Divorce #2768

Divorce. That's the word and condition. People tend to think of it as a work of letting go; it is. But there is a hard work of construction and transformation that occurs, that must occur, at the same time. In letting go of the person, you come to find all these empty spaces that must be filled: what phone call do you make when you find out your baby sister is pregnant; who do you laugh with about that translation that doesn't quite capture what "triflin'" means; who do you nudge & nod to when you see the perfect sized ... (well some things should remain private); who will pose that hard question that can only be asked by someone who knows your longest dream and desire - and has seen you repeatedly seen you hide from it - that devastating, shaming, crucial question that you desperately need to go on? Empty spaces. Who, indeed, will laugh with you, like that? There is the work of filling those spaces, never completely, but enough so that one day the fact that it's not him doesn't bring tears, or even a pang of longing, perhaps just the wisp of a memory, perhaps nothing at all.

There is the letting go work and the filling in work, but the hardest is the transforming work. Letting go of him is not letting go of all the habits and ways of seeing and doing that came from together moments. It's not just that the memories get seared in your mind - those actions, those expressions & mannerisms have become ...you. Everything cannot be let go & forgotten; it's not just memory, it's you. Someone else can be called, reached out to and for, there can be another to love & make love to, but the things you've become & developed into, that cannot be escaped without sacrificing a self that you've somehow, at some point, become... and hopefully, love.

JJB: Summer 2008