What’s in a Word?
It’s August fifth on a hot Sunday afternoon in New England. Thirteen years ago today, I had eloped and married a man whom I had deeply believed I would be walking hand-in-hand into old age and beyond with.
As I sit here writing this, I don’t really feel anything. Which is kind of good, I guess. At least it means that I’ve managed to push past some of the intense pain that had almost crippled me.
The divorce itself had been easy, uneventful and unemotional. I was the only one who walked down the yellow-grey corridors in the courthouse to take a seat in the small room until my name was called. One, two, three and the judge declared me officially divorced. I recall wondering, as I walked back down those yellow-grey corridors and out into the sunshine, how odd it was that someone I would never know had legally ended my marriage. “Such power,” I thought as I stared at the paper I held in my hand.
At one time I had been single.
Then I’d been married.
Then I’d been divorced.
Now I was divorced and single.
Huh? How does that happen? You can’t be single once you’ve been married. That’s like being a virgin-again.
I blinked as I stood on the steps of the courthouse, noting the traffic go by as I watched my mind start flittering to the words that I could now use to describe myself and my marital status. If I used the word single, it would imply that I had never been married and that wouldn’t be honest. If I used the word divorced, that meant that my marriage had apparently failed in some way and that didn’t make me feel too good. I didn’t like either choice. In the end, however, I found my way around it by saying I was single and then always following it with: “I’m divorced.” Somehow, that just seemed to fit me the best way at the time.
Its years later now and I have graduated to saying I’m divorced more than I do single. I don’t know why it’s become easier to speak over the years but I’m glad that it has. It represents to me a change of heart and mind that I have been working on for a long while.
It’s funny how little things stand out to you sometimes. Sometime soon after my divorce came though, I had to fill out what my marital status was on an application of some kind. Curiously enough, I found myself hesitating what to check off, though there really was no reason to. “Tried My Best” simply wasn’t listed as one of the boxes to be marked off. I wish that it would have been.
My new status is ‘attached.’ I think the next time I’m asked what my marital status is, I should simply respond with: “I’m single, I’m divorced, I’m attached but not married.” Do you think that would confuse anyone?