A few hours ago I went to the post office to pick up the certified copy of my divorce papers. It’s real now, official, in print, etc etc that I’m soon going to be single again. But I won’t be single, I’ll be DIVORCED.
That word means different things to different people I think. I’m still struggling with whether it means brave, free, stupid, deficient, tainted, used, or just no-longer-married. I’ve had a roller coaster of emotion since the phone call that let me know the papers were on the way…am I happy to be almost into a new chapter of my life? Am I relieved that what has been, at times, a very unpleasant time in my life is almost over? Or am I back to being out of the norm as far as most of my friends and family are concerned? Unmarried. No children. Over 35.
I’ve just about forgotten who Nancy Elizabeth Allen is, but I suppose I’m going to have to find out…as soon as the judge bangs his or her gavel, that’s who I will return to being, like the Cylons do after death on the TV show Battlestar Galactica. All my old thoughts, feelings, opinions, memories, everything will remain intact, but I’ll be in a new shell, so to speak. A new/old me.
The thing I’ve been struggling with that I thought was just fear of being alone is really a bit deeper than that, and it hit me as I was reading over the court papers. It’s a fear that I will be alone forever…somehow, twisted though it seems, at least while I was still married to Scott I didn’t feel alone even though I was two states and a gazillion emotional miles away.
Watch this space for more developments. You’ll see it here when I pop back into my new body on board the base ship. Too bad I can’t look like Number 3 afterward, hey?
Nancy E. Dunne 