On the evening of my 3rd wedding anniversary, my boyfriend sat patiently on the floor, tinkering with my vacuum with a Phillips screwdriver. Yep, you read that right, and if I ever do decide to write my novel based on my experiences as well as those of my friends with the crippling pain of divorce, that will be the first line of it. Today I was already starting to feel anxiety in the anticipation of my 3rd anniversary tomorrow. After work, I spoke to my boyfriend on the phone about our days and about hanging out tonight. We made small talk about what we were doing after work: I was going to Walmart to pick up a new vacuum, and he was going to mow the lawn. He said that he would come over after he had finished mowing the lawn. Typically when we hang out during the week, we don't do a whole lot - just hang out watching TV/movies and relax. So this night was shaping up to be pleasant but nondescript. After we finished eating dinner, he asked me about the new vacuum and why I bought it. I told him that the old vacuum had stopped picking stuff up and was just pushing it around. After a lot of frustration with trying to see what was wrong with it and the increasing mess in my apartment, I gave up and decided to get a new vacuum. My boyfriend suggested that my vacuum might just have a clog in it and asked to have a look. Before I knew it, I had handed him a Phillips screwdriver, and he was sitting on the floor taking the vacuum apart, removing all sorts of strange objects and large clogs. Inexplicably, I was struck with such a warm feeling in my heart and a feeling of absolute joy that I almost couldn't stand it. I was so touched by his kindness, by such a small act on his part to save me the cost of my new vacuum, that I actually had to go into the other room so that he couldn't see the tears welling up in my eyes. I was so filled with extreme happiness that I was shaking. When he finished with the vacuum, I hugged him and told him how thankful I am that he fixed my vacuum and now has allowed me to return the new one. He simply said "no big deal" and sat back down to watch Family Guy. While this moment is seemingly mundane, I don't think that I will ever forget this.
Crazy? I used to think so. But after going through a separation and the process of divorce, I am used to these extreme moments. Since my ex-husband left in November after revealing his string of affairs spanning the course of our marriage and also while we were engaged, I have been experiencing things that I've called unexplained moments of indescribable sadness and pure joy. They come at the darndest times and often for the silliest reasons, which is why I consider them to be somewhat unexplained. For example, I remember the first time that I went grocery shopping since my ex-husband left. I don't remember what it is that I bought, or even where I went, but I remember the feeling. Since we started living together almost five years ago now at this point, I have always been responsible for the grocery shopping for him and me. And it's something that I truly enjoyed doing. I enjoyed playing the part of the wife, planning meals and cooking them for my husband. But that time that I went to the grocery store to shop only for myself for the first time in a long time was an unexplained moment of indescribable sadness. I remember standing in the middle of the aisle at the grocery store. I was trying to look at the shelves, but everything was blurry and I honestly didn't know what I was looking at. I was trembling and crying. My stomach felt like it was going to fall in the floor. I experienced such a tightness in my chest that I could barely breathe. I don't recall the specifics, but I think I left that place with nearly none of the things I needed. It was all I could do to have enough strength to go to the checkout and pay for my groceries.
I had another such unexplained moment of indescribable sadness as well as anger earlier this week when I was filling out paperwork for a new part-time job that I will start in the fall. I am so glad to have this job, a lab instructor in some English classes at Howard Community College, because it will help pay for grad school as well as give me some valued college teaching experience on my CV. Unfortunately, my going-through-a-divorce mind nearly caused me to have a meltdown as a result of filling out the dreaded W-2, I-9, and Maryland State tax forms. The sections where I had to check off boxes saying whether I was single, married, married but filing jointly, married but withholding at single, etc, seemed to be the most daunting enemies I had faced in a while. I became incredibly sad, then angry. I thought that when I became married that those sections would be easy. I thought that when I became married I would never again have to think about how to fill out those sections. Isn't that one of the benefits of being married - tax breaks and filing joint tax returns? What hte hell was that all about? Instead, I was feeling the pressure of being in a very strange in between position - my first divorce hearing in court comes up on July 19th. My hand was trembling as I tried valiantly to come up with the best possible answer for those questions. Even worse were the emergency contact questions. On several forms, I had to fill out questions about who my emergency contact was. Again, wasn't that the frigging point of getting married???? To have someone who is supposed to take care of you for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, til death do you part???? I believe that the emergency contact is covered in this clause!!! This one made me especially angry... I've been plopped in the state of Maryland for no other reason than the fact that I followed my ex-husband here for his job. My closest family is my brother and his wife and children, who live two and a half hours away My parents live three and a half hours away in New Jersey. Who in the world could be my emergency contact? This question also nearly reduced me to tears and made me incredibly sad. However, I put my big girl pants on. Ain't nobody got time to be sitting around feeling sorry for yourself. I put down my good friend Kelli down as my emergency contact. She has been a rock and a source of strength and inspiration for me. Sometimes you have to make your own family, and that's what I've been doing.
Yes, these moments are strange and can hit at any moment for any stupid reason. You just have to ride out the bad ones and not let them deter you from what you want to do. But when you do get those elusive moments of pure joy that is so delicious that you can barely keep from exploding with happiness, just ride the wave. One such moment that gets me through the hard times occurred for me on Super Bowl Sunday. I've spent the past I don't know how many Super Bowls hanging out with my husband. However, Super Bowl Sunday was one moment of pure happiness that I'll never forget. My girlfriends and I got together in our sweatpants, painted our nails, and ate junk food. I remember looking around at us and thinking of how wonderful life truly was. I was barely a month out of being separated, and my other two girlfriends had also recently been separated. In spite of this, I experienced such true happiness on that night because I had the feeling that everything was going to be OK, even though I was going through the worst depression of my life at that point. And that's why it's an unexplained moment of pure joy - why in the world would anyone get reduced to a moment of pure joy by painting nails in sweatpants watching a team no one really cared about (no offense Ravens fans) because we were all transplants to the area? But that's what happens sometimes. Even though I do get struck by incredible sadness, the joyful moments, however bizarre, unexplained, and OK, crazy I might think they are, they are what has kept me going in this painful yet ultimately fulfilling journey.
No comments:
Post a Comment