It seems like no matter what your circumstances are or what age you are, there’s always a sense of limbo that becomes the center of small talk. When you’re single it’s “who are you dating”, when you get married, it’s “when will you have kids”, when you get older it’s “when will you retire”. I guess after you retire it stops because it actually is rude to ask someone when they’re going to die. ok well that took a morbid turn -.-
Anyways, there’s another version of limbo no one really talks about: the period after you separate from your spouse and are deciding on reconciliation or the dun-dun-DUN....D word (divorce). When you’re not single but
Earlier this year, I separated from my husband, moved myself and my cat to a small town I had only ever *been* to a handful of times, and started completely over. My experience will fill a whole other post so in this one I’ll concentrate (haha) on the limbo part.
I haven’t been super-public about the separation but I haven’t been private about it either if that makes sense. Basically if it comes up in conversation I’ll tell people but I don’t just go around “hey-o lookie at me and what I did...”. The first thing people ask is whether we’re going to get divorced. Like......wat? I don’t freaking know! I just turned my entire life upside down and am trying to let the emotions work themselves out and stabilize before I make any more life altering decisions OK???
For a bit I questioned my decision. Shouldn’t I have known what the outcome was going to be? Does not knowing mean I made the wrong decision? Was I supposed to “just know” just like when you fall in love? *snort* WELL let me just tell you. If there’s anything I learned is that “love” (or maybe what I thought was love) is BLIND. B-L-I-N-D. Put a blindfold on in the pitch black blind. (again, another post)
So how about we focus less on asking people “what’s next” and more of “how ARE you”.
Also, please do not regale me with stories of your sister’s in-law’s cousin’s horror story of divorce and how it went on forever. That shit is just depressing.
That’s all I got for now. Chat atcha later :)
-A
