Divorce, a year in review.

On unseen consequences and the strange shape of family.

This time last year I was in Zoom divorce court. I was sitting at the desk in what had once been the playroom, then the guest bedroom, now the room I’d been exiled to a few months into our separation.

I’d hung several of our children’s drawings up on the blue walls with Scotch tape. When I opened the windows, they flapped in the breeze. My head was framed by primary-colored stick figures as I answered the judge’s simple and heavy questions. Against that backdrop, I faced whether or not the marriage was irretrievably broken. Whether there was a chance for reconciliation. Whether this was in the best interest of our minor children.

I thought the answers were a bit more nuanced, but the court was only looking for yeses and noes. This marriage is certainly broken, and the kind we had should not be restored. What’s best for our children? Your Honor, I think the only thing I can really assert is that we love them so deeply it feels like an assault on their innocence just to say their names and birthdates out loud in this room. But we are not insane people, and I have been trying to toe the line of sacrifice and survival since the day they were born. So here I am betting on my version of survival. And I decided that being fully present for my half of their lives had to be as good as being half-present for all of it.

My ex-husband joined Zoom court from the side of the road.