Getting Divorced

The Captain and I are packing up our home and moving on to new adventures. In the process, I decided not to lug around things that have been stored in boxes with previous moves but never accessed or needed at each stop along the way.

Enter my file cabinets. There, in the back, three hanging file folders, contributed by my ex-husband. Each folder bulged out about 4 inches thick, full of unfriendly emails and letters, receipts for expenses still unreimbursed, legal briefs and responses from the numerous court battles he embroiled me in and then dropped when it appeared things wouldn’t end up going his way with the judge. Twelve inches of paper and history purchased at a price of close to $30,000.00 in legal fees to compile, collect and occasionally display in court. All these years I kept all this negativity, all these weapons for battle and defense, moving from house to house. Just in case.

No need to defend myself anymore. The divorce decree that cost me a small fortune is no longer needed to enforce anything. None of my children are minors now. No child support to collect; no visitation to coordinate. No more worries about being hauled in front of a judge on a whim. No need to keep these behemoth file folders just in case I need them to refute the story being woven in court.

Keeping all this “documentation” for ten years now. To prove… what??? What??? After all these years, I finally and completely don’t care.

It was cathartic to throw it all away. At first I looked through a few pages. Then I decided, “why?” I don’t care to be reminded about what I have forgotten.

No grudge. Wishing him peace on the east coast while I live peacefully closer to the west coast.

So, to be divorced… completely divorced… I guess it took longer than I thought it would. It took 11 years.