What Divorciverssary 2.0 Means To Me
Divorciverssary 2.0
If marriage was the biggest step I ever took, getting divorced was the greatest amount of little steps I had to take.
On May 24, 2012, I appeared in court by myself to dissolve my marriage. It wasn’t what I wanted to do, but since there was no saving the thing, I took full responsibility in putting the thing to rest. At that point, despite having friends I never knew I had (ie, people who stepped up and were especially king), I felt largely alone. There was no contact with the person who was my wife in the morning and ex-wife in the evening. I presumed if she wanted to know the divorce was final, she’d contact me. I think she presumed I would report in like a good dog. Neither happened.
A year later, I rather forced myself (and friend Melissa, whose divorce was finalized within hours of mine) to have a Divorciverssary. It was largely an excuse to gather friends who had been so nice to the two of us on our respective splits and thank them. It was also an attempt to further own the mourning process, which seemed to drag on and on well beyond what it should (in fact, there is no timetable for mourning the loss of a loved one, even if it is at the hand of the clerk of the court).
In 2014, Melissa and I celebrated Divorciverssary 2.0, with many of the same friends and many more. The differences could not have been more stark. First and foremost, there was no talk about our respective exes. Different factions of friends blended together and drifted apart like some human jazz combo. Perhaps most importantly, both Melissa and I had new VERY significant others on the scene.
So what did the second anniversary of my divorce mean? It meant living instead of surviving. It meant, instead of focusing on the end of a chapter, celebrating the continuation of the story. It meant divorcing oneself from any unhealthy element in one’s past and moving forward. As such, it was a party for everyone, not two people who lost their marriages. Everyone in attendance had lost something – sometimes multiple somethings – but they were all standing and happy.
And, by the end of the night, fairly drunk.
Not bad.
VT & SB
Video: “Happy Little Me”
From the CD “Roulette”: http://www.amazon.com/Roulette-Vincen...
