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Wednesday, March 14, 2007
THE LAST DAY OF OUR ACQUAINTANCE
Sinead O'Connor
I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got
Chrysalis : 1990
[Buy It]
GO WHERE YOU WANNA GO
The Mamas and the Papas
If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears
Dunhill : 1966
[Buy It]
A NEW ENGLAND
Billy Bragg
Life's a Riot with Spy Vs. Spy
Charisma : 1983
[Buy It]
On the day after a Valentine's Day made glorious by your great song suggestions and a steady chocolate IV, my divorce came through. A lone piece of paper in a thin, yellow, self-addressed stamped envelope arrived in my mailbox. Seeing my own handwriting and the stamps I had, (sadly, defiantly, resignedly? which was I that day) applied only a couple months before, was very odd. As a literary magazine editor, the "SASE" as we call it, is an instrument of a not-so-different form of heartbreak and rejection (your story/poem isn't good enough so we're returning it; you failed at marriage so we're returning you).
I thought this moment would bring elation. I had even talked of a big "divorce party," where everyone I know, including my ex, would celebrate. We're still friends, after all, and this is what we both want. Most people I've heard of go through agonizingly long battles involving lawyers, financial dispute, and in some cases, custody. We had none of that. The only property (and our version of a child) we shared was a 1993 Nissan Sentra, which, due to my relocating to the impossible-to-park-in East Village and his to LA, I let him have without a fight. But all that ease did not in fact lend itself to joy or party planning. Some relief yes, particularly that I had beaten the arcane, labyrinthine New York state court system, whose representatives told me again and again, "Get a lawyer. You'll never get it right on your own." Trumping the thrill of conquest, though, was the agonizing first moment of accepting my new adjective: "divorced." Who ever expects to bear that word? It's the thing that happens to other people, most certainly not to thirty-three-year-old me. It's horribly sad, and, even if it's for the best, is another way that life has failed to resemble anything I thought it would.
Last week, at the eye doctor, I was filling out a new patient form. There it was: "Marital status: married, single, divorced, widowed." I stared at those little boxes for a very long time. Why must they know? How is this relevant to my contact lens prescription? I contemplated just checking off "single," not a lie, but felt that truth was in order and checked the dreaded d-word. Just when I thought the agony was over, the next section: "emergency contact"! My God. Who would it be now? And who makes up these questions? I'll tell you who: a cabal of self-satisfied married people. I know because I'm a former member. I'm supposed to keep my mouth shut about the whole thing, but if you're nice, someday I'll teach you the secret handshake.Labels: classic, joanna, pop
posted by Joanna
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