Closing Doors

I thought about starting a new blog but there really is nothing new in what I have to say, so I'm coming back to this one.

I've been closing doors the last couple weeks.

As of October 1st, the husband and I officially separated, divorce to come, and I had to start referring to him as the ex-husband. ....Because I guess that's what you do? I can't exactly call him the husband, and the soon-to-be-ex-husband is too long... But I don't want to get into the nomenclature angle today. Today I want to talk about a different door.

When the then-husband and I decided we were through, we broached the subject at dinner one night to discuss with the children. T's 9 and E's 7, and it seemed like a good idea to handle this with a sort of Q & A. T, after all, is a self-proclaimed expert on divorce, having read about it in numerous books and having friends with divorced parents. The Q's were far from what we expected, however.

E: "How am I going to decide who to live with?"

A: Sorry, kid. You don't get to pick. That's already been decided. You're going to go live with the bears in the woods.

T: "When are you going to smash all the pictures?"

A: I'm not sure about the books you're reading but... there will be no smashing of pictures.  No one is angry.

E did ask the million-dollar question. "If you still care about each other, why are you getting divorced?"

But let's back up to this picture-smashing business.

It's been a little over a month. I'm looking at the shelf of pictures, which has two pictures of the ex-husband and I on top, along with our fancy champagne flutes from our wedding just over 11 years ago. The larger picture, taken just after our wedding ceremony. A reminder of opening this door, starting on this journey, a journey that's now over. The smaller picture, taken on our trip to Vegas, celebrating 10 years together.  And I'm thinking, staring up at these photographs. Should I smash them?

It's so ridiculously dramatic. So over-the-top. But what purpose does saving them serve? Yes, we had good times on that journey. There was a lot of laughter.  There were adventures. Achievements. Shared success. And I don't want to erase the past; it's a part of who I am. So many wonderful things came out of our marriage. Including three amazing human beings.

If I'm not going to save them, maybe I should smash them. Just - close that door once and for all. Not put it away in a box to potentially be rediscovered. But smash it to pieces so it can't be put back together again.

Is that why people smash pictures?

I don't know, but I have to symbolically close that door somehow, so I get the box of leftover wedding matches and decide to burn them. In my mind, this causes a large fireball that shoots up toward the sky and frightens the neighbors. Even more dramatic than smashing photographs!

But no, matches don't burn well en masse. They are frustratingly difficult to burn, in fact, and you have to be really mad or really upset to want to sit there and strike hundreds of matches one at a time.

I did burn all the matches, because when I'm determined to finish something, I will. I added newspaper and twigs and some branches and I burned all those leftover matches from that September day in 2006 when this journey started.

And now it's over. That's how I closed the door this weekend.

"When are you going to smash all the pictures?"

I'm not, T. They're important, even if they no longer belong on the shelf.

Now as to Ethan's question... the answer to that's more than can fit into any blog post.