IT'S A MATTER OF PUBLIC RECORD

Again, I am reading more Ann Rule, more true-crime, more about tragic break-ups.  “Too Late For The Fair” is an unsolved mystery, a disappearance, yet everyone who had known the married couple had formed the same conclusion. Rule writes:
 

Ty decided to start with the court records on his parents’ divorce—a divorce then thirty-odd years in the past.  He was shocked at what he found there. (p.310)

And why wouldn’t he be shocked? He was a toddler at the time, too young and innocent to understand what had happened between his parents.

Rule summarizes the human condition:

It is said that in old age, we become who we were when we were young—only more so. Happy people are fun to be around even when they are long past social security age, and angry people are as sour as dill pickles when they are elderly. (p.353)

So here I am standing outside the home I once lived in as a teenager. As I walk down the street I am at peace with the world knowing that my days as a defendant, as someone who would have had to defend his dead grandfather and his parents as well as himself against false accusations, have run its course. I know I could’ve fought valiantly to the bitter end, but what good would that do? I’m broke as it is. I’m starting over. I’m still paying lawyer bills and dental bills. There’s no need for me to go further into debt. It was never about me “winning” anything, or making the plaintiff look bad, or becoming the subject of an Ann Rule book.

I’ve given enough of my “self” over the years only to be handed a lump of coal, and guess what? You’re probably not going to believe me, but not only am I at peace, I am happier too. Why? Because I never hid behind anyone during the whole dismantling of my marriage. I didn’t use others for my own personal gain. I did what I thought was best for everyone affected by the plaintiff’s court filings, however outlandish it may be. Now I'm moving forward.

Next on my reading list: “The Marriage Plot” by Jeffrey Eugenides.