Divorce

and a terrible case of The Empties

Yesterday I got an email from one of my lovely readers who wanted to know how I’m doing. I wasn’t sure how to answer that question because the answer is “I am getting divorced” which I don’t want to talk about, except it’s the only thing I can freaking think about. What the hell is there to say?

The truth, I guess.

And the truth is this: I’m going through a very hard time.

This morning, while I was sipping coffee, Facebook memories served up an article I’d previously written about marriage. Our marriage. The one that belonged to us.

That little word makes my tummy hurt now. 

Still, I managed to smile at the memory.

It was a sweet and honest essay about love. More specifically, about fixing the bits that get broken. My marriage, I said, was like a piece of fine china, that sometimes got chipped and broken—but was never, ever beyond repair. Sigh.

It was like Kintsugi. The Japanese art of fixing things by lining the cracks with gold. We’d dropped the cup, and fixed it up, and I’d studied those places we patched things up like it was my damn job. And for seventeen years, that’s exactly what it was. My job, my life, my identity. My precious little cup, my pride and joy, on display for the world to see. All lined with gold from years of hard work. Seventeen years this summer.

“Nothing precious is broken forever, not if you don’t want it to be.”

That’s what I wrote. And I believed it, too. Every hope-filled word.

But now, my little cup is shattered. 

Divorce. 

I hate that fucking word. 

I’ve hated it since I was kindergartener sitting on the couch eating ice cream with my mom while she said things that made no sense at the time. 

Dad isn’t coming home, but you are so, so loved. Don’t cry. Everything will be ok.

I didn’t feel okay, but at least there was ice cream.

I have to admit that helped just a little. 

Last night, I opened a pint of ice cream. 

My favorite: peaches and sweet cream biscuits by Jenni’s. I peeked in on the kids to make sure they were distracted, then I tiptoed down the hall to my room. I closed the door, turned on the shower, wrapped myself in a towel, and sat down on the shower floor with a tub of Jenni’s. Everything was terrible.

But at least there was ice cream. 

Right?

Wrong.

It tasted like cardboard.

I dumped it all out like a sad sandcastle, and watched it all melt down the drain, which for some freaking reason, struck me as sad. So I cried and I cried and I shaved my armpits and let the disassociation carry me away.

And that’s where I am still standing today.

No, not in the shower you weirdos.

I’m here.

*waving*

Smack dab in the middle of a terrible place that I like to call:

The Empties.

It’s a place where ice cream tastes like cold cardboard and cheese dip tastes like warm cardboard. It’s a terrible purgatory of emotional processing between Hope and Just Letting Go. All those big feelings just overwhelm the circuit board and at some point, it all gets switched off.

I’ve been told The Empties are a safety feature. 

A built in emergency shut down lever to slow down emotional processing. So I can keep doing impossibly hard things.

Like getting divorced.

And washing my hair.

So, to the kind reader who reached out to check on me, and wanted to know how I’m doing…the answer is: I don’t know yet.

I’m just standing here living in The Empties. I’m in emotional purgatory processing feelings.

I’m numb.

But I think that I’m making it.