| 17 shades of weirdness |
Jun 8, 2008 5:11 pm
Mood: one of the 17 shades of weird, 436 Views | The n-ex has finally done what I've been asking him to do the last 3 years....he signed the divorce papers. Last Friday. Very uneventful seeing as he waited so long to do this. I was expecting something, I don't know, different.
The Lizard's age was wrong on the petition and the dissolution so we had to sit in the lawyer's office while he ran off new copies. I felt like telling jokes into the silence. But I didn't feel depressed, or empty, or even relieved. I felt....nothing.
We drove there together - part of the 17 shades of weirdness - and when we got into the car the n-ex looks at me and says "that was quick." He's smiling. Smiling? Maybe he's become as happy to have this over as I am, even though he's been letting go much slower. I let go before I asked for the divorce. For me, this is the last nail in the coffin I closed someplace around 1995. That was when I knew he wasn't going to change and I needed to get out. But circumstances kept me there until 2004 when I finally asked for the divorce, and asked him to leave.
So we drove there together. Stopped at McDonald's and bought the kids' lunch. Dropped it at my house then went out to lunch ourselves at Red Lobster.
Three springs ago we were sitting in the same Red Lobster discussing the divorce. Nothing heated. We had purposely gone to a public place to do it in so neither of us would get emotional. Our waitress commented on something the n-ex said and how he was a "keeper" to which he told her what we were doing there. This prompted a discussion aboout her and her first husband who have a amicable divorce, even used the same lawyer. So did the n-ex and I.
Anyway, we've seen that waitress off and on since then because this restaurant became the place we'd go to discuss things. That same waitress was there Friday. She wasn't our waitress, but she saw us and stopped, all smiles, said she had been thinking about us because we hadn't been by in awhile. Asked how we were. We told her we finally signed the papers. She congratulated us.
Thing is, none of this felt weird even though talking about it makes it all seem so odd. But it's how things have been between he and I. Probably a good testament to the marriage.
So all that remains now is I have to file the paperwork at the courthouse. I'm pleading a Pauper's Petition, not wanting to pay the lawyer another $225 to be there with me, plus $480 in court costs, to finish this.
After all this time it came down to less than 20 minutes in the lawyer's office. Then there will be another 10 minutes or so to plead the petition, and maybe 10 more to pronounce me legally divorced. Not even an hour, to officially end 25 years of marriage.
But it's also, finally, over. Not officially in the state of Illinois, they need to have a judge stamp the seal on the paperwork and give me a file number. But getting those papers signed meant the end to me.
My heart let go years ago. I physically removed myself three years ago. Now I can legally remove myself. Maybe this would have all felt different had there not been so many years leading up to it. Maybe it would have felt like something. It doesn't. Not anymore. That went away years ago. All it feels now is one of those shades of weird. | |
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