end. In that silent room, I took a step toward the future. It is a future, like most, that is entirely unknown. But it holds within it the seed of hope, the joy of possibility, the energy of promises yet to be made and kept.
And, as Emily Dickinson would instruct, I choose to dwell in that possibility.
I bookmark the day of my divorce with two poems: "Release the Gulls," which comments on the ways a marriage can go wrong, and "On searching for sand dollars," which celebrates a new sense of self--one that rises joyfully to the challenges of a solitary life and is open to the possibility that that life could be shared in a way that surpasses my present powers of imagination. Here's to the journey...
posted by Judy at 9:35 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home