I won’t make it to 50 years with anyone I thought. I did the math in my head. Yeah there is no way I will make it to 50 years with anyone. I don’t have enough years left. Does it really matter? I won’t be missing out on a gold medal or anything. I don’t even think I will be missing out on having a close connection with another person. I will miss out on having a shared history but that requires too much living in the past and I have sworn off doing that.
I still remember the 50th wedding anniversary party held for my Grandparents. It was quite an event – like planning and executing a wedding. My Grandmother wore a beautiful lace dress. There was a huge cake. It was held at a beautiful hotel. Guests brought gifts. I remember my Grandparents standing side by side in front of the gift table for a photo. They weren’t standing close enough to touch each other. What I remember most, because it struck me as so odd at the time, was the triumphant look on my Grandmother’s face. I didn’t understand that look back then. I was in high school at the time. She had triumphed. To her I think it was equivalent to winning an Olympic gold medal. She had made it. She crossed the finish line into the marriage longevity hall of fame. I realize, now that I am older, what an accomplishment that was and why she looked so triumphant. I, on the other hand, have failed. I respect my Grandparents for working to achieve something that was very important to them and their generation. I just don’t know if I place as much value on it. Maybe that is just a defensive attitude because I couldn’t do it but I don’t think so. My Grandfather died a few years after that celebration. I never saw my Grandmother cry over his death. I was jolted back to the present.
“Take the stand please m’am,” I heard someone say in my direction. I walked slowly up to the witness box. “Please raise your right hand and be sworn,” the bailiff said. I did. I was. I sat down. I looked around the courtroom. It was almost empty. He didn’t even bother to show up. I didn’t really expect him to. I was relieved he hadn’t fought the matter in the courts. The judge asked me a few questions. “You may step down now. If you wait the clerk will give you a copy of the divorce decree,” the judge said. That was it. Legally it was over. If only the emotional connection could be severed as quickly and simply as the legal one I thought. I didn’t “feel” anything. That drama – the emotional end -was playing out on a different stage. I moved on to the next task at hand. I had to get back to the office.
Have you ever noticed that unhappiness just kind of creeps up on you like vines growing on a trellis? A vine starts with gentle tendrils. The tendrils grow large and strong and become vines. If left alone, without any pruning or tending, these vines will warp and eventually break the trellis. So it is that little tendrils of unhappiness ever so surreptitiously start clinging to our soul. Some unhappiness is good as it helps us to grow and mature. However those tendrils of unhappiness can grow and grow until, if left unattended, they choke your soul. This is not sorrow. Sorrow is palpable and real. It makes itself known. This is not real depression. Depression has you totally in its grip.
Unhappiness is insidious. It is so easily disguised or explained as a momentary response to a temporary, unfortunate situation. It can be so easily ignored. It is so very dangerous because we can become accustomed to that emotional state and we stop being able to recognize when momentary unhappiness grows and becomes something more. We must always keep our finger on the pulse of our happiness or the tendrils of unhappiness will become vines and choke us. We must prune and tend. I let my unhappiness go for far too long. By the time I realized how unhappy I was it had much too strong a hold on me. Pruning and tending were ineffective. I had to tear the vine out by its roots and in the process my soul was irrevocably damaged.
“Mom, mom,” Jessica greeted me at the door when I arrived home from the office. It was about 7 pm. I had left for the office around 7 a.m. It was the day after Christmas. Usually the children came to greet me at the door when I arrived home. Today they didn’t. There was an eerie silence in the house. “Where are Ellen and Samuel?” Where is your Dad? “ I asked Jessica. She was clinging to me silently with her head buried in my stomach. “David, Ellen, Samuel,” I called out. No one answered. “Jessica you have to let go of me,” I said. Jessica finally looked up at me and said, “Mom, Dad broke all of Samuel’s toys with a baseball bat. He smashed them to pieces!” I started up the stairs to Samuel’s bedroom. I could see that the door to his room was closed. Jessica was still clinging to my waist. I felt like I was going to throw up. I pushed open the door to Samuel’s bedroom. Broken pieces of toys covered the floor. The ramp to the hot wheels garage he had just excitedly opened yesterday was in pieces on the floor in the middle of the room. I recognized other pieces of toys he had received for Christmas just yesterday. I was now calling frantically for Ellen and Samuel. David was nowhere to be found or so it seemed. I walked next door into Ellen’s room. She and Samuel were seated together on the floor playing with some of her toys. None of her toys were broken. I hugged and kissed them and then I went looking for David. He was in our bedroom. “How could you do that? You need to get out of the house right now!” I shouted at him. He said nothing. I think I shouted at him a while longer. He still said and did nothing.
Emulating my upbringing I went downstairs and fixed dinner. David remained in the bedroom. At dinner I talked a little bit but, for the most part, the children and I ate in silence. We didn’t discuss what happened. I had Jessica do her homework. I bathed the younger two and put them to bed. Samuel slept in Ellen’s room that night as I was too exhausted to clean his room. I would do it tomorrow night I said to myself. I closed the door to his room and told the children to stay out of there. I fell into bed exhausted. I convinced myself that it was better to maintain some order and predictably after such an ordeal. It was as if David had smashed our marriage to pieces that night along with the toys. I closed the door on the relationship that night as I closed the door to Samuel’s room with the broken toys in it. I knew then that I would file for divorce. The marriage had been broken for a long time.
TO BE CONTINUED.....
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