Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Divorce Day

Dates are very important. They give us a sense in time, excuses to look for in advance and moments to remember. I celebrate almost everything:

December the 24th –and not the 25th- Christmas with family, gifts and friends;
December 31st, New Years Eve, with champagne and hopes for the best to come;
the Fourth Thursday in November, Turkey Day, filled with a thousand reasons to be thankful;
June something, my birthday, between tears for the new wrinkles that appear followed by a rewarding trip to the mall and a massive celebration with joy and acceptance, and finally,
October 31st, where Miami turns into a parade of slutty costumes.
One that I never celebrate is the very lame February 14th, Valentine’s Day. YUCK.
Photobucket

If there is a National Pancake Day, are we allowed to have our very own Divorce Day?

A family attorney in Chicago states that National Divorce Day is April 16 because more people file for dissolution of marriage after the deadline for federal tax returns. In the UK, D Day is the first working day in January, after the Christmas and New Year celebrations disappear. Carlos Vives, a Colombian vallenato singer, has a song called November 19th and some people say it is named for the day he got divorced. The lyrics are self explanatory: “November 19, after all the suffering I bring your picture to the heavens and I declare myself free as the wind... each November 19 (it is) a cry for independence”.
Well D Day for me is today, November the 2nd.
Photobucket
Before you think I’m the Grinch of love, I want to state for the record that I am a true fan, believer and admirer of marriage and all the Cinderella stories. So, if I do and I did, what went wrong? I could start telling that I was young, that I blindly jumped into the wagon of commitment, that I had absolutely no idea what marriage was, that we were living like roommates and that we had all the required ingredients for a stinky divorce soup: lack of communication, money issues, different religious beliefs, border-line personalities, control issues, etc. Hey, I could even blame it on Miami; the divorce rate in Florida is pretty high! So, let’s just say that it happened, and for a long, very long time it felt like the biggest failure of my life.
Photobucket
Have you ever felt so oppressed that you can’t even breathe? Have your defenses gone so low that acne popped up, cold sores invaded your mouth and flu showed up uninvited? Have you ever cried so much that you run out of tears? Did the embarrassment, shame and sadness prevent you from going outside? Well, that’s how I felt once I moved out, when I was trying to decide whether to continue or not in the marriage. I was confused thinking about giving it another chance or running away. When the decision was taken and we were going through the filing process on our own –no lawyers required- we had to wait one more month. Eternal month. Finally, the judge declared the dissolution of marriage and I felt like the weight of a piano was taken from my shoulders.
Photobucket
Celebrating D Day helps me look back to the good and bad. I learned innumerable lessons and I’m trying hard every day not to make the same mistakes. I can look forward to having another chance. Let’s celebrate D Day to think about it not as a failure but as a tough and wonderful period of our lives.

8 comments:

  1. Amen! Happy D-Day to you cherie.

    ReplyDelete
  2. “Show me a person who has never made a mistake and I'll show you somebody who has never achieved much.”
    -Joan Collins-

    ReplyDelete
  3. Life is all about learning and well my dear in this lesson you learned what the true meaning of love is and how to love yourself by not being in a relationship you were truly not happy in.

    ReplyDelete
  4. So proud of you, Lucca.

    ReplyDelete
  5. still here, meaning i survived d-day. time is beautiful. it separates us from our misery and once we've taken distance we can even laugh at ourselves. so, not everyone has been in the dark cloud of divorce, but most of us know what a break-up is. well, my awesome writing teacher, angela kelsey (http://www.angelakelsey.com/) sent me this link today from The Daily Dish. it's a chart that shows peak break-up dates based on facebook status updates. ha-ha. break-ups are on the way! keep the bubbly and turkey handy ;)

    http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/11/chart-of-the-day.html

    ReplyDelete
  6. to my other anonymous, i hope you understand why i deleted your comment. i'm glad and happy that you are reading this blog because it means people are spreading the word. i'm not here to point fingers at anyone, i'm here to write. i wish you happiness and love.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thanks for sharing...
    Kelly (i don't have a profile, but didn't want to be anonymous) :)

    ReplyDelete