So Over You

While considering the content of a divorce blog about the unfamiliar unmarried world, I asked a friend of mine her opinion of the title, “The Walking Wounded.”

“No,” my happily married friend said abruptly. “Too negative.”
We talked later. “What about ‘So Over You’?” she suggested.
I liked it. That’s where I am, over him; but, I am not over “it.”

When does one get over the divorce; over two decades of a life seemingly lost; over betrayal, emotional torment; over losing beloved family and friends; over the adjustment to new circumstances that divorce, the “wealth buster” brings; over the emptiness of sleeping with mostly a pillow or a handful of characters not to be trusted; over the sadness for the kids?

With this column, I’ll be trying to get over it. Novelist Somerset Maugham considered writing cathartic. He had a bad stammer and it translated into a clubfoot suffered by his character Philip Carey in his masterpiece Of Human Bondage. With writing, Maugham addressed his own pain. So will I.

With “So Over You” I plan to chronicle the end of my divorce that officially started over two years ago. Until that time, my only encounter with the legal system was in traffic court. Today I have been to court dozens of times and sat in welfare agencies whose walls I never imagined. What was supposed to be over in 18 months because there were no custody issues is still quite heated 28 months later.

I am victim of the system, the continuances, the unpaid arrearages accumulated over two years, the magistrate with bad math, the judge who had a heart attack but, hopefully will be able to take the bench when this ugly chapter ends. Getting married was easy with lots of bridesmaids. Getting divorced has been a long lonely road.

As I prepare to move on I remember the old joke about the two whores who move to a new town: One says to the other, “This time we’re going to be virgins.”

There is no turning back; but there is reinvention. I will get through this, and so will you. Not somehow, but triumphantly.

As I embark on my journey I would like to hear from you and how you “so got over him or her.”