Divorce is violence. A breaking of bonds. An act of tearing separation. A trivialization or the sanctified partnership into the profane banality of paperwork and separate bank accounts. It is an act of convulsion, whether done slowly or quickly.

Divorce is also an act of freedom. A hopeful promise that there is an after, a future, a maybe where there had once been an answer.

The (hopefully) final twist of the knife; in the midst of the search for freedom, in the reclamation of individuality, we require the consent of the other to allow us to leave. To sign the paper. To choose not to contest. Or to have their consent wrested from them through further violence of secrets slashed across depositions.

Enough violence has been done between us. Let us put down the knives and take up our pens. Open the doors and let each other go. You cannot recapture what is already gone; the only way out is through.

I’ll see you on some foreign field, where perhaps we can swap memories and learn about the people we have become in the space that is no longer us.