What My First Year of Separation Was Really Like

There's good and there's bad, but I have no regrets.

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Just over a year ago, a moving truck arrived at my house. It was one of the most peculiar days of my life, standing in my kitchen, watching strangers cart away things that had been part of my home and my life for so long. Bookcases, a couch, cast iron pans, leather chairs.

Then my husband got into his car and drove off, too.

That day felt like a clear-cut ending to my marriage. And it happened so fast: Over the course of just a few hours, we and all our belongings were physically separated and driven miles apart.

That matched how I’d always pictured separation: a single, decisive event, one half of a simple binary. You’re married, then you’re not. You’re together, then apart.

But emotionally, none of it has been simple or swift.