Lee Makes Up His Mind

Speaking in present tense for a moment, this week’s post has been incredibly difficult to write. I spent hours this evening staring at an empty screen as I tried to decide exactly what to say, how to put it. 

Sometimes emotions hijack your life. You feel like the captain of a sinking vessel, wailing a tragic struggle against the crisis of your own ruin. 

Other times feelings stay hidden, elusively lurking in a clouded fog.  

The heart is a funny thing. 

This is the part where I’m supposed to tell you about Lee calling me up on a Monday night to formally end our marriage. 

My parents were hosting a ward pool party in the backyard. It was Mormon Family Night. Isn’t that ironic? Dozens of ward members milled around outside my bedroom window, chatting and laughing as I sat huddled alone on the bed with a phone pressed to my ear. 

It was not an angry or confrontational conversation between me and Lee. There was no name calling, no bickering or pointing fingers. Just the quiet recitation of stories we’d told before. I couldn’t live with things as they were, and Lee couldn’t fathom changing. 

The archetypal dead-end on a lonely road leading nowhere. 

Our decision to divorce was a pivotal, defining moment in my life . . . and yet, right now I am unable to summon the emotions I felt that night. For the first time since starting this blog, I feel disconnected from the story in a way I can’t quite explain. I have replayed the scene over and over in my mind, but nothing profound or intelligent wants to come out of me right now. 

Why can’t I tell this part of the story? 

(Yes, I’m honestly asking)

Possible explanations: it’s been a long week for me. Other concerns of a different nature have been pressing in. My emotional self is somewhere else at the moment, working out other questions. 

What’s that thing Kurt Vonnegut said?

So it goes.  

I remember a voice moaning in pain, hoarse from weeping. Mine. 

Me. I was crying.  

My brother heard the noise and came inside. He hugged me. This is the part of the story I wanted to tell, the time when I was heartbroken and my brother came to comfort me. 

It was the first time my brother had ever hugged me. 

So it goes.