Wow, I'm glad that I got here early. By tonight this pub will be packed! Coffee, bartender, and a double shot of Kahlua.

I had a four-way with the lawyers last week. I didn’t post a #stateofthelil report because I was too sad.

The actual settlement isn't too complicated. It was what my lawyer called a “creative settlement” that happens when so many actual records are lost to history. He said that in these cases we resort to “a sense of intuitive fairness.” There will be a formal separation agreement soon. It will probably be signed, sealed, and delivered within a couple of weeks.

The ex and I had previously agreed to a bunch of stuff informally without the lawyers, and I appreciated that the lawyers looked at our informal agreements about pension, houses, cars, etc. etc. and added various details that lawyers think of -- all good things: if he dies first, if I die first, the taxes on this or that, the shared car. What was complicated was the depth of my sadness - more sad, I guess at this point than anytime else. That sadness won't go away any time soon, if ever. I'll try and see it as a sadness with love in it as in the quote below:

"Even that inescapable sadness that we all have, has love in it. And I'll take a slow, wise, ongoing sadness that has love in it, any day of the week." - Ben Harrison

I’m sad because the ex had none of his bluster and certainty that he had last summer when he initiated all this. He looked kind of like King Lear on the heath, but his voice was thin and quiet. This whole thing was awful and stupid from the beginning. Friends tried to talk some sense into him, but he would only listen to his imagination of a different life.

Now, he has a different life.

He’s going back on the same meds that first reduced his anxiety and depression, and then made him talkative, manic, and barely recognizable. He could be someone else in three weeks.

Meanwhile, I posted this in last week's pubski:

One door closes. Yes, one door closes and THEN A FUCKING TRAIN CRASHES IN THROUGH THE WINDOW. Kills a few people, and leaves me walking away, shaking my head, asking, "What was that about?"

This reminds me of a blog I posted in 2011 when my daughter was having her breakdown called “How Can I Stop a Train Wreck?”

At the end of the post, I said:

Sometimes we can see a train wreck about to happen. We know there's a large obstacle ahead, or the bridge has collapsed. Maybe there's an oncoming train. We don't know exactly when it will happen, but it will, and it will be sad. There they are, on the journey of a lifetime, left lying by the side of the tracks.

Mostly, we can't stop "train wrecks" - only the trains themselves can do that - but if they let us, we might be able to get them to safety and store their luggage, or hold their hand and sing to them, until they hop on their next train.

Honestly, right now I don’t even feel like doing that for my ex. I hope somebody does.