Take One Ring Off, Put Another Ring On

On August 1, 37 years and 3 months after my marriage began, I finally became officially divorced.  The judge signed and stamped the documents, and in the name of the government, my first marriage is now legally over.  In all other ways, the marriage has been over for a long time, with a legal separation of 4 years and a growing chasm in the relationship for a decade prior to that.  Yet, I had no idea how I would feel once the court decreed me officially single for the first time since I was 23 years old.  The answer?   I was - and am - feeling,  happy, relieved, and complete, and calmly ready for the next chapter.

The reality is that my marriage did not end in acrimony, and my ex and I remain far more than civil, though you can't really call it friends.  We gave birth to two incredible individuals, and we remain united as their loving, proud parents.  For years we had a satisfying and strong relationship; I have no need to deny it nor forget it.  It's just plain over now, no longer right for who we are today.  Unconventionally, my ex and I still live in the same building we lived in while married, though now have it separated into two different apartments.  He is upstairs; my new life partner and soon-to-be-husband are downstairs.  It works for us, at least for now.  Really.

But I think the greatest contributor to feeling at peace rather than feeling in mourning nor celebratory has been the process of leaving, the process of figuring out who I am in the world as just me.  It has often been rocky, and I've written about the ups and downs of single life, baring more, perhaps, than was wise in an effort to get in touch with my own feelings.

Here I am now, 60 years old, single in the eyes of the law, in a committed relationship that is so permanent and loving, and which will be legally recognized as marriage 69 days from today, so ready to share the rest of my life with Andy, so sure of myself and my comittment to marriage - again.  I recognize that if my life was the fodder for tabloids, it would read something like, "10 weeks after she divorce, she remarried", and it would sound all rushed and rebound-like.  But nothing could be farther from the truth.  What is seen in the eyes of the law only tells a teense of the story.