The Last Part of the Story

Here's a bit of trivia -- did you know that it costs TWICE as much to file for divorce in Ontario than it does in all the other provinces?

I have been postponing filing for divorce and putting it off and putting it off ... I just haven't had the emotional energy to deal with it up until now . So this is a triumphant development after such a long time of thinking I would never have the inner strength to do it. It's taken me a long time to get here, and I am glad I've taken the time. Rather than try to bury my feelings, rush through it and pretend everything is okay.

I've had a lot of help along the way .. friends who invite me to stay with them because they wanted to be there for me. Summers in Nova Scotia and BC. Working trips all over the place. (thanks to best friend Dave who said to me "you need some international experience. Where do you want to go? I'm packing you on a plane to do stories. I wouldn't have gone to India if he hadn't insisted)

I look at who I am now, compared to who I was a few years ago. I don't know what I would have chosen if someone had shown me the two different me's and said "you get to choose. You can be who you are, or the you who you see in the future. But if you want to be the future version, your marriage has to end".

I like the me who I am now so much more. But I still feel sad that it came at the cost of losing the most important person in my life.

But that was then, this is now. And, after time and distance, I am thinking that maybe my perfect marriage wasn't so perfect. Regardless, time to let it go.

No reason why I have to get a divorce, of course. One friend of mine stayed married for 15 years. He had good benefits at work. And she looked at it as an insurance plan of another kind .. if she found somebody she really wanted to marry, waiting for the divorce would be like a 'cooling off' period so she didn't do anything rash or stupid.

I'm not concerned about that. Nor am I in a hurry to get married again. Maybe someday but that's a long way off. So getting a divorce isn't about that. It's about closure. If it's going to be over, it really needs to be over. Spiritually and emotionally, it's done. But it's not over legally and technically. It needs to be.

This story needs an end. I'm finally ready to write it. This is a very good development.