How Reading Helped Me Through My Divorce
By Zibby Owens
I wasn’t sure how I was going to get through it. But I knew I had to; I didn’t have a choice.
When I decided to get divorced at age thirty-eight, as the mother of four young kids, including a nine-month-old baby, I did so because I couldn’t not. I did so, fundamentally, to save my soul.
I don’t blame my ex-husband. The ins and outs of our relationship are probably familiar to many and largely irrelevant, for reasons hard to articulate yet easy to feel.
The fallout from our separation left me pushing a stroller up and down Madison Avenue, racing across town to school pick-ups, suddenly unsupported by friends I thought would always be there for me, suddenly in conflict with my closest loved ones, suddenly in a life I hadn’t imagined. My old, parallel existence was thrown in sharp relief — what it would’ve looked like had I not made this ground-splitting decision. But the new world I’d just entered was still murky. And yet, under the door that was cracked open, I could see the tiniest bit of light shining through. I kept racing towards it.
The hardest part — there were and continue to be many, many hard parts — was having to share my kids, having to drop them off with my ex-husband for long weekends bimonthly. After those protracted goodbyes, I would find myself standing on the street alone, facing the closed door, and I would crumble. I could feel the shuddering separation from my body, creeping nausea, the sinking feeling in my gut, as if one of those boules thrown by old French men with cigarettes dangling from their lips had suddenly landed in my stomach — plunk. I’d often go to pieces right there, hiding between parked cars to shield myself from the surefooted march of pedestrians whizzing by, carrying on with their lives in ways that I found incomprehensible.
Joint custody. Joint is the worst word for it; I had never felt so disconnected, so disjointed. Furthermore, every joint in my body ached from the loss, my shoulders creaked, my knees and feet throbbed as I walked away from that shut door every two weeks.
I did have a new love interest percolating then — a warm, kind, hilarious man six years younger than me (my former tennis instructor!) who, as the days became months and then years, carried me through, shared my bed and my heart, and, in time, vowed to be there for me in sickness and in health at our wedding. And yet, the relationship couldn’t offset the feelings of loss every time the kids left.
On my therapist’s leather couch in a cramped office on Lexington Avenue, I would loudly shift in my seat to grab a tissue, horns blaring just beyond her window. The hole in my heart wasn’t closing. Nothing was helping as I wandered past the kids’ empty bedrooms on those quiet nights when they were gone. I would stop occasionally to sit with the stuffed animals on my son’s armchair and cry in the dark.
“Read more books,” my therapist said, sitting cross-legged on her armchair, still in her spinning clothes. “With a good book, you’ll never be lonely.”
While I’d always been an avid reader, as a newly divorced mom I threw myself into reading as bibliotherapy. Instead of feeling the absence of my kids, when I read, I felt the delightful introduction to hundreds of characters dancing around my mind, stories that entertained me, inspiring tales of others who had overcome injury, illness, addiction. Travel twice a month became a habit with my new paramour so I could get away from those empty rooms. I would pack at least five books each weekend.
And then, in the midst of the ground reshuffling, I started a literary podcast so I could interview those authors. I wanted to hear more, directly from them. While there were professional reasons for the podcast, perhaps the truest one was a response to that sinking feeling I navigated every other long weekend without the kids. Yes, it was nice to be able to sleep through the night and do things like go to brunch and laugh with my new husband. But the silence and the absence of the kids colored all of it.
Fast forward six years. I’m in our bright, happy kitchen laughing with my husband, his sister, father and soon-to-be stepmother. We’re cleaning up after dinner, wiping down the counters, clanking dishes together in the dishwasher, rinsing wineglasses, jazz playing from the ceiling speakers, snow starting to fall outside. During dinner, I’d been texting with my oldest son under the table and had just Facetimed with my older daughter. Technology was keeping us all closer on those weekends apart. That, and time, was helping to dull the ever-present ache.
My father-in-law picked up the book I was reading to prep for one of the eight interviews I had scheduled this week for my show — a show that has, crazily enough, become a top literary podcast. It even inspired me to create my own book, an anthology of essays I edited and curated during the pandemic, which comes out in two weeks. In the past three years, I’ve interviewed more than 600 authors.
I could see my father-in-law try to figure out where to put the book down as we cleaned, food remnants on every surface, nowhere to safely set it.
“Everywhere I look, there’s a book!” he said, chuckling. “Really, what’s with all the books? Is this some kind of book fetish? Look at this!”
I laughed so hard I had to clutch my stomach. It’s true — we were surrounded by books. I’d just gotten forty advance copies in the mail and had so many books that I’d just added a new library cart to my office, which already had floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.
With a good book, you’ll never be lonely, I thought.
That, really, is why.