In two days I’ll be a divorcee. I’ll say things like “in my first marriage…” and “my ex-husband.” I never anticipated this as a likely outcome to “my first marriage.” I thought we would have been together for the rest of our lives. It’s weird. I’m glad for the divorce, and yet I’m terribly saddened by it. It is a closure that feels very needed, and yet it also feels like a final cut against bare skin. It’s raw, it’s humbling, it’s vivid.

My emotions have been a little all over the place with it. It’s not that I miss being in a relationship with him, it’s that I am saddened by how it ended and what it looks like today. I never expected that it would end, and beyond that, that our connection itself, the friendship we built over 13 years, would also go away. Thirteen years is more than 1/3 of my life. I have so few memories of my life before he became my partner, it’s hard to remember the details of life before him.

And yet, I am whole. I am grateful for the time I had with him, and I recognize that it did run its course (perhaps a little earlier than either he nor I were willing/able to see/admit.) I know who I am today, in a way that I absolutely did not recognize myself just a few years ago. I’ve grown so much over the last decade (including in weight, thanks to discovering adults can eat cake whenever they like–daily, as an option). I have a confidence in my path–both personal and professional–that I had not known pre-divorce.

Of course, the divorce is connected to my transition. It’s hard to separate, though, what personal development was due to the transition and accepting myself, learning about myself, going through puberty again, and what is due to my former relationship ending. It’s complicated. I don’t think there’s a clean division–I think life is messy, transitioning is messy, divorce is messy. And, I’ve learned to find some comfort in embracing a little mess. I know now that it is part of what makes me who I am. That mess is part of what got me here today. I live in an equilibrium of mess and organization. I am both struggling and I’m okay. I will continue to struggle, and I know that I’ll also continue to thrive.