First date, post-divorce.

There is, unfortunately, a lot of calculus that goes into it. I know married couples who sleep in separate bedrooms, and have just kind of agreed to be married in name only, for financial reasons. (I've wondered whether "staying together for the kids" is sometimes code for "staying together so we don't have to live in smaller houses.") It was a big financial hit for me, but it was worth it in the end. I didn't want to be miserable for the rest of my life, so how much is happiness worth?

When I was going through the decision-making process, a divorced friend told me that it would take me two years to get back on track, emotionally and financially, and I had to decide whether I had those two years in me. I decided that I did, and he was bang on almost to the day. My ex and I broke up two years ago this week. My girlfriend moved in a few weeks ago, I take possession of my new house at the end of the month, my ex and I are civil enough that we did our last child-support calculations without lawyers, and, most important, we're both good parents to our kids, who seem to have weathered a pretty horrible thing as well as they might have.

I'm sure the opposite happens, too, but I sure haven't heard many stories about people who regret getting divorced. (Anyone here?) One thing I learned during the process: You have to want to get divorced. There are so many reasons not to. So if you've reached that step, it was probably time.

 

Wait a minute. Smallpotatoes used to be a teller?

 

A friend of mine, a nationally renowned writer,
posted this a while back. It's always good ...

This is one of my favorite poems, by the great Caribbean writer
Derek Walcott. I first heard it from a 96-year-old woman.

LOVE AFTER LOVE

The time will come when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving at your own door,
in your own mirror, and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, "Sit here. Eat."

You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself,
to the stranger who has loved you all your life,
whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes.
Peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit. Feast on your life.

 

I worked for a bank once. Those dolts who piled up rolled coins in the tube were by far the biggest morons in the drive-thru lanes.

 

Way back in the day I worked mall retail. We'd screw with each other all the time. A favorite was to wait till closing time and your co-worker was counting the money in the cash drawer. We'd get a look at which coin slot had the most coins (ideally dimes, because if that slot was full there were a *lot* of coins) and let them get about 3/4 of the way through counting then say loudly "5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 20, 10, what's your phone number? 27, 34, A, B, C..." and try to make them lose count so they had to start over.

Good times.

 

The financial implications can't be overlooked, either.

I turned out in better position, if only because it turned out ex-wife was spending SO much money on her alcohol and tobacco. About the equivalent of $700 a month before taxes. That's two car payments. I wondered, in the last two years of our marriage, how it seemed we never had any money.

 

I'd love to hear Vin Scully narrate this while Carlos Beltran bats against Clayton Kershaw.

 

I saved enough on health insurance each month that I was able to buy a life insurance policy. Figured that was a better investment than buying myself better clothes.

 

My divorces cost $200 each. Plus two unpaid utility bills. That’s it.

 

I also had to - Gasp! - refinance the house!