Nobody said it was going to be easy and I never really estimated that it would be easy… but I had never expected to feel the way I do.
The multitude of films I have watched in my lifetime have always depicted a divorce as being this horrible, ugly thing that goes on featuring lots of solicitors, arguments and misery. They were always portrayed as these giant things that left each party completely devastated emotionally and financially.
Mine is noticeably lacking.
The Butcher Divorce of ’09 will not involve solicitors and really feels okay.
I feel like I am living my life at the moment with a fresh existence. People keep telling me, ‘Dan, you seem like you’re in your own little world,’ and I really am. The whole time I’ve been in England I’ve always been part of this existence that was not singular. My existence was part of a duo… now though, I am solo and my world just feels new and special. It sounds silly but I feel almost like a toddler who is experiencing all the parts of everyday life for the first time. All the music I hear, all the places I go, all the smells I whiff… they are new and I am able to experience them in a more liberated and unique way.
It all feels very magical… magical and slightly frightening still. Six days on and I still feel like I have a big, fat, wet duvet wrapped around me which is both sheltering me from all external things and providing me with a sense of comfort that is stopping me from doing a great deal of moving.
I don’t want to though… at the moment I want to just walk around and experience everything again. Learn about living again.
The only part of me that is finding this hard is the fact that I am losing Chris…. Not Husband, but Chris. The person who knows me better than anybody else in the world… the person who I can talk to about anything… I am losing a friendship that I thought we were going to strive not to lose. He is passing up opportunities to hang out with me so he can go out and do things that he refused to do before last Friday. He’s completely changing and I hate it… I hate it because I don’t want to have to change. I want to stay danie and… well… I don’t know. I guess I couldn’t just expect that everything would just go on as normal… there had to come a time when we would become estranged, I just didn’t expect it to be so soon. I expected a bit of grief on his part… a little more tenderness… a little more something.
One of the things I was most worried about was losing friends… I am under no illusion that there will be friends that become Chris’s and some that become mine because they have known one of us either longer or better throughout the last five years… I’ve made my peace with the fact that I will most likely not see Mark or Lester very often and have also settled on the fact that I get to keep Powers and Vic as a minimum… the ones I worried about, the big ones are Goncalves, Claire, Mark and Jane. Those are my big four that I was and am worried about. Goncalves has met up with both of us and said that he will not pledge allegiance for either side, which is comforting…
We had a stupendous night out Tuesday which saw us seemingly participating in an episode of some smutty docu-drama. Arrival at the pub went through like any other arrival at any other pub… sit, have a fag, and have a pint and chat. When the weather became to bitter we retired to the sofas indoors and became immediately aware of the fact that nearly everyone there was a serial killer, a sex fiend, circus freak or paedophile. The first inkling was a slightly disabled dwarf who I instantaneously fell in love with. He was tiny and wearing a little red tie and I just wanted to cuddle him. In the far corner of the pub we were privy to a fabulous domestic between an elderly man and a young miscreant. Skulking through the entirety of the pub was a gentleman who bore a very uncanny resemblance to Mark ‘chopper’ Reid. He appeared to either want to make an immediate BFF or start a huge fight. He repeatedly bought himself pints (without having finished his last) and dragged his multitude of pound shop bags from his table in the middle of the pub to his designated smoking section outside… I wanted to ask him for his list but john would not allow me to become involved.
The piece de resistance of the entire evening was situated directly in front of our line of sight. From the moment we sat down we couldn’t help but notice a particularly amorous couple standing an adjacent table. She was a fairly large female and he was a small, gangly creature who appeared to have just exited either a prison or mental asylum. They were kissing and rubbing like he was about to begin or had just finished a long stay in the army. As the minutes drew on it became more and more vigorous… we ordered food and talked about my impending divorcee status. Just as the food arrived the heavy petting moved up a notch that involved a great deal of skin exposure and breast-grabbing. About halfway through our chips and assorted condiments I glanced up and immediately clutched john’s arm and snorted. I said he needed to look at the lovers now so as to not miss the special moment I had just become a part of. We both looked again to find that the progression led to the only reliable place, which, unfortunately for us, involved his hand down the front of her pants. After about three minutes of serious rubbing and excited back arches the excitement of our chips had worn off and I went to the bar to inform the staff that a snuff film was being acted out in the front of the pub. He was mostly delighted and was only slightly less disappointed to see that they had finished by the time we returned from the bar.
If only to add insult to injury, the young Casanova went to the toilet, presumably to have a wank and she left. Literally just walked out of the pub and left her drink. Upon his return, john and I pieced together that perhaps he assumed she had gone to the toilet and therefore waited for a half hour, then walked out with his tail between his legs.
I can now safely say that I will be fine going through this divorce as there is no way any divorce, job or illness could be more stressful than what I witnessed that night.
I went to the cinema last night, which was nice but awful at the same time. Nice because I got to see Pow Pow and got to have dinner with him and generally hang out. We talked about stuff and how he coped with a similar situation and it really helped me to gain some perspective on what I’m putting myself through. He’s just such a fantastical creature. But the film… OMG the film… we were torn prior to our arrival at the cinema, unsure of what particular emotions we wanted our choice to inflict upon us… in the end, it was a toss up between ‘Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs’ and ‘(500) Days of Summer.’ The only real way to settle this was a coin toss and I won, ‘Cloudy’ it would be… until the instant we got up to the counter Alastair changed his mind and wanted to see ‘(500).’
Literally, if you recently have been, are in the middle of or want to break up, don’t watch this film. It was just unbelievable. The film itself was outrageously beautiful and quirky and I fell in love within the first sixty seconds. The soundtrack is perfect. The actors were glorious and the art in it was amazing… but jesus… just the raw, horrid emotion that it trudges up left both of us in tears by the end. I was particularly bad when ‘At Last’ played, leaving me in a giant puddle of weep. Alastair immediately recognised this as the song I walked down the aisle to and gave me a cheeky arm rub.
Walking out I said it was a mistake to watch that film and he said he didn’t think so…. That right now it may not feel okay, but eventually I will come through it and that film really could help.
Meh.
Going to London this weekend!! I am literally more excited than I have ever been for anything in my life ever. Just getting away would be fine, but I am going to get pampered, tattooed, fed, cuddled, drunked and so much more… I’m going to go to the zoo and cuddle the animals behind the scenes, go to Camden and buy delights, meet someone I’ve only ever really spoken to on the internetz, find the only surviving photobooth in London, go to a cakeshop where I’ll buy and eat many cakes from and watch more telly than anyone ever. I really need this weekend, so… YAY!
