March 9, 1994

"This is the last day of our acquaintance...I know you don't love me anymore, you used to hold my hand when the plane took off...Two yeas ago there just seem so much more and I didn't know what happened to our love."
                                         Sinead O'Connor -  The Last Day of Our Acquaintance

Dreaded "D" words - divorce, despair, doomed, distraught, destitute, dishearten, discarded, devastation, depression, death.

It is said that the first casualty of war is truth - the same can be said about divorce. Truth isn't necessarily what we believe, but what we say and what we tell others. Truth is whatever we say it is. Like war, the basic human instinct of divorce is self-preservation - which I abandoned months ago but which Maggie embraced brilliantly.

The only form of self-preservation that remains within me are the words I write. My words are true to me and true because I say so and write them. But I'm not sure if my intentions are entirely honorable, if there isn't some hidden meaning I'm not aware of or a meaning I refuse to confront and acknowledge.  Is my pen a tool of fact and accuracy pr is it a tool of ignorance and deception? All I know is that truth is my guide.

At this moment I'm only sure of this fact: at 9:26am this morning our divorce case was called before Judge Farrell. After asking first me and then Maggie about six simple questions each, he granted us a divorce. Time when we left, 9:31am. In just five quick minutes, fourteen years of our life together was dissolved and disappeared.

We are now divorced. This morning was the last moment of our acquaintance. No longer will we hold hands as the plane takes off as we did so many times in the past. What happened to our love, I do not know.

The judge told us that the final divorce notification will come in the mail in about a month.  I'm sure Maggie will open that envelope and frame its contents after making copies and mailing them to her mother and all her friends. I'm sure the phone lines between Chatham, Key West and Hartford will be ringing tonight, smiles and laughs all around. So much for death do us part.

Now that we're apart, we're in neither one's heart - as shadows begin to shade, what love remains will slowly fade.

So, pick a dreaded "D" word, anyone at all - mine's death.

2:00pm    -  Eldredge Library   -   Chatham, MA

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