I live in a pretty small town. Grocery shopping takes a while because it has a large social component to it. I know where the Sheriff has coffee and have joined him on occasion. My children get irritated because wherever they are, somebody knows their parents. When my ex and I split, it got around quick.
Being married for a long time, being local to the community, having numerous children come up through the school system, I already knew the split would be cause for fodder. Fodder is the perfect word, by the way. It isn’t just food for the gossips. It’s inferior or readily available food. Food for a big demand. Crap food because folks tend to dine on the crap gossip pretty readily. And if it isn’t inferior enough, they will add their own to the story until it becomes shitty enough to be worth their time.
Splitting up is hard, even when you are ready, even when it is the only option, even when you couldn’t stay together if you wanted to. After nearly two decades together, there are simply ties that will never be broken. Memories that will never be forgotten. Joys that can never be dulled and pain that can never be healed. That’s just the basics. That’s when there is no one involved but the two of you. It is already so painfully hard.
But it is never just the two of you. If you are lucky, you will be surrounded by those who understand that it is hard. Understand that things don’t happen over night. Understand that a marriage that lasted as long as mine did obviously has hundreds of memories that the masses – even those closest to us – know nothing about. They understand that feelings are hurt, pride is assaulted, dreams are over, goals are deleted, hearts are broken, and ideals are undone. They understand that in this state there is ill will and different perspectives and versions of history that will not match depending on from whose vantage point it is being related. And they understand that the greatest kindest that can be extended to those they love is to simply not make it any harder.
I think very few of us get lucky in this regard. I’ve seen it happen once and it was a beautiful thing. I was so hopeful for a sliver of that luck. Maybe I got just a sliver. But not much more. The truth is that motives are everywhere. I don’t claim to know what they are, but the evidence of them is clear.
And please do not misunderstand me. I am not speaking about “sides.” While clearly there have been some who have opted to declare sides, I do not acknowledge them. Unless you want to talk about my children. I will always choose that side. But in the matter of the dissolution of a couple, choosing sides, especially when not necessary (and it is rarely necessary), only serves to inflame and make harder that which is already painful. So I do not speak of “sides” or what whose side has done to what side because I do not acknowledge sides. Call that irresponsible because maybe it is. Call it not acknowledging the way things are as that may also be true. Categorize that any way you like. It changes my opinion none. Feeding into the notion of sides does nothing more than exacerbate the situation. That situation, by the way, is also my life and the lives of my children. It is not an inanimate thing that plays on a storyboard for the enjoyment and distraction of the masses.
I was confronted about some of these storyboards recently. I was asked if the split occurred because my ex husband beat me all the time as that was the fodder that had been heard around town. The notion made me laugh. Not because it isn’t a serious accusation. But because that’s just how small towns work. And that was the answer I gave. “Yeah, I heard it was because I was running around fucking all these different guys. You know how small town bullshit works.”
And there is a lot of small town bullshit in those two grossly inaccurate (but admittedly yummy) accounts of what went on in a nearly 20 year long marriage.
That is one of the most interesting parts of the small town bullshit. The town, while small, is made up of some pretty smart people. Members of both sides of our family are pretty smart people. We are not the first couple to split. Neither are we the first couple to do so with fairly different perspectives about what our marriage looked like on the inside. One would think that most people would default to the idea that they probably are forming opinions concerning something they know very little, in most cases nothing, about. And even if accurate and intimate knowledge can be had, one would also think that we were all adult enough to realize what is and isn’t any of our business. That there are some life choices so personal and so nuanced that you don’t get to have a say concerning the choices another person makes.
But alas, that is not always the way it works, especially in a small town. Conversations get overheard, bits of information get twisted, confidences in moments of anger get shared, heartbreak creates hyperbole, and general childishness fuels the rest. And in the middle of the terrible tangled mess there is still the divorce which was already super hard and painful all by itself. And it sits there watching those who could have made it easier, who could have made it better for those they claim to care about, instead pour gas on the flames and instigate the storm. And sometimes the fire hits its mark and consumes, the imagined battle is won, and the general of the fight, who had no real stake in the war to begin with, feels pride at the perceived defeat. Pride and justification at the destruction. The destruction, I need remind you, that was already there. That was already hard. That had already devoured the causalities it sought to claim.
So here, on the event of my divorce, I answer the call of those who want to make this harder. Who want to feel a kind of way that they really aren’t entitled to feel. To judge in a way that they truly aren’t educated to judge. To promote and enhance and expound upon ideas of which they are not privy in ways that accomplish nothing outside of boosting their own self importance through the attempted humiliation of another.
My answer is I wish you the best. And I say that with all sincerity and truth. How do I know (more importantly how can you know) that it is sincere and true? Because, in all frankness, I know the work I put in for the answer to not be “fuck you.” It was a lot of work. A. Lot. I am not proud of that. I thought I was a better person. I thought that would be easier. But honestly, some of y’all fuckers really know how to grind a girl’s damn nerves.
I am proud of the work. And I am proud of the person I am becoming. I am proud of the choices I am making. I am excited about my life and all the people and things in it. Regardless of the small town bullshit.
Oh and I hear you. I hear you so loud it’s like you are in this kitchen with me. “Fuck her,” you say. “Fuck that crazy bitch with all her bullshit.” I hear you. And I don’t care. You see, the secret is the work I have done, the work I continue to do, the peace that I am finding in myself despite the fear of your backlash, has never been for you or about you. It is about my children, and me, and my future, and those that I love and have relationship with. It is about giving those people who continue to be part of me the absolute best version of myself because that is what they deserve. To be able to gift them that is what I deserve.
And if you still feel compelled to have my name come out of your mouth in any kind of shitty manner, know that I hear you and I don’t give a fuck. Yes, in the spirit of total intellectual honesty, that is in fact a veiled “fuck you.” But I am also working on being comfortable with my humanness and not being perfect. I call it balance. You’re welcome.
12-6-2016