I think I shed more tears on New Year’s Eve than I did throughout the entire 2013.  I guess I was finally ready to grieve a year that will go down in my history as the year my marriage ended.

Number 13 was never unlucky to me previously.  Now it not only marks a horrible year but it was the day my husband quoted in a text I saw from him to the other woman that said he could feel the sexual tension in documents she sent him even though they were sent prior to December 13.  I will remember the 13th as the date he said their relationship, on some level, started.  That was the day they attended a client party hosted by their company.

It has been more than a year they have been seeing each other.  That is how I can mark that time flies.  It is still so fresh for me that I wouldn’t believe any time passed at all if not for the celebration of a new year.  My divorce still seems no closer.  I switched lawyers to allow me to pursue the litigation route.  The Collaborative Process did not work.  There is no penalty for failure to complete required documents, failure to produce proof of income and proof of expenses, or failure to comply with agreements made in the four-ways meetings involving me and my husband and both our lawyers.  There are no time guidelines so one party can just drag, delay and avoid at the expense of the other.   7 months and $7500 was a huge waste of time and money resources, and that was only my bill, just to find myself in the same position I was in when the process started–no financial assistance and no separation agreement.

I know that my petition for divorce and my request for spousal and child support was filed in the court on November 26, 2013.  Although embarrassing for my husband but satisfying to me for my husband  be served divorce papers at his work, his lawyer was provided the notice instead to save on costs.  I know his lawyer received the documents and said he would serve his client (my husband) with them.  He also asked my lawyer where she saw the file going.  I did not expect to hear anything before Christmas but my new year’s resolution is to get this settled on all levels so I can freely move on.

There is always the hope of what a new year can bring.  I had a ticket to spend New Year’s Eve with friends seeing The Timebenders.  We were going to have a lovely dinner first and then dance, laugh and probably drink some champagne on our way into 2014. Instead I am home alone, with the flu, peeing everytime I have a deep coughing fit, sweating and shivering on the couch watching True Hollywood stories that help me think my life could be worse if I were Charlie Sheen, Lindsay Lohan, Paula Dean, or Sarah Palin.  My champagne was Schindler’s List.  I had never wanted to see it but tonight I felt I could.  The tears really started flowing during the liquidation of the ghetto when I saw the little girl with the red coat, standing out in a black & white film, running for her life while people are gunned down around her, no parent to hold her hand, to offer her comfort or to try and protect her.

Crying and coughing, I sat on the toilet so the pee could flow there instead of into a pad and I just stayed.  It was my scared dog that came in and broke my attention away from me.  He was shaking.  Then I heard the fireworks, the air horn, and I got off the toilet and looked out the window.  It was midnight and people were celebrating.  I cried for another 20 minutes then went back to watch the movie.  The little girl in the red coat found an open door and got off the street. Hope for somewhere safe. Others who had been hiding though were discovered and killed.

Maybe 13 won’t be unlucky.  There is always the possibility that what seems terrible at the time has some grander purpose for the better.  Maybe the future will reveal that the number 13 was actually my lucky day; my lucky year, because so much more fulfillment comes or I am saved from something that I just don’t see or understand yet.

In Schindler’s List I come to the part where they have to exhume bodies and burn them.  There on a cart being carried to be burned with the others is the body of the little girl in the red coat.  For what grand purpose did that happen? For what grand purpose was the war; the holocaust; the near extermination of an entire race?

What I have to hold on to when I feel like I am running all alone for my life in the chaos of gun shots and fear, is my deep core value that God is in control.  He loves me; He has a plan for me; He won’t be mocked and if He is for me, who can be against me?  I trust in that over any understanding or lack of understanding regarding my circumstances.  I go crazy if I start to focus on the “why?” because there is no answer.  I have to just believe that good will triumph evil.  I believe there is a grand plan and I am a part of it in some way that I don’t understand now.