A Tiger's Heart

I used to have a husband. I used his last name for nine years. We had the same bank account, shared the same house and everything inside the house. We had two black labs, Voodoo and her younger sister Shadow. Voodoo was fat, shadow was slim. He nicknamed himself fatvoodoo, so I called myself slimshadow. Voodoo loved him, but I liked Shadow much more, so when we held hands and walked along the Charles River side by side, Voodoo wagged her tail at his side and Shadow sniffled around at my side. 

I was alone and doing alright before him. My heart was a container with a tight lid and I made sure nothing spills out. Then he came to my world. He got to know my mother, my father, my sister, and every villager in the tiny Shen Hamlet in the Yangtze River delta of China. He got to know that I love tofu and I get angry and anxious easily. When I was sick, he held me and told me stories of his nine cousins in America. He hid notes in my place before he went back to America, for me to find, until he came to China to visit me again. I fell asleep on his lap on the boat in the Li River and drooled all over his pants. He called me Tiger, so I called him Pig. He called me sweetie, and I called him Honey. We bought every little piece of furniture together. We painted the walls with our own hands. I knew where his socks were kept, and he woke me up every morning for work.

He became an arm of mine, a leg of mine, and then half of me. I thought this would last forever, because I couldn’t imagine life without him. He finished my sentence, he packed my lunch boxes. He trimmed my bang. He understood every stupid thought that came out of my brain. He came out of the study every evening with open arms when I pushed open the screen door yelling “honey I am home!” It’s like breathing without air. How could I not have this person for the rest of my life? It’s like the veins in a leaf, how can you possibly cut every one of them out?

Nine years later, I woke up and suddenly realized that it’s time to end it. I had to, had no choice. If I stayed, I’d be self-contemptuous and heart-broken; if I left, my heart would break too, but I’d at least have self-respect.

So I did it. I took a knife and cut that arm, that leg, those veins off and out of my body. I packed my clothes and shoes. I drove my car slowly and followed the moving truck on the Mass Pike and just felt my blood was spilling all over on the car floor like a blanket.  

I stood in front of the judge in the court, stone-faced, with that man who I shared nine years of my life with standing at the other side of our lawyer. We both said yes to the judge—please grant us a divorce. He was already a stranger to me. 

I went to a different family court twice and changed my legal name. I opened a new bank account, changed my name on everything, work email, personal email, utility bills, cable, phone, driver license, social security card…I bought new furniture, new TV, I changed my hair style, got a new subway pass and cut off contact with anyone who we both knew.

I dragged myself in and out of subway with splitting headaches. I popped loads of anti-depressant and sleeping pills. I sat on the bed on weekends for hours and asked myself whether I should kill myself. I spent all my money on dresses and shoes and drank and danced like there was no tomorrow. Then a little by a little I recovered. I started to smile, exercise, go to museum, and finally I picked up all my pieces.

In just months’ time I wiped out my nine years’ memory. Today I am alone again, has nothing to do with that person. It’s like you shared a boat with someone on the roaring sea for nine years, and then one morning when the sun comes out, you open your eyes and that person is long gone as if he were never there. You roar along, day and night, keep going. Whether he is dead or alive, happy or sad, married or single, in America or China, is none of your business.

Marriage is just a piece of paper. Same as divorce. What’s there in life that is long lasting, never breaks? What’s there that you can trust forever?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 21st, 2010 at 8:44 PM and is filed under Life and Mood. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.