Five Years Ago

August 3, 2001 was a Friday. It was sweltering outside. My husband and I were planning on going to see an artsy fartsy film at the Dobie. We got home from work, and we were both hot, tired, and a little cranky. He went upstairs to take a shower. I lay on the couch underneath the ceiling fan and dozed as I waited for him.

When he finished, he came downstairs and sat on the loveseat next to the couch I was lying on.

"I'm thinking about leaving," he said.

He was lying. He wasn't "thinking" about anything. He was leaving me, and he was looking me in the eye and telling me it was over. And I thought we were going to the movie...

We'd been together for nearly 5 years. Living together for most of it, engaged for a year and a half of it. Married for 9 months of it. And now, his mind was made up: He didn't want to be married anymore.

I can still remember how it all felt. How lost and stunned and utterly freaked out I was. How I felt hot and faint and like I was going to throw up or shit my pants. How it seemed like all of the air had been sucked out of the room and that an army of boots were kicking me in the guts.

We talked for hours. I bawled. He didn't shed a single tear. He was so measured and cold. So purposeful. It was like he'd rehearsed this conversation in his head a million times, and he was just reading a script. When I think back on it now, it still chills me to the bone. I suggested--no, begged--for us to go to counseling. I figured he owed me that. I reminded him that we were MARRIED and not just going together in junior high. That we'd stood up in front of our friends and families just 9 months prior and looked into each others' eyes and said vows to each other that we'd written. But he was already gone. His heart was closed. He was done.

The rest of that month is a blur. Me telling my parents. And my friends. Humiliated. Furious. Devastated. My last living grandparent dying. Trying to work, but not being able to focus. Crying every day on my way to work, on my way home from work, as I lay in bed. Looking for a new place to live. Having to see my soon-to-be-ex husband every day when I got home from work. Sleeping in separate rooms. Total insomnia. Feeling like I wasn't worth fighting for. Like I wasn't worth a pile of shit. Like I'd been lied to and betrayed.

He moved out on September 1st. My movers came a week later on Saturday, September 8th. My mom came down and helped me move into a townhome on a cul-de-sac I quickly dubbed "Divorce Court" because of all the single parents who lived there (the kids would show up on the weekends). She stayed with me and shopped with me. She helped me hang pictures and try and make my crummy new space feel like home.

I took that Monday and Tuesday off of work so I could finish getting settled in and meet the cable guy, the furniture delivery guys, etc. Mom was going to head back to the Pine Curtain that Tuesday, and I would be on my own for the first time in my new place. We woke up and began to get ready for the day. The cable guy was running late--he was supposed to be there first thing that morning. He finally got there and did his thing. We turned on the television to test out the new signal and saw the two World Trade Center buildings in flames. We sat there stunned, hearing the news of the plane hitting the Pentagon and the other one crashing in Pennsylvania. It was literally too much to bear. As I watched the buildings in New York fall and imagined all of the lives that were being destroyed in those moments, I collapsed on the floor in a fit of uncontrollable sobbing. I couldn't stop. I couldn't breathe. I ended up crying so hard, I vomited. My mom was so worried she nearly called 911. I felt like I was broken in two. My poor mother had to watch me writhe in this overwhelming pain, and there was nothing she could do to help me. And the worst part for her? She had to leave and go back home and leave me alone. Now that I am a mother, I can't imagine how horrible that must've been for her. That night--September 11th--was my first night alone in my new place. I hated it. I hated myself. The world was so fucked up. On a night when all I wanted to do was be close to someone I loved, I was so fucking alone. I wanted to die.

My mom was so strong during all of my turmoil. I remember vividly the night I called and told her he was leaving me (through hysterical crying), and she said very seriously, "Karla May, listen to me: You are going to be okay. I promise you. It will take a while, but you are going. to. be. fine." I didn't believe her, or course. But like she is so often, she was right.

There is no way I would've believed you if you'd told me on August 3, 2001 that five years later I would still be working for the same company and about to go for a big promotion (A week from Tuesday, ya'll. YIKES!), deal with my mother's cancer, my dad's cancer and death, my stepfather's illness and death and my own hysterectomy/cancer/menopause and lived to tell about it, become a mother by adopting the most beautiful, amazing, wonderful child in the world from a country on the other side of the globe all by myself, purchase a home, also all by myself, and (this is the one I REALLY wouldn't have believed) be deeply in love with an incredible man who loves me completely.

Wow.

Time is an amazing thing.