For reasons I’ll never in my life understand, my five year old daughter sat at the breakfast table with me this morning and pointed at my high school 20th reunion sticker on the fridge that says “Joanna Carmona” and said to me “that’s not your last name.” She was upset. She said I needed to fix it right away, so I grabbed a red sharpie and crossed out Carmona and wrote in Alizio. Only then was she satisfied.
The next thing out of her mouth was that this is the best day of her life. She told me I needed to play “Best day of my life” by the American Authors. We sang every word together and she was so happy.
My daughter doesn’t know that today is the day I would meet her dad in court to finalize the divorce, but somehow in her bones she did.
I arrived at 10:00 a.m. at the court house in Lowell for our trial. I felt strong and brave, and was wearing a dress and boots that make me feel beautiful. I dress for me, not anyone else, though the gentleman who sat unnaturally close to me on the bench for an hour and a half had other ideas.
I watched him check me out, look me up and down and try to make eye contact the entire time. I threw him a bone to ask what time he had been assigned this morning. He said 8:30 a.m., so I assumed he would go before me. I was wrong. When they called the Carmona case ahead of his, he touched my hand, looked me in the eye and said “good luck”. I suppose since he’d been mentally undressing me for a while he thought he could touch me. I get it, I looked good, but no one will ever own me again.
It went very quickly. The judge asked us a few questions that I already knew the answers to after having watched a few other divorce cases ahead of me. The last thing the judge said was that I would return to my name “Joanna marie Alizio” and I was overjoyed.
When we left the courtroom, I gave my ex back the charm bracelet his mother had given to me. She has always adored me and during one of our trips to Spain, she gave me a bracelet with his name and birthdate on it, one that she had worn for years. It was a beautiful gesture. But, I am not his anymore. He has moved on and I gave it to him to pass on to his new girlfriend.
We rode down in the elevator together. He asked me how I was doing. I answered honestly that I was great. I am great. As we parted ways to return to our vehicles, I yelled to him “third time’s a charm”. I don’t know if it was a curse or a blessing, but either way, good luck to her.