A Different Kind of 7-year Itch

14 December 2018. It was a Friday. The winter rain was coming down heavy enough to require an umbrella and force recess time indoors. We were having Tacky Sweater Day at work. The one I wore likened me to an elf with a candy cane tucked in her belt and the knitted hood resembled the top of a Whoville Christmas tree. I tossed a light-up necklace around my neck for a bit of extra flair. We still had another week left in school before the holiday break, every person in the building hoping for as little chaos as possible and for the flu germs to stay out of their travel plans.

My phone occasionally vibrated with the usual notifications throughout the day. But there was one email that came through that shifted the mood to match the weather: "Wynne vs. Wynne".

Our divorce had finalized.

I moved at a near-run to find the closest quiet space in our school building so I could cry alone for a moment before returning to my classroom. My work mom (also named Vickie, just spelled in variance) had seen my panicky pace and followed me to the copy room. In her usual dry but loving support, Vickie reminded me that this was just a piece of paper that declared what I already knew. But she also understood its significance. She had been through it herself, just under different circumstances in a different decade. So she sat with me while I let it all out and then tried to erase the evidence from my face before teaching my next class. I don't remember how I made it through the rest of my classes that day. But I do remember my errand after the last bell.

I drove myself to the package store in the shopping center in search of something that came in caramel color and with notes of sherry and orchard fruit. I didn't bother with an umbrella for the short jaunt across the parking lot. There were eyes on me the moment I walked in, eyes that followed as I beelined for a bottle on the top shelf of the whiskey section. I held the bottle of Aberlour 12 by the neck and set it down at the register, the eyes now ready with questions.

"My divorce was finalized today," I said to the two men behind the counter. They looked at each other, looked at me again with tiny smirks. That's when I realized their questions weren't about the scowl on my face or my rain-frazzled hair, but rather at how I was dressed. My necklace was still flashing in mocking merriment. I gestured at myself. "Oh, and it was Tacky Sweater Day at work."

The two men laughed. "Be honest--did your marriage end because you have better taste in scotch than your ex?" This elicited a smile on my end. "Something like that," I chuckled.

Festive AF paired with seasonal depression, as anyone should be on Divorce Day.

Michael had moved out in July of that summer. We had tried a change of scene by moving houses the previous year, hoping it might be what our marriage needed to breathe life back into it. But after several months where one of us inevitably chose to sleep on the couch each night, we finally looked at each other and asked, "What are we doing?" We knew we were no example of what a happy, healthy set of parents should be for our child. We hadn't been for a long time. The next day, we started looking for a lawyer to share and take the path of least resistance out of our partnership.

Within the first month of Michael moving out, the Universe threw me curveballs, spitballs, and strikes square in the box. All three of the toilets in the house went on the fritz. The kitchen sink began to leak inside the cabinet space. I even sprained my foot so badly stepping off my back porch that upon injury, I relented to the pain and just laid there in the nighttime grass, convinced I had broken it and wouldn't be able to get back indoors. Worse? It was in that moment I realized I could no longer utilize Michael as my emergency contact.

Stepping into divorce also meant there was the removal of Michael's name from the utilities. Separating our family phone plan. Refinancing everything so I could manage car payments in smaller bites when my student loans kicked in from my newly-acquired graduate degree.

That degree is still in the carboard tube in which it was delivered.

When the divorce finalization came through that December afternoon, I had gained traction in the stuff of daily life. Vickie had helped me find a good plumber and told me she was good for a ride to the ER. What was difficult on that day was wanting to go home, crawl into bed, and burn off the sadness through a long night of sleep. But I had a 7-year-old who was ready for a cup of hot chocolate and a ride around town to look at holiday lights. She always squealed "Momma!" with pure glee every time I picked her up from her after school program, and she added an extra giggle upon seeing me in my tacky sweater at pick-up. While her joy was contagious, that particular evening was a tough one to settle into as her mother when I was the one who wanted and needed mothering. Just for the night.

Today marks seven years since the legal death of my marriage. Looking at the woman in the elf sweater every December when she pops up on that damn app the reminds us of our lives in previous years, I can see the volumes of events that locked into their places along the timeline in between. There has been loss, growth, adventure, hardship, and hope.

The personal growth? I'm a fan of goal-setting and accomplishing whatever is in my power. Hyperindependence has become a default setting as a result, though. Asking for help is my least favorite thing to do because I want to prove that I can handle it all on my own. But every time I check, there doesn't seem to be anyone handing out medals for managing motherhood, a career, homeownership, hobbies, and the weight of trauma when you're doing life without a partner to see you through it all. It sucks. Not because I want a medal. But because sometimes I just want to come home to dinner already made or the trash already at the curb. And maybe a forehead kiss.

When it comes to relationships post-divorce, this woman has loved bigger than she imagined she could. She has run the gamut of relationship experiences, from taking someone to court for extreme harassment to introducing someone to her mom. She has been lied to by many and then lived in skepticism in the immediate aftermath. She has learned to establish boundaries early and fully enact them, the consequence being the loss of her good graces. She has had her heart broken wide open--twice. She's been all in. She's been indifferent. She even had an "almost", of sorts. One that she finds extremely difficult to shake.

After wrangling some emotions just below the surface today, I had to take a moment and look at this woman now. Seven years in. I have perimenopausal brain fog and skin that is starting to turn to crepe. But I have my health, a classroom I'm proud of, and a teenager who still requests hugs on the daily. There is a continuous cycle of blooming and allowing for the necessary time to lie dormant. And dammit, I've learned how to do all kinds of shit without anyone's help, like hang ceiling fans and start fires from a long match and dryer lint. I'm far better and stronger today than I was seven years ago, including metrics outside of basic household electrical. And while I possess some anxiety over the dimples forming in my thighs, I still live with the hope that my person is out there, not knowing what's about to hit him, but he will be grateful when it does. Then he will have dinner waiting for us on the hard days and be ready with that forehead kiss when I have to call him in emergency situations.

Seven years get you to itching in divorce. For companionship and two names on the utilities and knowing exactly which bottle to grab on the way home. But I'll tell you this: being in a divorced chapter for this long should be proof I'm not willing to settle. Not in my partner or in my taste in whiskey.

Seven years later, to the day.