A Story of before and after

There’s a photo on my fridge. It’s crooked, held up by a magnet shaped like a taco. In the picture, I’m standing next to her—before we were parents, before we were anything other than two people who decided to try. We’re both squinting into the sun, arms around each other, not yet carrying the things we’d one day have to set down.

I look at it sometimes when I’m packing lunches. I don’t feel sad, exactly. Just aware.

Divorce has a way of drawing a line through your life. There’s before, and there’s after. And the space between them is filled with things you don’t talk about at parties. Therapy sessions. Court paperwork. Those hard conversations where nobody wins.

But ours was kind. As kind as something like that can be.

We didn’t break because of something dramatic. We just stopped fitting. Like puzzle pieces left out in the sun—still shaped like themselves, but warped in ways that no longer connected. We loved each other. I think, in some way, we still do.

There’s a grace in letting go without bitterness. A quiet sort of love that shows up not in romance, but in respect. In sharing school pickups. In remembering the small things. In never speaking poorly of the other, especially in front of the kids.

I don’t know how to tell the full story of it. Maybe I don’t need to. Maybe it’s enough to say: we tried, and when it stopped working, we tried to be good to each other in the ending.

The question now is what to do with the after.

It’s taken time to find my footing again. To stop waking up and reaching for a life that’s no longer there. To stop feeling like I failed at something permanent. I’ve learned that moving on isn’t a straight line. Some days I feel light. Other days I miss the sound of her laugh when something ridiculous happened. Not because I want her back—just because that laugh used to be part of the background noise of my life.

But lately, there’s been something new. Not joy, not yet. But space. Room to grow into whatever comes next. Room to become someone who can love again—not in spite of what’s happened, but because of it.

I want to believe that love doesn’t always have to end in staying. Sometimes it ends in letting go gently, so something better can take root—maybe not right away, maybe not even for me. But for the kids. For the peace in our home. For the future we’re still quietly building, even from separate sides.

And maybe that’s enough. Maybe that’s a different kind of happy ending.

Even if it’s not the one I pictured.