It is hard to pinpoint when my marriage fell apart. The high point for me in retrospect feels like the trip to St. Croix in 2016, a trip when we got to really focus on each other and exploring the island. My memories of the beautiful beaches we found dominate my mindshare even almost ten years later. But by 2017 the cracks were showing, I remember a trip to Orlando in 2017 in particular that was very uncomfortable with her family- the first time I really felt like I wasn't "good enough." But that year is better remembered by me as the year I climbed the Great Wall of China, or the year of the Nintendo Switch, or the year of Xena dying. To be clear, in 2017 I was distracted from what was to come (as well documented here).
But by 2024 it was clear what was coming- to the point where I dreaded the year even starting at the end of 2023. Early in 2024 Lindsey announced to me she wanted a change in life, and started talking about me moving out. By the summer it felt like a done deal, she was already planning her next move in life without me as I started to think about how I was going to start over in life not taking much of the momentum of our life together with me since she was keeping the house.
To that end I decided to take advantage of my favorite holiday- Black Friday- to build momentum for my new life. I spent the better part of a month making a list for what I would need to fill a house or apartment, constantly trading links on Wayfair with Allie to figure out what I needed from them when I would take little with me. On the day of Black Friday I bought so many things that a corner of the old garage was filled within a week. The moment that Wayfair stuff started showing up it really felt over- I had made a firm commitment buying that stuff to make my next move in life. I was actively apartment and house hunting by then, and eventually I found a good small house nearby and got lined up to get the keys December 13.
The weekend before was an event Lindsey had looked forward to for a while- the Harry Potter Forbidden Forest. We had tickets for December 9th. Basically they took a regular trail park on the other side of town and transformed it into a small theme park with projectors and lights and props. Little did I know that this park was going to be the key moment for me in life. I didn't make the plans so I really didn't know what it would be. I just had seen an ad or two for it, at the time I was very wrapped up trying to figure out where I was going to be sleeping in 2025 now that the Black Friday purchase event had put a clock over my head for living in the William Bee house. So I was just along for the ride.
The morning of the 9th we had finished separating our immediate finances. We had always worked out of one checking account, but after Black Friday Lindsey was working hard to unravel our day to day finances because she too could feel the end was close. She took the savings we had jointly and used it to pay off the credit cards, and we started that day in a place we had not been in since about 2008- with access to our own clean credit lines and with our own obligations going forward. The full financial divorce would take a while to complete, but the day to day finances where split then.
That night the three of us drove to the Forbidden Forrest almost in silence. The park was almost to Bastrop so when we got there (it was a Monday night) it was already dark. We parked in the dirt lot and went into this little pop up "village" they had made to be the entrance. In this entrance they had a Harry Potter themed restaurant and so I did what I had done for years before: I bought us food and got ready to eat. Finn got to have some butter beer, and get prepared for the longish walk through the actual event. Lindsey had paid for premium tickets for her and Finn, so each had a wand and a bag with swag tied to the event.
Overall the park was fun, Finn enjoyed the different stations they had setup in the park. There where some parts where kids could stand in one part and wave a wand and a field of magical lights would light up. In other stations they had voice samples from the movie alongside props. For the most part Finn was excited about the park but he was dragging a little. I was very impressed with how in depth it was, and enjoyed connecting some of the dots for him along the way as he tried to put together what it was all about.
It ended with a large station with a hidden projector where participants could stand on a wooden platform and do the expecto patronum spell and have the projector make it seem like an actual patronus had exploded from their wand. The poor woman who was in charge of that station was obviously tired of seeing adult after cosplaying adult stand on the platform and do the spell. She was excited when Finn (a kid) wanted to try, and was blown away when he absolutely nailed it. I got a great video of that moment, I really enjoyed it. I tried to share the moment with Lindsey but she was upset that he kinda took her turn by going first, I had never felt so distant from her in over a decade in the fact she couldn't appreciate her son finally getting into her favorite movies and nailing that spell. It felt like a microcosm of what the last few years had felt like.
The park ended in a gift shop like all theme parks do, and at that moment the financial separation hit me as she picked out swag she wanted and paid for it separately from me. I got a poster to remember the event, knowing it would be significant later on. We walked back to the car silent, and barely interacted for the rest of the week. I got my keys that Friday and moved out over the weekend. By the end of the next week I was done with my old life riding into a new one for 2025.
Our marriage had started with Harry Potter, as I had proposed to her in the parking lot before we went to see the 6th movie with a ring box my dad had helped me rig to play Harry Potter music. The year after we were married we went to Harry Potter world together in Orlando, and throughout our years together a mutual love of Harry Potter drove some of how we spent future vacations- like when we went back to Orlando in 2017 as mentioned above or when we went to see the Harry Potter play in New York at the end of 2021.
But in retrospect it also felt like it ended during that Harry Potter event, somewhere in that forest. We entered as a family and exited as two single parents, both about to face one of the more challenging years of our lives.
Comments
Post a Comment