fatrockstar

I received papers in the mail a couple of weeks ago from the mediator of my divorce. They were signed by a judge but presented without context. I figured I would wait for an email or further paperwork but none came, so I emailed the woman.

I have been officially divorced since January 21, 2011. 12-21-2002 to 1-21-2011. A little over eight years, three of them without Garret anywhere but in pixels on my computer screen.

It's a relief and a little sad. I'm also a little pissed that it took as long as it did. Neither one of us knew what to expect from the process other than signing papers and a court date, and the mediator was incredibly unhelpful. Since we first met up with her back in '07 her practice has grown and her calendar is so packed she doesn't answer her email for days. I would not be surprised if the money we gave her financed that. Would it have killed her or her assistant to include a note with that paperwork saying "this paperwork indicates your divorce was final on 1/21. Thanks and have a nice day?" All this could have been avoided and several hundred dollars saved had we been given a little guidance. Since the first filing I can't tell you how many people I've heard say "our divorce was easy - we just filed X, paid our $250, and got it all done by fax. No lawyers or anything!" Well, good for you.

I have a small box of Garret's things at my house that I'm sure he'd want if he knew about them. He was always more sentimental than me about certain things. I miss my in-laws still and think about them now and then.

But yeah... it's done. I wish I'd known sooner so I could have a party or something.

It's been a while since I have actually seen my soon-to-be-ex-husband. Such a long time that I'm not entirely sure how I'd feel about being in the same room with him anymore. I'm sure I'd feel something, but it wouldn't be overwhelming or dramatic. I haven't given him a lot of thought lately.

After weeks of dealing with my back injury I was finally able to meet with Fish, a mutual friend of ours, to get the last of the divorce paperwork. We had a nice visit, he talked about his kids and his new job. Fish is a nice guy. It was quite the coincidence to find out he and his wife are active at the same judo dojo Ken attends.

Fish didn't volunteer any information about Garret other than the paperwork, so I don't expect he will volunteer any information about me, either. The only thing he said was that he liked both of us and was very sad we had to go through all this mess. I thanked him for that. The only thing I could say in response was "We'll all be okay. I'm sure Garret is fine -- he was fine before I came along and can take care of himself. It's been too long for me to say anything else about that."

When I got home I signed the papers and sealed them in the prepaid envelope they came in. It was very anticlimactic. My only concern now is if I will be notified when it is final.

I lost a lot of friends in the split. I lost family I cared very much about. They seem to be doing fine -- my BIL/SIL have since had a baby boy, giving the family something new and positive to focus on. I try to extend positive wishes their way with holiday cards, but it's awkward. I don't really have anything that binds me to them anymore but that and my desire to stay in touch. My MIL sent me a pic of her new grandson on Santa's lap with a happy note, for which I am grateful. He's very cute.

If I had any wish in the world about my in-laws, it would be that we could still have the occasional lunch or phone call where we could catch up and visit like nothing awful ever happened. I don't know if that's possible without re-establishing speaking terms with Garret. Will that ever happen? Who knows. All I can say for sure is if he called, I'd be civil -- maybe even friendly. He knows this, I think.

The paperwork goes in the mail this afternoon, and three months from now it will be over. It seems like it's already been over for a very long time anyway. I'm okay with that.

This will be the third year in a row I have not bothered to put up a tree. I just never felt the need to once Garret left. I have a fake tree that I used to like a lot, but now that Grady is part of my life I can't really use it (he likes to chew on the lower branches and then barf 'em up).

One year I draped a green sheet over my easel and then tied my Pikachu stuffed toy to the top of it. Wrapped the whole thing with some lights and it was good.

I get more joy this time of year out of donating to charity than anything else, but nobody likes getting a card that says "I donated to charity in your name." That's one less piece of loot, dammit! Where's my Vuitton bag I asked for?

If you are enjoying your holidays, I salute you. It really is a nice time of year. People are nicer to each other, and there are things in stores that you can't get any other time of year -- I *love* those things!. I am just going to stay in my cave and watch y'all enjoy yourselves. It's better than getting trampled at the mall or embarrassing myself at a holiday party.

I told him I barely remember him, but Jerry seems to think I was his girlfriend. If he thinks this, all the apologies in the world won't atone for me saying "sorry, I don't really remember you that well." Well, I remember him vaguely at best. We were kids in a place I would rather forget altogether.

In other news, my ex and his co-conspirator are now both on Facebook. I would never have known if a) Facebook had not suggested one of them to me, and b) someone in my circle of friends hadn't friended Garret. As a result, I really don't want to do too much there anymore. I thought I was ready to make some kind of peace in the form of a phone call or something, but now I'm not so sure.

The divorce... I really don't know what is going on there. I asked nicely if he'd take care of it like he was supposed to to begin with, and he said he was already on it. I haven't heard from him since -- so much for that. No court record in our state has our names on it except the original petition. Believe me, I'm as confused and frustrated over this situation as anyone else. I have done my homework and have found my hands tied.

In more pleasant news, I got paid. Now it is time to get my damn certifications and get on with it.

I haven't written about this in a while, but it's time I faced facts. Will posting this where the world can see it make me accountable or give me more fuel to procrastinate with? Who knows. You're reading this, so it's open for discussion. Standard rules apply: Speak your mind, and anonymous commenters are fair game.

I am not divorced.

My husband has been gone for nearly two years and gainfully employed for all that time, probably at the same salary he was hired, while I have struggled to stay employed at a level of pay that will keep a roof over my head and bills paid.

The original agreement in mediation was to separate assets as equally as possible, forfeit claim to each other's real estate, and then he would be the Petitioner on the divorce papers. We filed in King County where the Petitioner's presence in court is required. He wanted the divorce, he lives in downtown Seattle closer to the courthouse, he can afford to take a personal day, he can show up in court and get the divorce he put a knife in my back to get. I said as much in front of Garret and the mediator, and she corrected the paperwork to reflect this.

Garret did not file the divorce paperwork with the county until months later -- March, if I remember correctly -- and then I got a stack of papers in the mail. On one page there was a list of about twenty dates, and none of them were anything we needed to deal with: Disputes over property, custody arrangements, arguments for, arguments against, and requests for extensions were included. In summary, the only solid date given was for February 2009 -- almost a year later.

I asked several people what to make of this list of dates. I only knew two divorced people, but they had filed in a county that didn't require a court date and had no answers. My dad said "call the courthouse." At the time I was so overwhelmed with grief and frustration I didn't do anything. I stupidly assumed that Garret was eager enough to break ties with me that he'd figure it out. After all, he's the Petitioner, his presence is required, right? I counted the days from the date on the stack of papers sent to me. 90 days came and went, but the King County website never posted our divorce hearing. Maybe I got the date wrong? I checked for several weeks, still grieving too much to do anything about it.

( DISMISSED WITHOUT PREJUDICE )

This is a public post. There isn't anything in this entry people don't already know, and if I'm wrong about that it's not going to embarrass me anymore. Life happens, and this is mine.

In the year 2000, I had just begun my relationship with Garret. In the course of two weeks I started a new job, attended a family reunion, and had my 19-year-old sister join me in my one-bedroom apartment. It was a little crazy.

I promised my sister I would not bring up anything about the month she stayed with me to her, mainly because it was a difficult time and I was stressed out by her visit. I wrote a lot of things on my then-blog, wynnec.com, vented with Garret, and butted heads with her. Not that it helped much, but in an effort to set a good example of not dwelling in the past I told her I didn't want to discuss it anymore because there wasn't a damn thing either of us could do to change what had happened. All we could do was move on.

Ken was getting acquainted with my art supply cabinet recently and found one of my old sketchbooks. It had a lot of old sketches in it that I had forgotten about. A lot of them were of Garret, back when I was all memegoo over him. Some were of Teamun in all his turtley goodness. I think there were some character sketches for a comic I wanted to do in there, too, but I digress...

( Behind the cut is a strip I did of a daily occurrence in my apartment while my sister stayed with me. )

I should get into the habit of not being on the computer while talking to people on the phone unless I am looking up something for them.

The local paper reports that the storm wasn't as bad as predicted and the worst has passed. Now we just have to become comfortable with having a white Christmas and try not to kill each other out on the roads.

In the meantime there are thousands of people just like me who can't afford to not go to work on the three days of the week surrounding the Christmas holiday. I also can't go see Miss Judy, and can't do a number of things I had planned to do in the days before the world stands still. There is one thing I will be doing on Monday that no one can stop me from doing, and that's making a delivery of merchandise to a fellow in Everett who wants to give his wife a happy surprise on Christmas morning. I made a promise and intend to keep it.

I worry more about my habit of isolating myself than I do about relating to other people. I'm fine relating to others, it's creating the situation that is difficult. I wonder if it's just me, if I would do the same thing somewhere else.

Today is my 6th wedding anniversary. Garret didn't appear in court, so the petition was dismissed. I haven't seen him in a year.

I need to get rid of this house.

I went to the mailbox today and found a letter from the King County Department of Development and Environmental Services. It said "FINAL NOTICE" on it. I thought "whatever on earth for?"

When the new furnace was installed in October of 2007, there was a permit of some kind involved and an inspection was required. I was unaware of this. Now the DDES wants to know where that permit is, because they never saw it, and if they did it wasn't approved by them.

What?

I can probably take care of this because I caught this in time (the letter is dated November 5), but if this is the FINAL NOTICE, where did the previous ones go? I'll tell you where they went. They were addressed to "Garret & Wynne Blue" instead of "Wynne & Garret Blue" like this one was. Anything addressed to Garret first gets forwarded to HIM by the USPS. I learned this the hard way, back when the stimulus check was sent to him instead of me. I probably wouldn't have seen a cent of it if I hadn't contacted him, and if I had been expecting any letters from the DDES I probably would have noticed them missing. If the final notice hadn't reached me I would be in violation of the law and expected to pay a fine of several hundred dollars.

If he killed himself I probably wouldn't hear about it, either. Being legally separated means that I'm not responsible for any of his debts and am not entitled to an inheritance either, which is fine with me.

By doing nothing even when I don't expect anything of him he continues to create problems for me. Not even trying. Just sitting on his butt, watching TV and playing WoW, getting his mail every couple of weeks and not looking at any of it. All I can do is hope he snaps out of whatever trance he's in and exercises some courtesy. We all know that won't happen, because courtesy takes effort.

This is what I get for forwarding his mail for him. No good deed goes unpunished.

That's been my week so far. But, it's been a pretty good week. I have some good things coming down the pipe, and I'm happy about them.

Aside from good news I don't want to jinx, I am still collecting items from my personal inventory to sell or donate. I have a number of clothes I can no longer fit in without having to pin them to my body, so those will have to go. I also have a bunch of books and software I don't really want to hang on to. The software is mostly games or something similar that you would not expect an update for.

The big things are going to be hard to get rid of. I have a 300-disk CD changer that I have never used. My dad thought it was the awesomest thing ever ten years ago and I have yet to put more than five disks in it. CraigsList has a few listed for about $50. I'm sure there's someone out there who doesn't want to rip their collection. It's not me -- I just came across a box of CD's I don't know if I'll ever listen to again.

I have a shiny new eBay account and will probably use that for some small things.

I'm uncovering so much. Not all of it are things I really wanted to deal with again. I found pictures of Garret and his siblings from the time we all went up to Stevens Pass to take pictures, and both he and his sister acquired giardiasis. Fun. While those were better times, I remember staying out of family pictures because deep down I knew I wouldn't be family for much longer. I regret that now, but back then I just didn't want to become an unpleasant memory. Now I will be no memory at all except for the white gold band around Garret's finger.

Allison suggested again that we might end up as roommates. I think that would be fun, but I worry about Grady. She has two cats and a small dog, and Grady freaks out in the presence of other furry mammals.

Oh hey, do you like my new yearbookyourself.com icon? It's the 1960 one. I also have the one from 1968 that is slightly insane looking because I used a different base photo. Too intense, actually. I'll save it for later.

I got a call this morning regarding an overdue bill from Waste Management. I bitched at the girl because if I owed them money I should be getting a bill in the mail, and none have arrived since I was credited for two years' worth of a yard waste bin subscription they never bothered to send us a yard waste bin for. I wasn't expecting a bill in the mail for a while.

Turns out that every single bill or mail item with Garret's name on it goes directly to Garret. It does not pass go, does not collect $200, and DOES NOT GET BROUGHT TO MY ATTENTION. Why? Garret is a pussy who would rather play WoW in his copious amounts of free time than drop me an email telling me a bill I need to pay has been sent to him by mistake. So far I have missed out on the bill for the alarm monitoring system, the waste management service, and our IRS rebate check -- all because the post office has ignored the little checkbox that says "INDIVIDUAL" next to it.

I think this may be why I'm not receiving my land line bill as well. They haven't shut it off yet, and the only reason it's still active is for the alarm monitoring system, so I have no idea what else to do but call Verizon (again) and tell them to take his name off the account.

Taking Garret's name off of the house accounts shouldn't be this much of a pain in the ass. He doesn't live here and hasn't for months. He hasn't even come by to get any of the shit he insisted he keep in the separation agreement, or bothered to send anyone to claim it. He is no longer relevant to this address. ( RANT )

I think I wouldn't be so easily irritable if I knew where my next meal was coming from, or if I'd be able to pay my mortgage for October. Right now I really hate my life.