Preparing for D-Day

Many years ago, in what seems like another life, I sat on the couch in my soon-to-be husband's "bachelor pad", and watched what has to be one of the most depressing movies of all time. We watched What Dreams May Come with Robin Williams. If you have never seen it, you should consider renting it, downloading it, YouTubing it, or whatever method you prefer, and set aside two hours. An hour and a half to watch the movie, and another half hour to sop up the pool of tears that will collect at your feet after you have watched the movie. The basic premise is, there is a happy couple with two children (and a dog, I think) and through a series of sad and somewhat violent events, they all die. They go to Heaven (except for the wife, who gets stuck in purgatory because she offed herself in a period of deep depression) and have different forms and different struggles than they did on Earth. Through the struggles, they learn about who they really are, and that the undying love of a family can overcome anything...Even the physical limitations of the body. In the movie, the husband and wife refer to an anniversary as "D-Day". It is the anniversary of the day their children died. Yeah, I know that's absurdly morbid, but as I prepare for my own "D-Day" of sorts, I can totally get the need to anniversary the macabre. My divorce is almost final. All of my dreams that I had for this family that I have created, have died, or are dying. Even the last vestiges of hope are all but gone. And even though this is what I have wanted, I cannot help but feel sad. Although I know that nothing can erase the past, make things better or worse, I feel like somehow I have failed at this segment of my life. I have decided that, for me, divorce is a lot like death. It seems akin to the death of someone who has been gravely ill: Even though everybody knows it is better that the ill person passed away...no more pain, no more suffering...it is still sad. Deeply sad. And I have been saddened by the end of my marriage, the death of it, as it were, and I am still mourning it. If you see me on the street, I look perfectly calm and at ease, but in my heart I am still mourning.

The mistakes that I have made over the past decade continue to haunt me like so many lost souls...The spirits of the dreams that I have had a hand in slaying. Their time for exorcism is drawing ever closer, but it is not here quite yet. So I will continue to mourn and give the death of my marriage a proper and respectful burial. But like all things that grieve the heart, this too shall pass. Time will continue to push me forward into a new life. I am older, perhaps wiser (although the Jury is still out on that), and definitively more sure of who I am and who I want to be. One day, I will wake up and the anniversary of my "D-Day" will come and go with out so much as the flicker of a candle on a carrot-cake cupcake. For an anniversary like this is not one to celebrate...Better to allow it to remind you of all the reasons you celebrated in the first place: The first kiss. The first date. The first child. The first time you said goodbye, and then, the last. Because even though I am sad and I am mourning, even in this death I can still celebrate all of the beautiful things that made up this life. And that, my friends, makes me happy.