standing with a stranger

this all has happened at lightning fast speed ... the condoms, the 54 hour disappearance, the break-up e-mail, the shanghai talk, and then i'm in a hong kong court house signing papers to destroy the one thing that is most precious to me.

the bolshevik and i stand side by side on lines and hand in our papers and then a person behind a window hands them back with corrections that need to be made. over and over again for three hours.

why does the bolshevik have a full middle name on his passport but only a middle initial on our marriage certificate? this is unacceptable to the bureaucracy of the court workers.

they question if he's really the same person. i question that myself.  

he fills out an affidavit explaining how middle initials work in the united states. he finds every place where his name is mentioned in the pages upon pages of documents.  then he has to write "also known as" with his super confusing alias which is just his exact same name but with a middle initial.

we wait on more lines and fill out more papers. we're sent to different windows and more lines and more papers.

the whole time he stands there like i am nothing to him. i am no one. i am not the former love of his life. i am not his former partner in crime. i am of no consequence to him anymore. i am nothing but a burden he is finally ridding himself of.  as though i had somehow attached myself to him unfairly, like a tick he's finally able to burn off.

i use the time to ask questions for any hope of closure or some sort of explanation that makes sense. i get one word answers and useless platitudes.

waiting at a window, an elderly chinese man tries to interrupt and cut ahead of us as the woman behind the counter is explaining to us that a judge will contact us in 30 days. the elderly man hovers way too close to me, shoves his arm in front of my face and waves a form at the woman to get her attention. i turn to him and tell him he needs to "back the fuck up." he pretends not to understand what i am saying, but i think my tone is quite clear regardless of linguistic differences.

when it's all over i deliver the final lines i've rehearsed in my head:

i don't understand why you're doing this

i'm the only person in this world who loves you, who you confide in, who you even talk to

and you're pushing me away

so now you'll go back to your apartment surrounded by your air jordans

and you'll hang out with work acquaintances you don't really like that much

and you'll go out to clubs you don't actually enjoy

and that'll be your life now

that's what you want

well i hope that works out for you

i ask him if he has anything to say, and he tells me he's already said it all.  but he's said nothing.

and then we walk away.

i'm just waiting ... an-ti-ci-pating

a brief history of waiting for the bolshevik

6 hours - i was looking for a scissors so i could trim our passport photos to the right size when i found the condoms in his drawer.  the same drawer he had stashed his wedding ring in.  he was at work, so i texted him and asked him for an explanation even though i knew there was nothing he could say to explain this.  he wrote back, "let's talk tonight."  and then i drank half a bottle of whisky. and i waited.

54 hours - we had said we were going to work it out, try harder, see each other more, go to couples counseling.  "you're worth fighting for," he had said.  back in hong kong for a week before school started, no one else was back yet so i was getting sad and lonely thinking about the state of things.  i texted him on a Friday morning that i was feeling really blue and needed some TLC.  i asked him to call me after work. he said he would. friday passes.  i wonder if he's on a bender.  saturday morning comes and goes and i wonder if he's at the apartment of another woman.   saturday afternoon passes and any bender should be over but he still isn't answering my calls or responding to my texts.  by saturday evening i'm convinced something has actually happened to him.  sunday morning i send someone over to his apartment to confirm the bolshevik is alive, and it turns out he is choosing not to talk to me.  i text and call and try to find out what the hell is happening but nothing.  then around 5pm i receive an email from Apple telling me i am no longer a part of the bolshevik's Apple Family Sharing Plan.  so to be fair, the bolshevik first broached the "divorce talk" through Apple.  fucking Apple.  then five minutes later the bolshevik emails me himself and says he doesn't want to be married to me anymore.  doesn't want to be a team.  it's too hard.  he can't do it anymore.  doesn't want to.

during this 54 hour period i drink half a bottle of champagne, six whiskeys on the rocks, and four glasses of malbec.

then i send an expletive filled text telling the bolshevik to be a man and tell me this to my face, because he still won't answer my calls.

25 hours is how long i have to wait to talk to the bolshevik about his batshit crazy email because talking to me that evening was too much for him.  i drink several more glasses of wine. and i wait. the following day is my first day back at work after the holidays and i have to answer questions like "how was your xmas break?  you and the bolshevik go somewhere special?"  i try to make it through the day but i am empty inside.  and i wait.

4.5 days - i convince the bolshevik to see me the next weekend to talk things out.  we can work this out, i say.  he is just really stressed and confused and couldn't possibly mean what he is saying.  we're so great together.  he can't possibly let that go.  i wait 4 days to fly to shanghai to see him.  i stay at a friend's place.  i want to come over straight away in the morning but he's hungover and asks me if i can wait until 2pm.  i tell him i will wait no longer than noon.

26 hours is how long i have to stay in shanghai after finding out that my marriage is over.  he doesn't want to try.  and i cry and i wait to go home, hoping never to return to the mainland again because it's all tainted with memories of him.

5 days - is how long i have to wait for the results of my extensive STD screening.

8 hours after i text him i am graced with a phone call ... actions have consequences but not any consequences that the bolshevik is willing to own up to.

11 days ... so he truly doesn't love me anymore?  well if that's the case then put me out of my misery. 11 days ago the bolshevik agreed to meet me in a hong kong court house so we can amicably dissolve our marriage.  11 days later he confirms that he really is going through with this.

4 days until "D-Day" ... it's weird to be waiting around for someone to divorce you.  especially when you're still deeply in love with that person and desperately wish you could stay married to him. but he's shown so little compassion for me.  such little concern for my feelings or my well-being. then he says he cares so deeply about me, but none of his actions through this process have been caring at all.  is he purposefully trying to torture me?  is it his plan to be as horrible to me as possible so i won't want him back?  or is he just so oblivious to the emotions of others that he doesn't see the purgatory he continually puts me in?

maybe i'll never know.  all i can do it wait.