As I mentioned in my Santamas Season post, I spent part of Thanksgiving day going through the stacks of notes, filings, court orders, emails, webpages, etc that were all part of my divorce paperwork over the last 14 years. For a couple of hours, I went through it; stopping to read certain things that, at the time, pissed me off, upset me, caused me pain... and this time, I laughed. I laughed at how silly & stupid the Wildebeest had been; how she was jealous of the fact that I was married to him and had a child with him before she did; how her actions & words screamed "I have zero self esteem."
Jealousy, in my opinion, is a worthless emotion. It says to the world, "I don't feel I'm good enough for my significant other," and that you truly believe someone else can easily "steal" them from you. Believe me, from experience, if your SO can be "stolen" that easily, they are not worth your time & effort.
Anyway, that, in itself, was cathartic... but, I wanted more. I wanted to watch those 14y worth of papers go up in flame. A few people, my husband & my family law attorney included, said to me, "Why don't you just shred it?" Because it's not the same. Sure, it would get rid of it; same as fire... but I wanted the emotional release that came with burning.
So, I set out to find a safe method to do so. We have a small fireplace, but it only burns wood pellets, so I couldn't use that. We don't have an outdoor fireplace, yet, and I didn't want to buy one that would work for this purpose, only to have it not be what we want for our permanent set up. We searched hardware stores for a metal bin I could use, but nothing was heavy-duty enough (would melt even galvanized if it got too hot) nor did anything we looked at have a mesh top (you don't want little burning bits of paper flying around; that's a fire hazard).
Then, I thought, "Who do I know who has a wood-burning fireplace?" AHA! My friends, A&E, do. I sent A a message, asking if her fireplace would "...like to help me dispose of all my legal papers" -- hahaha. She said yes, and offered a few times/days for me to come over. I also had a tin of cookies for her & her family, so we made a date.
Yesterday, after work, I went over. She'd moved since the last time I was there, but I easily found it. I grabbed the tin of goodies, and the huge box of paperwork (seriously, it filled a Costco-sized paper towel box!), and went inside. Her husband poured us both a small glass of wine, and I grabbed a stack & tossed it in the fire. A got a few pics of me (for "prosperity" she said... lol), then we both sat on the couch with our wine, catching up, while E fed the fire. I left an hour later; there was still half a box left, but I told them they could keep it for starter.
I'm still waiting for the child support system to delete my court order from the online accounting, but my next steps are to go through my saved emails (I have it all in a folder titled "Legal") and any files/photos on my computer... and probably deleting them all. I see no reason to save any of it any longer.
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