So I had 30 days
from the moment of "being served" in July to do my
part and go to the courthouse and file. The
bizarreness of the situation lead me to procrastinate
to the very last moment and I finally set aside the
time to do it. As I was signing and dating
everything I had to shake my head. It was my wedding
anniversary with Jessica, August 13th. Sounds about
right for "The Journey". And truth be told, you have
enough marriages/divorces/career moments - you'll
inievitably always be doing something on an
anniversary. HA. But calling Jess to wish her happy
anniversary (which we still do, twistedly) was all the
more funny when she asked "whatcha doin?"
"Oh just
filling out my divorce papers, you?"
:-)
Love it. Sarah
(Ms. Johnson from the "This is gonna hurt" entry) came
with me to the courthouse. Heh, seems like a perfectly
"Adam" date, right? And can I just say thank you to
Donna for doing this in Burbank and not Van Nuys or
Los Angeles? It was sooooooooooooo easy. No lines,
hardly any waiting. They explained everything and
OOH OOH the videogame moment:
So if you can't
afford the fees ($350) and think you have a case to
get the fees waived, you can go before the judge and
plead your case. Hell yes I'm doing that. So I filled
out the paperwork (unemployed and house being $100,000
upside-down oughtta do it) and you hand it to the
clerk and sit and wait. Then, they give you the
"verdict" back in a sealed envelope that you can't
look at. You have to take it to another clerk that
then opens it and reveals the prize! How fun is this
shit? All I could think of was finding a locked
treasure chest in Zelda, then getting a key - and
going back to open it. I mean - how often do you
get to open a package that has a 50/50 chance of
saving you $350? I felt like Charlie Bucket, dawg. She
opened that thing, all fees were waived -
HELL YES. I was so freaking excited.
Then, they said
that I now have to have someone serve DONNA. !??! What
a complete cluster-fuck. Seriously, all of this shit
was avoidable. We agree on everything, we could've
just gone in together and filled it all out.
<rolling eyes>. Thankfully however my portion
was not an "in-person" serving. I just had to
have someone else sign something saying they dropped
it in the mail, etc. So Sarah, welcome to Journey
Folklore as you officially served Donna. How
completely ridiculous. At first we thought she had to
personally do it and I thought the poor girl was gonna
vomit. I love the inherent drama of life sometimes. It
really is like a big video game if you don't take it
too seriously. Thankfully it was just a drop in the
slot. Uhhhhhh heheheh.
Then when my mom
was here a couple weeks back I got the "final"
declarations and it seems there won't even be a court
date. It just becomes "true" on January 18th (6 months
from the inital "serving"). Little different than
Ohio, but I guess they're pretty backed up in Lala
Land and won't waste court time when there's nothing
to argue. Strangest thing though, my mom was getting
out of the car as I came into the house and saw the
paperwork along with another generic note saying to
sign and return. For a split second I had this wave of
emotion take over and I wanted to hug my mom and cry:
"Why doesn't she love me?". So bizarre. Funny how your
emotions/heart supercede all rationale and logic
sometimes. That little boy really is in there. It's
rare, and the situation has to be just right for him
to poke his head out, but goddamn when it happens it's
overwhelming. I was fine within seconds and laughed
that the thought even crossed my mind - but the level
of pain I experienced with Donna will not fade easily.
When I least expect it, something will trigger a
memory and I'm instantly jello. And because of the
lack of on-going friendship like I had with Burg
and Jess? Donna has pretty much handed me a life
sentence of random pangs of emotion. Thaaaaaaaaaaaaank
you.
So because of the
lack of an awkward court date, this really does
wrap-up the story. I'm not gonna waste my time in
January marking the "passing" of the actual official
date, 'cause I've been "single" since May of 2008. I
will have bigger things to spend my time and energy on
in the new decade. I've thought about what note to
leave this on and it's funny, no matter what? Love is
the foundation of every single moment with her. One of
the most open, selfless, sincere displays of love I've
ever shown. No matter the odds, no matter what it
looked like, no matter how mean she was, how she
raged, how she fought... I just loved her. She
was always beautiful to me. I exhausted every option
because I wanted to give her every single chance to
reach her potential. Every time I reread the "bad
times" entries? I just shake my head at how obvious it
was that I loved her. I'm sure it's because I'm so far
from that "giving" person right now that it's baffling
to re-live those moments. But I can't shake the
positive feelings I have for her. I saw a side that
may never be shown again the rest of her life. I feel
almost responsible to remember it and not let it die
because everyone else sees a delusion...
...and even you
who have read every moment that's captured on this
site including her own words from December 2007, you
have no idea just how beautiful she is. Her fragile
spirit will always be inside me and nothing she can
say or do to me now can ever erase that. I know
she's blocked the good times out of her mind because
of the pain it causes to know her part in their
demise, but I never will. I will always believe
she is capable of loving someone and being loved and
that her world will be brighter because of it once she
learns how to embrace that...
...and I have
no doubt that she'll be on step 9 of some program some
year that will illicit a letter from her apologizing
again. I will accept it, I will read it, and it will
touch me. 'Cause she was and always will be beautiful
to me.
Adam
PS - thought I'd
explain the song. Kinda cool how it came together. My
thought process was to try and capture the
contradiction of it all. That in one breath I could
say that she was abusive, painful, exhausting -- but
she was still precious to me. So in the midst of
"Independent Actions", a song I wrote last year
that came from a place of anger, I decided to just
"mash-up" the new song I was working on for
her: "Beautiful to Me". I really love being able
to mend angry songs with slight lyric changes, or new
verses, almost staining the original meaning forever.
Not erasing it... just adding a little more depth
'cause the issue is so grey...
...if you can
honestly say you wouldn't fall in love with the woman
who wrote that about you, you're heartless. I can
remember how it felt reading that for the first time
when we were in NY -- instantly. Most
bittersweet feeling I've ever known.
