Dependence Day

 On February 7th, I got a text from a dear friend.

"Happy Independence Day!"

I doubted myself for a few moments. I lose track of time often, but this seemed extreme even for me. Then it clicked. The seventh of February is the anniversary of my divorce.

The last year has been the most disruptive and challenging in my life. It has felt like falling down a cliff while trying to hold four children to my chest. I've hit my head a lot. Sometimes on the cliff. Sometimes with my own palm. At times, we have been closer than ever. At other times, the kids have felt completely out of sight. I have struggled with intense feelings of self doubt, helplessness, and vulnerability. This has stimulated the most growth and healing I have ever experienced. Gratitude flavors the bitterest moments of dread and danger. So far, nothing has dulled the consolation that whatever happens, at least I am not still in that relationship.

I thought this "sketch to image" AI by one of the kids captured the frazzled and beautiful vibe of the last year. I don't know if I am the one with big hair, or the tiny chrysalis on a twig.

One of the most painful and important lessons of the last year is that divorce, like baptism, is a beginning, not an end. The storms haven't stopped. 

I thought that there would be peace after the papers were signed. When that didn't happen, I hoped that the kids' needs would unite us behind a shared cause. When the opposite occurred, I prayed that establishing a second household would mark the beginning of reconciliation. Instead, it feels like my ex wakes up every day with hate in her heart and war on her mind. I now look back to messages we sent during the divorce and just after and marvel at the level of civility and cooperation.

One night when we were talking through some hard things, we went down to the lake. The tinkles of the ice and the wet heat of the open water helped the problem feel small.

Another friend mentioned that reconstruction after a divorce takes at least two years. I don't know about timelines, but I do know that my identity and sometimes my sense of reality have been deconstructed (or more properly torn down) by a sequence of realizations. Each came like a consecutive hurricane. No time to rebuild or even rush for cover. Maybe that is exactly what I needed. Skin against the storm. Hands protecting the back of my neck. Just my body huddled and sandblasted on a pitted foundation. 

The first realization was seeing how deep my denial had been about our relationship. It was so bad for so long, but I tolerated and participated in the daily disfunction. Sometimes I was willfully blind, pretending things were fine to avoid having to reckon with the needed upheaval. This wasn't something that therapy or even a new house could fix. Other times I was just ignorant of how dark and intractable the dynamic was. The distance and continued behaviors from my ex brought a deep sense of grief and relief. Leaving was the only choice. At least it was the only good and honest choice. 

Second, I realized how intertwined our lives still were. During the divorce, my ex pivoted from a place of resentment and resistance to a policy of full frontal attack. After the decree was signed, I think she experienced every act of compliance as a new concession towards me personally. Rather than feeling like we had negotiated a mutually supportive arrangement, she started using the language of exploitation. She had been forced to agree to those concessions. If the world were just, I shouldn't be a part of our children's lives. She is so committed to her grievance narrative that she can't fathom or condone a step toward something healthy for us or for me.

Third, I realized how minimal my influence was and always had been on this person. No peace offering or carefully worded message would soften her heart. If I resist, she fights harder. If I give in, she concludes her hard ball tactics are working.

As things have gotten harder, the sacred value of time together has become brighter. O, the joy of breakfast with these glorious children.

The one thing my ex and I agree on is that the kids shouldn't have to go through this. My ex believes that it is my fault for divorcing her. I believe that it is our fault for not figuring out how to coparent. The deepest feelings of loss and regret come from reflecting on the painful and impossible situations our children have been put in over the past year because of our failure to reconcile and move forward. Delayed ordinations, cancelled trips, conflicting accounts, and traumatic communication (both the opaque silence and the white-hot explosions).

In 1946, Jean-Paul Sartre wrote the following in L'existentialisme est un humanisme: 

In seeking freedom, we discover that it depends entirely on the freedom of others, and that the freedom of others depends on our own. Certainly, you can define personal freedom in a way that is independent, but as soon as there is interaction, I am obliged to seek the freedom of others at the same time as my own, I cannot reach for my freedom without making my goal the freedom of others at the same time.

Though I have often yearned to divorce my ex a second time to see if that could create more distance, I see now that independence isn't the goal. Our lives are forever linked, and to wish that away would destroy the best things in my life. I now believe that a loving dependence is the goal. My friends Bob and Gloria Rees often say, "In a conflict or disagreement, make sure to take a breath and ask, what is the most loving thing I can do next?" In this coming year, I will make that my guiding question. In my relations with my ex, my new love, my children, my political opponents, my students, and all who I encounter, how can I better show sincere love? How can we move from a wish of solitary independence to a relationship of connection and love?

Let us not make any weapons of war...except wooden swords. Caspian bought the spray paint himself.

Happy Dependence Day.

“freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you.”

Jean Paul Sartre 1972