FROM THE NORM TO THE MARGIN

Turning the page

I am a book lover, a paper lover. I always feel a rush of emotion when I enter a library. For me, there are thousands of universes, stories, and mysteries that come together. I thought I was living through books but I was already writing my own book without knowing it.

"I'm going to get a divorce".

I don't know where it came from but it just came out. The psychiatrist says he hears this every day but he won't believe me until I take action. If I take action, he offers to help me leave. I'll have to agree with him when he offers the "other one" a rest cure to get him away from the house so we can leave safely. First hand out. Thank you, sir, even if you have decided to leave this world.On leaving his office I rush to the lawyer I know to be one of the best. If I get into this I have to lock everything down so I don't complain later. I mustn't think about it. I'm afraid I won't have the strength to go through with it.When I get to the lawyer's office I say the word divorce again. It hurts. I feel guilty. I feel like I'm betraying "the other". I just want to leave with my children, that's all. Not to make noise, not to cause pain. The welcome is delicate, absolutely not vindictive. Second hand.

Are there erasers that erase parts of our lives, just like that, gently?I'll skip the events that followed. It's still raw and I feel like a winter rainy day. So I'll tell that part later. One day I'll have to look at the past for what it is: finished.So I turn the key in this lock. I close the door on the history of this house in which I spent ten years making bread, yoghurt and meals for the family I had built. I put all my love, all my being, all my soul into it. I am closing the door on fifty years of life. I know I will never go back. That part of me died with the sound of that key turning.I don't think about tomorrow. I don't think about anything. I have to find a job. I can't have my children taken away from me. I'm back with my parents.I am miserable. I do everything to hide these floods of tears that come over me anywhere, anytime. I know I'm lucky; I was afraid my parents would persuade me not to go. But they were great. They opened their arms to us, cried with us. So did the rest of the family. Lots of outstretched hands. Thank you all. I love you all.In spite of all these things, the "other" does not let us go. It is impossible not to feel it behind us at all times. We still live in fear.My sister suggests that I go to her home six hundred kilometres away with the children. Here again I have to make a decision on my own, and it's not just me. And once again I don't think about it.

I say yes.