Day One.

Bryan and I are separating. For those that know us from afar it is probably a shock, but those that know us intimately know that this has been a long time coming. It is not a decision that I made on the spur of the moment or flippantly – I have been contemplating this since last June. Probably longer if I really think about it.

I don’t really want to think about it. Unfortunately I can’t think about anything else.

After months of back and forth, yesterday at 8:30 in the morning, I sat down next to Bryan on the couch and asked him to move out. For a while now I’ve been saying that I thought it might be a good idea. Yesterday, I said to him that I knew – not just thought – it was the right decision. It is time – before any more damage is done, before we end up hating each other, before – most importantly, to me – I diminish back to the scared child I have been for so many years of our marriage and change my mind.

As I got ready for work, after talking with Bryan, I looked in the mirror. “This is it,” I thought to myself. “Day one as a ‘single’ woman.” I felt like I should take a picture to document the space in time, but really I just wanted to crawl back in bed and cry myself to sleep. In the end I did neither – I went to work instead. I know this because I ended up in my office eventually, numb, wondering how the hell I got there. The drive in, moments before, was a mere ghost memory.

I have a friend who recently miscarried. Everything she sees – on TV, on Facebook, when talking to her friends – is about babies, she claims. She can’t escape it. Now I understand. That’s how the rest of my day went…

I attended a noontime lunch and learn on Conflict Resolution. Ten minutes into the presentation the presenter started to talk about email. “Remember that you are sending the email to a person. A person who might be having a bad day, who is going thru a divorce…”

Cue the tears. I tried to hold them back, but eventually left the room and went and sat with a friend. An hour later the presenter – someone who I’ve worked with quite extensively over the past year – stopped me. “What did you think of the lunch and learn?” he asked.

“I had to leave.”

“I know. What did you think?”

“I had to leave because you mentioned divorce and I just told my husband I want a divorce.”

“It’s a healthy boundary to set,” he replied. “You are on a journey of growth and not everyone is going to come with you.”

Funny how a relative stranger knows me better than my own husband. This person, whom I work with and talk to one day out of the month, sees this positive growth, this incredibly journey and supports me. My husband thinks I’m becoming an uppity bitch.

After work I headed to a friend’s house for dinner. She served desert on plates that read, “I truly do!” with caricatures of wedding rings. “Stop it!” I silently yelled at the universe as I held back the tears again.

As I drove home late last night, the tears couldn’t be held back anymore. The closer I got to our home, to our neighborhood, to our town, I started to weep silent tears that eventually turned into sobs that shook me. I’m losing it. Losing it all – my home, my community, my identity, my flippin’ name, my extended family, my marriage… my husband. And I choose this! I choose this because losing all that doesn’t outweigh losing myself, but that wasn’t holding the solace it should.

I came home to an empty house, not sure if Bryan was coming home or staying with a friend. “Well, this is it. This is what it is going to be like. Put your big girl pants on,” I said to myself as I got out of the car. I headed to the mailbox – at 11:00 at night – because no one else had been home to get it. “The mail will be picked up at 11:00 at night now.” A stupid thought – but profound.

There were three pieces of mail in the box – a wedding invitation and two thank you cards for weddings we had attended over the summer.

“Seriously?!” I exclaimed out loud. I text my friend who recently miscarried…. “I… get… it.”

Bryan came home a short time later. “You okay?” he asked.

“No,” I replied. How the fuck am I supposed to be okay?! “You?”

“I am now. I cried so hard at my therapy appointment today that I embarrassed myself. My therapist had to get up and hug me. I just couldn’t stop crying. I kept thinking about how I am going to miss Cain.”

The dog. He’s going to miss the dog.

This might have come too late. I went to bed, alone, on the couch – hating him with every fiber of my being.