Gypsy Soul and Open Eyes

It's times like these that I'm glad I suck at keeping this up, because I'm not sure anyone will ever read this.

Tag and I are splitting up. We filed for divorce a few weeks ago, and life is in a full upheaval.

The weirdest part about all this is that I feel so much more comfortable with the splitting up than I have with our marriage. There's so much more peace. As terrified as I always have been of getting a divorce, and for as often I've proclaimed that I never would, here I am. I'm 26. I'll be nearly 27 by the time the legal process is complete. Now I wonder not if but how the stigmas will feel as they attach and stack. I'll be unmarried as I approach 30. I thought I'd cleared that stigma, but nope. Then there's the question of whether I can claim "single" or if I have to be "divorced".... a friend of mine said that I'd be doubly damaged goods, coming out of law school with a mountain of debt and proven to be a failure at marriage. As hard as I try to not take that to heart, I can't help it. It really sticks with me.

It's easier and easier to live with Tag the closer we get to moving to different coasts. I know I'm the one who wants the split more, who was more unhappy, who felt less hope... but he seems to be taking it in stride pretty well.

As we tell more and more friends and family, it doesn't get any easier. I feared (and got) rejection from my own family, and some friends have fallen off the face of the earth. Our counselor said people would want to know what went wrong and that people always find someone to blame (with or without information), and we've been pretty great at protecting one another from others knowing the intimate details. Still, as predicted, I'm definitely feeling the blame end of the stick. I am the one moving away, while he is moving home. I will likely be the first one to date again. I'm not asking him for anything, which paints a pretty good picture that I'm at fault for something... I'm certainly at fault for many somethings, but none that people seem to naturally assume. My own mother and brother immediately jumped to the assumption I was a cheating hussy. That felt like a shot of novacain to the heart.

So... I feel a little more than vindicated changing the CA to a VA in my travel plans. I fear I am incapable of roots. I haven't lived in even one apartment for more than a year, and I plan for VA as though it could be 6 months to ??? The Bar Exam is no small undertaking, but I'm self-aware enough to know that it's no anchor, either. I might not know how to handle an anchor. Tag was a great opportunity for roots + anchor, and I think I'll wonder for a really long time how much of our "broken" was my gypsy soul rejecting all the things I thought I wanted and thought I had. At this point, I maintain a pretty confident position that he and I are phenomenal friends and phenomenally horrible spouses to one another. However, there is a nagging feeling in my gut that I'm walking away from a wonderful man who loves me the best he knows how, and I'm selfish for needing more than friendship and ho-hum out of marriage.

Since this is the place where I fitch... I feel it's only appropriate to take a moment to express my frustration with the Bubble. I go to school/exist in the Ave Bubble. The Bubble is filled with a full spectrum of Catholics, from the kool-aid drinking to the avid practitioners who reject the kool-aid to the "de-cath" as a good friend puts it. There are also Mormons and other/non-denom Christians galore. Pretty much, if on was going to go through a divorce, the last place one would want to be is the Bubble. Yet, that's where I am.

Tag and I went to dinner with some old friends who have pretty well become fringe-friends (we only hang out with them at group events), and it was a little awkward of a dinner date in the first place. We were fairly well duped into talking about our separation, but the worst part was they never came out and asked directly. I felt like the info got squeezed out of me, and Tag and I have been nothing but forthcoming with our friends when they ask, despite the pressure from the Bubble.

The standard speech I give to people is that I don't want our friends to get together an "action team" or try to "save" our marriage. I tell people I actually don't mind if they can't handle it, and if it's too awkward to have us around. Esesntially, I hand people in the Bubble a "get out of friendship free" card when I give them the info in exchange for their respect of our privacy and not gossiping (even in "good faith") behind my back. I don't expect that I get to tell people how to deal with the news, but I do feel like I have a right to ask for their respect of my/our privacy.

That's been a hit & miss strategy. Some (very few, but very dear) friends have been phenomenally supportive (of us, individually and together) while being wholly unintrusive. They've even gone so far as to act as shields from the nosier "friends" who seem to want info for their own selfish reasons. That brings me to the second category... friends who proclaim support at the top of their lungs, but offer none. So long as they attempt to respect our privacy as requested, I feel like they care about me at least a little. There's the final category. Friends who are not friends at all. There are few things as heartbreaking as a friend who takes entrusted information and broadcasts and/or spins the info for his or her own selfish reasons. I have been annihilated by one of these in the last few months. She proclaimed support at the top of her lungs, after expressing hurt that I was not "as excited" about her relationship developments as she thought I ought to have been to everyone but me. When the news of her dissatisfaction with me as a friend finally reached me, I went straight to her, and I apologized, and confided my personal life issues that I felt affected my inability to express exuberance towards her engagement (although pictures taken during the announcement show me being pretty darn exuberant). She expressed some sadness, and some regret for not "checking in," and she proclaimed at the top of her lungs that she would be here for me with whatever I needed, she'd keep the info to herself. I cried, we hugged, and I felt reconnected with a dear friend.

She hasn't spoken more than a few off-hand sentences to me in over two months. She's also managed to spread intimate details of my relationship into misinformation among people who hardly know me.

Sadly, I make the above statements with confidence and more corroboration than I wanted. I did some detective work...tried to find some way to clear her from any wrongdoings that have caused me such great pain... all signs point to betrayal.

I leave the Bubble in less than 4 weeks. I have to try to get through a potentially hazardous social situation tonight with her (she has been nicknamed the "C" by a few close friends who've also felt effects of the betrayal). I'm trying so hard to not engage, and to not let the distrust, hurt, and anger permeate to our mutual friends, but she keeps sending me little daggers that make it so hard for me to keep my cool. I pray and hope that this fitching helps drain some of the pressure built up inside me. I want to be graceful in the handling of this publicly, in the sense that I don't want it to be a public issue. I'm heartbroken that I lost what I thought was a best friend, but I'm also terrified that I misjudged our friendship so horrendously. It honestly scares me more than the choosing the "wrong" husband does. I remain confident in my ability to love, but my inability to assign trust properly is clear and painful.