Episode 99: WE SHALL OVERCOME

Episode 99: WE SHALL OVERCOME

Excerpts from "The Petty Chronicles" every Monday

The one thing most divorced women can agree on is that we have a need to be heard. After all, there was so little of that going on in our marriages. We want our friends and family to let us know, in no uncertain terms, that they are there to listen to us while we come to terms with the fact that we have severed ties with our husbands, even if we repeat ourselves endlessly and cry a lot while we’re doing it.

We hunger for understanding the way some people hunger for the perfect burger; we want to get to the meaty center of it all. We want to feel sated and satisfied in knowing that when we ordered up a big new life for ourselves we could, at long last, find some peace of mind. Because in the end all we are really craving is one thing: closure on a bun.

We want to move on, get the hell out of Dodge and ride off into the sunset with the peace of mind that comes from knowing all is right with the world. But as great as that sounds, closure takes more time than we think it will or than we want to give it, and unfortunately, you can’t just order it up at the window of the Divorcée Drive-thru. I know this is a real bummer, especially living in the just-add-water society we do. But we have to be patient and realize that these things take time.

I read a statistic the other day that suggests it takes as many years to get over a relationship as the years you put into it. I’m not sure if that’s true or not, but if it is, I hope they’re talking about dog years. Because, although I have many strong suits, being patient is not one of them and I really want to close the book on this chapter in my life.

There are times I think I have truly moved on and then I have a night like last night wherein I was plagued by a bad dream about my ex. I don’t remember much about it except for the part where we were standing face-to-face and I was screaming at him and slapping him, telling him how angry he made me. And the angrier I got in this dream, the more placid he became. He just stood there and took it, never flinching, with a maudlin expression on his face that said, “Do what you will, you’re not quite rid of me yet.” When I woke up I was so frustrated I couldn’t get back to sleep and had to watch a few re-runs of What Not To Wear just to restore a bit of order to my mind. Talk about needing to be heard; I think my subconscious is really trying to tell me something here.  

My point is that all of us carry the detritus of our marriages around with us, sometimes for years. I’m afraid there’s not all that much we can do about that other than to give it time and scream at our ex-husbands in our sleep. We can set arbitrary time-tables for ourselves until we’re blue in the face but nothing changes the fact that we have to sift through all the negative stuff as it comes up, even if it keeps coming for longer than we had expected. But the well of the past has to run dry someday and I do believe that when it does, as the old song says, we shall overcome. And let me tell you, when that finally happens, not only will I be ordering up a big serving of closure but I’ll be having a side of fries with that.

Check out new episodes of The Petty Chronicles every Monday.

Click the following to learn about The Petty Chronicles and its author, Rachel Gladstone