"It's The End Of The [Year] As We Know It"

Well, 2005 doesn't have much life left in it. I'm getting ready to head out for a party with a few of my friends, so when next I post, it'll be 2006.

This year ended on a weird note, a rather surreal moment that drove home the fact that my life has completely and totally altered. Even if I fail out here in Virginia and have to return to Oklahoma, it won't be the same. Dad told me this afternoon that he went down to the courthouse yesterday afternoon and got the divorce between he and my mother finalized. They are now no longer legally married.

And it's funny, though not ha-ha funny: it didn't really bother me, per se. I mean, sure, it bothered me. My parents are irrevocably divorced, and there's no way mom'll go back to dad even if one or both of them wanted it. A part of my life ended today with the old year, just as a part of theirs is now over. I think, deep down, they both still love each other deeply; hell, they've both said as much to me on separate occasions. They just...drifted. I think my father has made this bizarre effort to isolate himself from anyone and everyone. All he does is work.

The frightening thing is...I can feel myself do something similar. I know I have his tendency to shut myself off from everyone else. Admittedly, I'm not anywhere near as much a workaholic as he is, but I do have his tendency to throw myself into whatever project I'm working on rather than facing what's bothering me.

It's a fine line to tread. In talking with my folks, I can see that they're both saddened by what's happened--I can even hear it in my father's voice, and I think he got as close to crying as I've ever seen him when we chatted this afternoon about it--but there's also this weight off of both of them the past week or two, even back during Christmas. Sure, things were a little tense, but my father smiled more easily than I've seen in ages, and my mom didn't nag nearly as much as she usually does.

And so when dad told me that they were officially divorced, a part of me felt great remorse. My childhood--which, really, ended sometime during college, I guess--was irrevocably closed off today.

Childhood has to end. It's a part of the growing up process, and these things just happen. Divorce happens; it happens to about 50% of those who get married in this country. Maybe this speaks to a problem with how quickly a lot of our citizens get married. But then you do have people like my parents, who were married--rather happily, for the most part--for 29 years. How do they fit in? Is it empty nest syndrome? Is it mid-life crisis? I don't know. It just happens. I never thought it would happen to my family, but it did. That's just how things are now.

My life will never be the same. My visits home will never be the same. Mom said as much on our drive home from visiting my grandparents Christmas Day. "You know this is the last Christmas like this we'll have," she said.

"Yeah, I know," I said. We both agreed that we'd probably still do the whole Christmas Eve at dad's parents' house and Christmas Day at mom's parents' house, but this would be the last time we--mom, dad, Clif, Scott, and myself--would spend the holiday together as a family. This is how our family has evolved. Maybe it's for the best, maybe it just destroys everything. I don't know.

This has all turned out much more morbidly than I originally intended. The divorce is fairly major, and it's colored my whole time in Virginia so far, and it put a strange cap on the year, but it was hardly the overblown, dramatic moment I'm making it out to be. Maybe a heartbreaking personal epiphany for me, but I didn't break down in tears or anything. I've accepted that this is the way things are, and I've dealt with it.

Anyway, on a significantly lighter note, I'm due at a party pretty soon. Some drinking might occur. I apologize in advance to anyone I call while even slightly inebriated. When/if we talk, remember that I tend to still use big words when I've had a few, I just slur them more.

And honestly, is there anything more entertaining than hearing someone slur the word "disquietude."

~chuck

Song of the Moment: Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Roger McGuinn, Tom Petty, George Harrison, & Eric Clapton, "My Back Pages (Live)" <--best version EVER