Endings

Some old friends are splitting up. The specifics don't matter, really, but they hooked up the same week in college that I met my husband which means I've always kind of pegged our marriage to their marriage. When they got engaged, we did not get engaged. When they became rich and successful, we did not become rich and successful. When we had a kid, they did not have a kid, etc.

So it's not surprising that news of their impending divorce has me kind of rattled. Of all the logistical and emotional outcomes, the thing that I'm stuck on is the idea that you spend decades building a version of yourself that fits into this other person's version of themselves, and then when you split all the connective pieces just fall away. Like the things and ideas and places you attached to in order to build an attachment to them unravels and then you're what? The person you were 25 years ago?

So while the impending divorce of the friends is sad and worrisome because divorce always feels a little contagious, and allocating the custody of small children is inherently sad, and because I'm at a stage of life where I can see sadness in nearly everything, it's also got me thinking about what I would shed if I were to be cut loose from an another person's attachments and who I might be underneath the layers of love and hurt and life that have built up over something that was--maybe--always there.