The Kingdom of Divorce

When I was in fifth grade, one girl, Dawn, had a single mother. Also, Dawn had boobs. People whispered single in the same tone of voice they said terrifying. Her mother was rumored to wear hot pants. I couldn't imagine living as Dawn did, in the Land of Divorce. Divorce seemed like some place in Gulliver's Travels, or my concept of Aruba: a faraway place that was fun and sexy. But I only wanted to read about it. Never would I actually go there!

By the end of fifth grade, my parents were divorced. Suddenly, we were refugees in the Land of Divorce. But my mother didn't wear hot pants; she rarely got dressed at all. She huddled in an ancient bathrobe. She wasn't single, she was depressed. And I didn't grow boobs. In fact, nothing really changed. We were still us--odd and poor and isolated. My dad was gone a lot. As he always had been. We were the only divorced family on our street but I wanted to shout "It's just as bad as before!" Divorce, for me, meant all of the stigma, and no cute hot pants.

Somehow, I'd ended up in the kingdom of divorce and there seemed to be no way out. Junior high rolled around and Dawn was dating a fireman. I devoted myself to God and the growing of my boobs. Whoever showed up first could keep me: divine books or boys.

Because of all the turmoil in my parents' house (our parents' marriage being the true "first" marriage, for all of us), I never saw marriage as The One Successful Outcome to my girl life, the capstone course in love. I saw marriage as something that happened to lucky people, like money or good looks or castles in the family. When finally I married for the first time, in my late thirties, to a man who'd been married three times already, we married at a courthouse inside the Land of Divorce. His parents were divorced, remarried, he was, too. Marriage remained, for us kids of divorce, a faraway kingdom, with the happy beautiful citizens, strolling about in the sunshine. When I got married, I was eager to travel to this good kingdom. I didn't know how we'd fit in, but I knew I'd learn a lot (boys as books).

We had a fulfilling two year sojourn there. I saw a lot of amazing things I'd never seen before--my two stepsons falling in love, and getting their boy hearts broken. I learned tenderness, patience, and perspective; I found a wonderful kind of peace. I had access to exotic rituals in faraway rooms for the first time in my life: couple dinners, school assembly, family vacation. I loved living in this New World. But we weren't able to find permanent housing in the happy kingdom. After two years, the tour ended. My passport was from Divorce-land and Dave's, well-stamped, was too. Aliens, we went home. Separately.

When we divorced, I was sad, upset; I spent plenty of days undone. But I didn't see it as a failure. I didn't see it as an ending to life as I knew it. Marriage and divorce are fraught with symbol, drama, and meaning but they both are essentially paperwork functions. The sleeping arrangements shifted. But the love didn't end.

When we all shuffled back to Divorce, I noticed the border between the two kingdoms wasn't clear at all. And, I noticed the light had changed in the Dark Kingdom of Divorce. There wasn't tragedy around me. I still loved my family, my guys. I realized, for the first time, that despair, failure, stigma, loss, and the destruction of the American family, aren't confined to the Land of Divorce. Despair, regret, error--they're distributed equally throughout all the lands! Divorce isn't about boobs, hot pants, great sex with firemen, freedom from responsibility. Single or married, kids or no kids, we are, many of us, trying really hard to put together a meaningful life with grace.

It turns out to be just plain old real life over here in our kingdom. There's sunshine, there's bills to pay, groceries to buy, step kids to worry over, a former mother in law to get along with. It rains. Just like over there, in the shining kingdom of marriage. (One thing I have noticed is women in Divorce-land sleep quite happily because there's no snoring.)

As a child, I was deeply scarred by the poverty and shame of divorce. But now I realize divorce and marriage aren't opposites, and one isn't innately better or worse than the other. There are good divorces and terrible hot pants-y marriages. There are great single parents and some terrible married parents. Mostly we're trying to do a good job; when your status is human, it isn't really easy.

Over the holidays this year, I'll take my (former) (divorced) mother in law out to California, to visit my (former) stepson and the (current) girl he lives with. My (former) husband will meet us there. In restaurants, the hotel, people will see us as a family. Which, we are. We're our current us.

There's a wide swath of land where the two kingdoms, marriage and divorce, overlap. There is so much that isn't covered by the paperwork: in spite of all the complexities and flaws, we're connected to each other by love. Isn't that where we all live, really? In our hearts.