So here I am, back where I started. As recently as six months ago, I would have laughed loudly at the suggestion that I'd ever find myself living again in the little city where I grew up. But, my script has flipped.

Underemployed in South Florida, and about to be divorced, I began to think it might be good to live someplace I could afford. I'd also have the support of family and friends and be able to provide the same for them.

Still, there's something about going back...

I try to keep in mind what my therapist, the Good Doctor (boy, do I miss her) said when I whined about returning here, as I said, "with my tail between my legs."

"If that's the way you choose to look at it," she said.

I am a little...embarrassed, I guess...not to have returned home in a blaze of glory, or at least in a fancy new car. That's the trouble with expectations. I'd gotten a great start in life and I was supposed to become all that and a bag of chips, as we used to say.

But at least I didn't come back battered and bruised, running from or dragging along my drunken husband. And, I'm not drunk myself.

So I'm available to spend time with my parents and those of my friends who live elsewhere, to visit the old folks in the hospital, to run their errands sometimes, maybe even to take them places in my 11-year-old car.

Which is more important: to look good or to do good?

I vote for the latter, especially since my actions are something I have control over, while I can't control what other people think of my looks. Perhaps after I've made myself useful here for a while, I'll relax a bit about who and where I am.

As for whoever's assessing me, I'll try to remember something I heard once: People who matter don't judge, and people who judge don't matter.  

I'm glad Edgar and I are getting along so well since the divorce, but I'm also a little worried about it. He was in the room when the judge declared our marriage irretrievably broken. But he's still acting like it's not.

A business call came to the house for him, so I called to pass on the message. We talked, which is how the whole thing with us got started and is something I still enjoy. I thought he sounded like he'd been drinking. But I didn't find it necessary to mention that, until he began telling me how much he misses me.

"Are you drinking?" I asked.

"No," he replied.

"There have been times," I said, "when you'd tell me you hadn't when you had. And that was part of the problem."

He had nothing to say to that.

I actually have nothing to say about that. When I divorced Ed, I also divorced his alcoholism. But it's not like I don't care. It still hurts to know he's in pain and I still can't fix it.

Addiction is cruel that way.

I didn't cause it, I can't control it, and I can't cure it. All I can do, now that I've gotten myself to a safe space, is wish Ed well and be careful not to enable him any more.

While I'm often sad to be moving away from my home of the last 20 years, it's probably a positive thing. Putting even more space between me and the ex should be good for us both. 

Minutes after we'd been declared husband and ex-wife, Edgar was vigorously berating me, calling me a dumb, stupid woman. I looked up at him and wept.

"I'm giving you what you wanted," he said. "I kept my mouth shut."

I kept crying and trying not to think about the other people in the waiting area. They probably appreciated the entertainment.

It was my turn to keep quiet. I recognized Ed's fury as the typical reaction of alcoholics and addicts when something doesn't go their way: It has to be somebody else's fault. Ed was right, I'd gotten what I wanted. There was no need to remind him of how and why, with the destructive assistance of alcohol, we'd ended up in divorce court.

My ex actually, accidentally, did me some favors as our marriage came to an end. Over a year ago, he was the one who angrily asked if I wanted a divorce, never expecting me to say yes. Had he not asked, I'd probably still be working up the courage to say so.

On the day of the final hearing, he reminded me that he is prone to untruthfulness and to blaming others for his problems.

I felt really bad when I told the judge our marriage was irretrievably broken. Though I'd been over that question and over it and over it countless times, always finding the answer was yes, still I had a small doubt at the moment of truth.

It wasn't big enough to stop me, though.

I never thought I'd get divorced. I meant that business about taking Ed for the rest of my days. When I realized, though, that my days would be fewer if I stayed married to a man who couldn't quit drinking, I was able to break my promise.

I'm sad about it, but I'm not sorry about it.
 

"You know, you can still change your mind." Edgar and I were waiting outside a courtroom for the final hearing in our divorce.

"And waste all the perfectly good money I spent on this?" I asked.

"I've made more expensive mistakes," he replied, and our conversation returned to the relaxed kind of catching-up we'd been doing, talking about work, the election, our parents.

He said he'd told his mother the little dog he brought her from the shelter was one of mine that I couldn't take along on my move out of state, and told me I had to back the story if it ever came up.

"Why did you lie to your mother?" I asked. He shifted and sighed a little before saying that was the only way to get her to take the companion he wanted her to have.

Then my name was called and we took our place in the marriage disassembly line. "Sit at the table to the left," the bailiff instructed, and we watched as a red-haired woman gave monosyllabic answers to questions about a business and her ex-husband. Her proceeding didn't even last long enough for me to figure out what it was about before it was our turn.

We handed over our driver's licenses. Ed glared at me. My heart sank as I gave the monosyllabic answers that ended my marriage of eight years, especially when I said yes, it was irretrievably broken. Never a word to or from Ed, who threw his packet of papers down on the table and stalked out when it was over.

They said we'd be called in a few minutes to go downstairs and get certified copies of our unmarriage certificate. I returned to the nook where we had waited, sat down and cried. Ed joined me.

"Dumb, stupid woman," he said. "Lying to that man that this marriage was irretrievably broken. Dumb, stupid woman!"

(To be continued...)