Okay - Now What...?
On Friday, I signed my separation agreement. Since then, I haven’t been able to move.
It’s difficult to describe. Despite 10+ years of therapy, a ‘feelings wheel’ poster prominently displayed on the wall, countless hours of reading, and decades of therapy, the best I can do is say I feel heavy.
It feels a little like when you’re floating in water and you slowly exhale all your air and sink. Just as slowly as the air leaving your body, you sink to the bottom of the pool. It’s a falling sensation stopped only - and gently - by the bottom of the pool. You just lie there with the entire weight of the water above you, in the clear, echoey silence all around you, and the solid (if slimy) earth beneath your back. And it is, for however long it lasts, peaceful.
Everything is still visible, but through a soft-focus lens. The movements of those swimming above you are slower, almost meditative. The voices of those around the pool are clear without specifics. You hear the tone-of-voice, but not the words. You can tell who is fighting and who is flirting without ever hearing a single, clear word.
You are present but passive. Observant but not interactive. Engaged but ignored. And it feels safe. Like falling asleep to the sound of a movie you’ve seen a hundred times.
But it never lasts long.
At some point, your instincts take over and your body, screaming for air, takes over. You kick up to the surface, gasping and gulping, with a surge of adrenaline that makes that moment of calm feel like a hazy dream.
But my instincts are a bit off, you see. A bit slow. A tad damaged.
My nervous system is, to put it delicately, fried. And while it is a longer-term problem (and one I am actively working on), it may not be such a bad thing. At least, not right now.
Because while those instincts helped me survive various periods of crises, I’m not sure they can - or should - be trusted right now. And after this past year, my ability or willingness to trust anything or anyone is kinda shot.
And I feel safe here at the bottom of the pool.
Getting unmarried is the hardest thing I have done so far. It is hard for all the reasons you can imagine and a few other reasons that are private, incidental, devastating, or all of the above. And when it happens to you or around you, when you start signing legal paper work with the person you promised to grow old with, the natural question is always ‘What happened?’
The answer is never straightforward. Things happen little by little and then all at once. And when lightning struck my marriage in January 2025, it struck a field full of flammable material. And, for a while, we managed a controlled burn. We did all the things that people who have spent more than half their lives together do to put out the fire.
But sometimes it isn’t the fire that kills you. It’s the heat. It’s the smoke. It’s the long-term exposure to smouldering ash. And sometimes, this time, the damage is just too extensive.
This fire was catastrophic.
And it was hot. Hotter than it looked and
So I am going to stay here, at the bottom of the pool, for a bit longer. Longer than you think. Longer than I want.
I’m not sure when I am going to kick my way back to the surface. But I know I will.