Five Years Out and I’m Still Learning to Own the Word ‘Divorce’

I needed to own my grief and brokenness first

My divorce decree arrived in the mail without much fanfare.

I glanced at the return address on the large envelope with quizzical eyebrows. What’s this? I slid my fingers under the envelope’s lip, pulled out the papers, and began to read.

It took a moment for the words to sink in. So this is it. It’s finished.

Aside from an exhale that lasted much longer than the inhale preceding it, I felt no relief. No positive emotions. This surprised me.

I have a friend who threw a party for herself to celebrate her finalized divorce. Another friend rejoiced that she could now formally go back to using her original last name. Another calls herself happily divorced.

When my decree arrived I didn’t feel any of those positive emotions. I simply let out a deep sigh bound up in continued grief. The word divorce was now officially part of my story — a word I struggled to even utter.

That was five years ago.

For a few months after I left my marriage I met with a life coach. She helped me reframe many aspects of my life. She also helped me determine the right path to finding a new job. But the one thing she couldn’t seem to help me do was to overcome my inability to say the word divorce.

When she asked me to say it, the word escaped from my lips in a whisper.

Say it louder, she said. Stronger. With authority. Own the word.

But the word stayed stuck in my throat. There was too much pain there. Too much suffering. Too many lost dreams. Too much false hope.

Upon seeing my difficulty, she switched gears and asked me to come up with my own definition for the word. I tried to see beyond what I was experiencing at that time and came up with this definition:

Divorce: A deep, dark, difficult decision, out of which rises a door, through which discovery, development and a new direction are possible.

Even though these words formed in my head and pointed me to a positive outcome, I couldn’t quite get there mentally or emotionally back then. This definition didn’t help me own that word. I still couldn’t get it to roll off my tongue like it did for so many others. So I started calling it the D word. There was just too much emotion in it. My grief at that time was just too heavy.

Not that I wanted to go back to my ex. When my mind questioned my decision I felt a strong resistance similar to the feeling of pushing two north magnets together. This intense oppositional sensation inside me was my gut telling me NO. Don’t even think about going back.

Despite this definitive no, grief still lingered. I grieved for what I wanted and didn’t have. I grieved that I spent so much time and energy on something that wasn’t working and never would work. I grieved for my kids and how it would impact their lives.

Looking back now, as difficult as it was I needed that period of grieving. Before I could ever own the word divorce, I needed to own my grief. It took me a long time to realize how important that process was to my healing journey.

Mirabai Starr writes this about grief:

Grief shatters our foundation and triggers a wholesale reorientation of meaning. Before we rush off to reconfigure the shards, may we choose to sit in the wreckage and allow ourselves to simply be broken.

My divorce and accompanying grief cracked me open. I had to sit raw and exposed among those shards before I could ever open the door to discovery, development, and a new direction. I had to own my brokenness.

Dwelling in the space of sharp edges prompted me to begin writing. My grief had to bleed somewhere and I chose words on the page as the place to hold that leakage. It was cathartic and opened a door to discovery. Before my divorce, photography was my primary means of expressing myself. Now writing was swiftly taking hold as the method I craved to explore and develop. This changed how I viewed myself and pointed me in a new direction.

Fast forward five years and I’m still learning to own the word divorce even though so many positive experiences have happened in my life and much of my grief has subsided. I notice a sliver of grief pops up mostly when I have to check that box on a form to indicate my marital status. I still don’t like to check that box.

All of these thoughts about the feelings surrounding the arrival of my divorce decree surfaced the other week as I sat across from the person helping me work out the financing for my new car. When the papers were all drawn up, he pointed out the payment amount and the date when the payments would start. I did a double-take. It was the same date as my divorce decree.

As I drove home I thought how serendipitous that was. The date when the biggest decision of my life was finalized— the ending of my marriage —now shares the date with the biggest purchase I’ve ever made on my own.

Instead of sighing at the sight of that date on those papers, this time I smiled. The divorce and grief that accompanied it may have shattered me. But as I now stand five years removed from that wreckage, my definition of divorce has come true. I’ve opened the door to discovery. I’ve developed both as a writer and into a more capable and stronger woman. I’ve steered my life’s ship in a new direction.

Although I still can’t quite say the word divorce with authority, each day I’m inching closer to owning that word as part of my story.

kasey sparks, © 2024

To quote Ram Dass, “We’re all just walking each other home.” If you’d like to join me on the journey, click here.