Remembering

In part this is what divorce after a long-time marriage does, it doesn’t just erase the future together, but the past as well.

When my husband of forty years left me for a close friend, I wanted my mind cleared of heartbreak. I tried therapy, EMDR, mediation, and yoga but none of it worked. I remembered a film in which a heart-broken Jim Carey has his memory of his ex-beloved erased and all at once I knew that was what I wanted. A clear and spotless mind, devoid of memories of the day my husband said he was leaving, or the day I went to use my credit card only to discover my name had been removed from all of our credit cards and bank accounts. I wanted to forget how our marriage soured, how the dreams we’d had evaporated, how the person I’d fallen in love with had slowly disappeared until nothing was left of him.