Epilogue

if i’m not the love of your life
i’ll be the greatest loss instead
-rupi kaur

Last week, I got divorced.

There, I said it. The D-word.

How do I feel? It’s like a birthday without the cake and balloons… you don’t feel instantly different. It’s just a day. It’s just paperwork. As a friend so aptly pointed out, “It’s already done, this is just the formalities.”

I don’t feel any different, yet everything has changed, irrevocably and forever. I am… well.

He is not well. This does not give me some kind of vindictive joy. Nor does it cause me the kind of grief that his darkness used to. It just… is.

And it is now, officially, legally, no longer my burden to bear.

I have survived a pain worse than I thought a single human heart could ever bear. In fact my heart truly could not bear it, I shattered completely and utterly into dust. But I am well along the process of healing, of rebuilding. I still have setbacks, I am still figuring things out, I still sometimes feel “out of sorts.” But I am becoming new. My heart sparkles more each day. And I am now, officially, legally, free.

It’s a freedom I never wanted.

A victory I never asked for.

A clean slate I would’ve preferred stayed messy.

But it’s what I’ve got,

and dammit,

I’m going to make the most of it.

I already have.

I already am.

This post is an Epilogue to A girl’s story, published November 2016. 

Photo by Tomas Jasovsky on Unsplash