The Way of It

(Me and Machelle at a yoga workshop with Angela and Victor, 2005)

So last tuesday Machelle and I went to court, for our one and only hearing regarding our divorce. We drove together, we sat close to one another on the bench on the back of the room, waiting for our turn. We faced the judge without lawyers, with documents we drafted ourselves. We joked with the judge, we allowed our actions to reveal the simple truth to be known to all: that we are friends, that we love each other, and that this does not mean that we have to live together, or remain married. Then our divorce became final. To love her without conditions, even as she moves on with her life and tastes the fresh fruit of a new relationship, that’s my job.

There were two ways we could have gotten the divorce: one was at war, hating each other, the other one was peaceful. We chose peace, and our children, relatives and friends are grateful in more ways than one for that. And so am I. And for this and other reasons I am so very grateful to Katie and her gentle yet incisive inquiry for helping me find what was never lost: my true nature.

Two weeks ago I was staffing Katie’s nine day School and I had the chance to do the work on the thought “my marriage went to hell.” My facilitator skillfully walked me through the four questions, and one turnaround really resonated with me: “My marriage went to heaven.” It was much truer. Surely, the marriage dissolved, and on the other side of inquiry what replaced it is this beautiful something, much closer to unconditional love than anything that we ever had while we were married.

At the end of our brief journey through the court system last tuesday Machelle dropped me off at my job, and before I got out of the car we shared our feelings, our hopes and fears about the future. Then we hugged. She went on to teach her yoga classes, and I went on to teach my microeconomics classes. I had a lot of fun that day teaching about “repeated investment decisions under risk.”

It was a beautiful day.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007 at 7:43 pm and is filed under Begin again, Relationships, Unconditional love. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.