My divorce was incredibly anticlimactic.
My husband and I had been in a long-distance relationship for a few months before we decided to divorce, so we were already living apart; there was no dramatic moving out moment, no symbolically and physically closing the door on our shared apartment and life. We had been seeing other people for almost two years before the divorce was finalized, so I didn’t feel a sudden freedom to indulge in a “meeting strangers in bars” phase. Family court in my jurisdiction is entirely virtual, so I just threw a blazer on over my t-shirt and leggings and called it good enough. My marriage didn’t end with the bang of a gavel but with an Awkward Zoom Wave. It wasn’t particularly happy or sad. There weren’t any tears. It was just another video conference link in my Outlook calendar.
If I’m entirely honest with myself, the marriage itself was anticlimactic, too. Instead of lifting me up and bringing out the best in me, I found parts of myself slipping away. I followed him to a city I hated where I worked a job that made me miserable. I wasn’t putting myself in places or situations that were conducive to making friends. I let bad habits take over, gained weight and stayed home. I was resentful, hurt and frustrated all the time. I didn’t feel like me.
At the same time, I couldn’t identify anything that was particularly wrong. He was a good man. We had fun together. It was safe. It was fine. And finding the courage to leave a situation that feels fine for the unknown — for a chance that my life could be so much bigger, brighter, more me — is scary. Rejecting something that feels good enough for something that’s uncertain is a leap of faith.
Confronted with an anticlimactic divorce at the end of an anticlimactic marriage, I desperately needed some way to mark the occasion. I needed a moment that bore witness to my bravery, my commitment to finding more for myself and my fresh start. I looked for a ritual in the one place I felt I was sure to find it: Judaism.
Judaism has a ritual for everything: Waking up, Friday nights, entering a home, mourning. Marriages start with a chuppah and breaking a glass. There had to be something there to give me a moment that would make this huge life transition feel real.
As it turns out, if you’re not observant enough to sign a get, the Jewish divorce document, there actually aren’t Jewish divorce rituals or traditions.
So I made my own.
I wanted a moment of transition, of before and after, of letting go of the past and stepping into the future. I wanted a fresh start.
I wanted a mikveh.
I scheduled an appointment for the mikveh at a large local synagogue. It was intimidating. I had never been to a Conservative synagogue before, and certainly never to this particular one. I’m not a regular mikveh user, and I was there to use it for a non-traditional reason. There was no one there to greet me, even though I had checked the box for a mikveh guide when I signed up. I stood in that synagogue lobby, unsure where to go or what to do, feeling like I didn’t belong.
And then one of the rabbis happened to walk by. I recognized her — pretty much everyone in Washington, D.C. would after she had presided over Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s funeral. She took the time to introduce herself, to walk me to the mikveh, to show me where everything was and talk me through it. After I had spent a marriage making one other person my whole world, I was suddenly reminded that through Judaism, I had a community. A community that existed between strangers, that connected the past to the present, filled with people who accepted me without question, who felt I was worth their time.
Before the rabbi closed the door, she pointed to a basket of laminated sheets. Those sheets contained a mikveh ritual for every possible situation you could think of. Flipping through them, I found what I had been searching for. At the top of one of the laminated sheets, I saw the words “An Immersion Ceremony Following the End of a Relationship” by the Mayyim Hayyim Ritual Creation Team.
I thought about all of the things that I was leaving behind as I shed my clothing.
I stood by the water, completely naked and vulnerable, and recited the kavanah on my laminated sheet: “I stand here, having completed the unbinding of a relationship. I stand here with dignity and strength. I stand alone, a whole and complete person, no longer bound as a companion and partner.”
When I submerged myself in the warm water, it was hard to tell where I ended and where the water began. I wasn’t just embraced by the living waters, I was part of the living waters.
I submerged a second time, and felt excited about what would come next when I read the words that looked to the future. “May I turn toward the light. May I turn toward hope. May I turn toward new possibilities”.
I submerged a third time, and when I surfaced, for the first time since the night things went off the rails and I decided to move forward with the divorce, I was sobbing. When I stripped down to the barest parts of me, I was able to wash away my resentment and reconnect with myself and my community. In my complete nakedness, I was reminded that I, on my own, am enough. I am bigger than I had let myself be. I deserve more.
Opening my eyes, I found the final words on the laminated sheet said exactly what I needed to hear, the feelings I needed to put words to. I read the words to myself: “I emerge from the living waters open and refreshed; strengthened to move forward; with the courage to accept what this journey will bring.”
I put my clothes back on, pushed open the synagogue doors, and stepped across the threshold to my future.
