A lyric from the musical "Purlie" has been going through my head all day:
"The world isn't comin' to an end, my friend; the world's just comin' to a start."
Boxing up all of W's stuff took me the entire day. This surprised me, because I had made a list of our assets and the list was not as extensive as the boxes are proof it should have been-- however, the list that I made was only of the things that were arguably either of ours, and the boxes contain those things thus selected as hers as well as everything that was inarguably hers (like her clothing, fabrics, and art supplies). So moving all those down the three flights to the storage space will be Sunday's workout.
Sunday, because tomorrow and Saturday I'm pleased to be keeping myself busy all day! This is a good thing.
While packing, I did have occasional moments of distress. Before packing, actually, I had a moment where, in the kitchen, I simply allowed myself to collapse and lay on the floor for... well, it seemed like a long time, but it was probably no more than ten minutes. [It's a clean floor.]
I've started telling my friends what's happened. I'm relieved that I'm not blaming, trying to make W look bad, or painting myself as a victim. She moved out, moved in with him, the marriage is done, thank you for your sympathy and let's get on with our evening.
There was another moment I didn't mention from when W was here, last night, packing up her own stuff. She stopped for a moment and said, there was something she'd been meaning to ask me.. namely, had I screwed her over? How so, I asked. With the division of assets, she said. I bit my tongue to avoid saying no, you screwed yourself over, and she continued. You told me about the laws, she said, and showed me how the math worked; but I just took your word for it and signed the marital agreement. I didn't look up any of it or do any calculations myself.
It felt really good to be able to tell her, being honest both with her and with myself, that I had not lied to her or misrepresented any of the laws. That if she looked up the state laws about family gifts and alimony, or called a real-estate agent to price out the condo, looked up the value of the car, or read the laws that indicated which of our accounts were and were not marital assets, that she would indeed see exactly what I had told her to be true. I felt such a relief-- firstly, that I really wasn't trying to exact some kind of retribution or revenge, and secondly, that she still trusted me enough to accept my word that I wasn't. Now, granted, part of her "trust" is unquestionably just due to her being in the affair fog and simply not thinking about it ("At the height of the A, she will sacrifice anything"), but it was nice for once to be treated as an ally and not an enemy (although perhaps the context for that is ironic).
