This could really be the end

I have been waiting to share the postcards of our holidays and to write what has, in years past, been a Christmas letter and will be a New Year's letter, until the divorce is finalized.  Today, I believe is that day.

Last September, I was horrified that we would have to return to court, would be proceeding with a trial and that there would be a four-month pause until we could be done. Then I marked anniversary after anniversary off of my calendar -- wedding, the night the crack in my marriage first appeared, the day the fissure expanded as I filed Dissolution of Marriage papers, my attempts in writing to repair what I could, After the grief and the flowers and the deep breathing, I took matters into my own hands, trying to resolve the issues still open, still threatening to pull me in deeper and deeper into the depths of divorce. It's been a lot of work and emotion, but the day is here.

Because of work, we're not actually going to trial, and will hopefully just  be there to go about the business of signing piles of papers and the ritual of raising our hand in agreement that it is finally over. Because of the emotion, I am choosing to sit quietly until it is absolutely time to leave, to put on my court clothes and take the train downtown with my dad.

Then I am choosing to take my parents out for an expensive dinner (not just because steak seems the obvious choice after one marriage is legally undone) to toast all that has been and all that is yet to come. I am not pained that this is over and I've done my grieving for all it took with it when it left. I have not loved the Almost Ex for a very long time and I am much better now and being good to myself.  What it will be is official and a stamp on the identity change in the works for 16 months.

There has been so much conflict that although I've been assured by all the parties and attorneys involved that there is nothing left to dispute, I am not sure what to with the idea that things may go smoothly. I am not sure what to say about the divorce that may really happen after all.

My dad says it is because I've become accustomed to always waiting for the other shoe to drop. This is true. On the other side of that, though, I've had these few weeks to pull back and into myself and that has helped me be present, feel what I am feeling and be OK with not being "on" or centered or perfectly fine.

And Christmas Eve brought me something I will take with me tomorrow. As the music played in church and my favorite moment of the year unwound, I began to cry. And I cried and I cried and I cried. The tears rolled down while I sang hymns and while we prayed and while I sat in the pew with my family in the dark and quiet of the sanctuary. They weren't sad tears, though. Instead, I thought that night and still believe, I was letting go of the sadness and pain still settled in a space in me that is ready to be filled by better things.  It felt good. It was cathartic. I was relieved.

So I will go today, optimistic enough and experienced enough to know that I very well may emerge a woman no longer married. I will go, ready for the next part and open to who or what may fill the space that is waiting. I will go ready to write the words in our New Year's letter and to finally tell the final part of that story.

I am tired of writing about this. I am more tired of living it. Today, let us hope and pray upon the Pearls of Believability, it will be done.

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Right after I explained to him what divorce means

Tomorrow is the court date I never thought would come. I've kept as much as I can from Lil E about this long and winding process while still trying as hard as I can to be honest about what's really going on. His memories of us being a family of three are beginning to fade and he is content in each of what he calls his "three homes" -- with me, with his dad and with my parents.

But I needed to tell him at dinner tonight that my mom would be picking him up from school. And because he is the kid he is, he needed to know absolutely every detail of the arrangement. Including where I would be. And saying "at a meeting with Daddy" just didn't cut it.

So, as I do with my boy, I put it out there. Just laid it out right there on the dining room table.

I told him that after being separate for a long time, it was time for a judge to say that my marriage to his dad was over. That it is called divorce. And that after it happens, we would not be married at all anymore.

He gets the concept of being single (and God help me for the judgment which will surely come, if not from you then from myself) because of the Beyonce song I so like to crank and he so likes to do interpretive dance to while we both sing ridiculously and loudly. And he looked off while he processed what the end of a marriage would mean for his parents.

I asked him how he felt about that. He said "fine" quickly and quietly. And then he looked up at me very seriously and said, "I'm just so sad that we cannot take a piece of paper to the judge to tell her the story of Mommy and Daddy and Lil E and how we used to live all together and what happened before you and Daddy had trouble talking and solving problems and we lived all separate. I just think she should know."

He looked with those big brown eyes and I both melted and sat straighter in my chair. I told him we couldn't take a paper to the judge but we could certainly tell the story ourselves. I would write the words and he could draw the pictures. He nodded, and that's what we did.

I pulled out the big roll of paper and bin of markers and we went to work on the hardwood floor. Of course, it wasn't just a concession for a child. It was good for me too. But what was better was that he was working it out in his head and we were putting all that on paper so we could see the big picture. We could see "the hard stuff and the good stuff," as he told me later. It was all there in its simplest form.

A few snapshots of our story follow after the jump.

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Pardon the dust

You may need to slide some of those disposable booties over your precious leather buckle boots, kittens, because there's a little bit of construction going on here at Sassafrass.

It was time to clear up some of the mayhem in the sidebars, including the random coding and lovely widgets malformed into god-awful sizes due to my complete impatience with anything that requires reading more than four steps (this is why I must stay far, far away from Ikea, my friends). Thank goodness there are lovely and talented designers to take the power tools out of my hands and politely escort me down the ladder in my five-inch platforms.

Who am I kidding? The truth is that I would never, ever give over my beloved power tools (well, except in the case of desperately wanting a divorce and only knowing that my dad would totally have a drill ready to wrap up for me at the next holiday, which he did, hallelujah) and that I am quite adept at climbing in my own shoes, thank you very much. It's just this blog-tech-HTML business I am not so handy or interested in doing myself. It will all be pretty and orderly soon enough, and you'll be able to peruse a nice list of fabulous single parent bloggers, click on links to where you can read all the writing I do on boobs and periods (and to think, you were missing out on all that during simpler Sassafrass times) and not feel bombarded by crazy fonts and whatnot.

In the meantime, I may need to borrow this for a bit.

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