The Color Yellow

I spent some time recently talking to a friend who is just starting the divorce process and by random chance, she happened to mention something about her stbx that reminded me of a daily frustration I had with my ex. For nearly thirty years, the same problem, that was never resolved and never admitted to be a problem that I dealt with.

And I had completely forgotten about it for months and perhaps years. I didn’t have to deal with it anymore, and so I was no longer frustrated by it. It was such a strange moment, to think that I had healed this one small thing, and that I hadn’t even realized that it had healed.

Divorce sucks. It is financially difficult for everyone, painful for the children, and it can go on forever. But one part of it that is not often talked about is the disentangling of self that must happen throughout the process. For years, you work on compromising and often you become like the other person. You don’t even realize that you go to the restaurants they like, or they go to the restaurants you like, that you watch television shows waiting to find something they would like, that you get used to the jokes that they tell and miss them, that you walk through stores unconsciously looking for things that would delight them.

And then you don’t anymore.

When I first divorced, one of the strange new experiences I had was going to shop at the grocery store entirely for myself. I hadn’t done that for over thirty years. And my habits and preferences changed and are still changing as I discover new things and go back to old ones I hadn’t remembered only I liked.

For instance, for several weeks, I would go to the store and see a cantaloupe and remind myself that I liked cantaloupe but that I couldn’t possibly eat a whole cantaloupe myself. But then I decided that it was all right for me to get a cantaloupe just this once as a prize, and I could simply throw out the part that I didn’t finish when it went bad. To my astonishment, it turned out that I ate the entire cantaloupe without any problem. My ex didn’t like cantaloupe, only watermelon, and I had tended to buy what he liked instead of what I did. But I could finish it just fine by myself, so I bought cantaloupe every week, and still do. I still finish it just fine by myself.

The first year of the divorce, it was painful for me to drive by restaurants that had once been our favorites. I couldn’t bring myself to go into them. But slowly, I tried out ordering out from them. I found myself ordering my old favorites, and then, once, I ordered something that had always been his favorite. It turned out I liked it and it is now one of my favorites. Eventually, I made new memories at these old restaurants, going out with my children or with other friends. Yes, I’ve found new restaurants, as well, but it has been good for me to accept that I don’t have to avoid things that were ours and that the pain doesn’t tug as it once did.

More recently, I have found myself gravitating toward the color yellow. This used to be his favorite color and I would often buy him clothing in this color. It felt somehow like he “owned” the color yellow. My favorite color from childhood and through all of our marriage was dark, forest green. I had dresses in this color, several coats, jeans, and shirts. It was *my* color just as yellow was his.

Until I considered that perhaps people do not own colors, and that I also do not own the color green, nor do I have to continue having it as my favorite color if it no longer actually is my favorite color. I began to buy yellow, and then bright orange. I use these colors frequently in my artwork.

Recently, I went to a family event for one of our children and I wore my vibrant, bright yellow coat. My ex was wearing a yellow shirt, as well. It looked like we had planned to match for the event, though nothing could be farther from the truth. If you had told me this would happen four years ago, at the beginning of the divorce, I would have blushed with shame at the idea that I had “stolen” his color.

Now it is my color. And it can also be his color. Just like I now buy watermelon for myself, not just for him. These may sound like small things, silly things, but are part of the very important work of re-creating who I am now, without regard to him. I don’t wear yellow to annoy him and I don’t eat watermelon because he taught me to like it. I am simply making choices on my own without regard to him. It is a good place to be in, and not one I’d have thought I’d have ever managed to get to

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