The Papers - March 19, 2023

The Papers

I kept my divorce papers for forty-seven years.

They lived in the back of a closet inside a plain folder that followed me through every move, every house, and every stage of life.

I didn’t read them often.

I didn’t need to.

I already knew what they said.

They were handed to me at the front door of our house in 1976 by a process server. My wife, on the phone with her friend who helped her with this plan, stood watching me while my young son played in the living room, unaware that anything had changed.

Before I finished reading them, she said something I have never forgotten.

“Don’t get upset about some of the things written in there. The attorney said we needed to include things like that in case you contested the divorce.”

Some of those things weren’t true, some of them burned a permanent hole in my soul. 

Words have a strange power. Sometimes they settle deeper than the truth itself and stay there for years.

Those papers followed me through decades of life—through work, travel, mistakes, successes, and long stretches of solitude.

Every now and then, I would run across them while cleaning out a drawer or box. I would feel the same old knot tighten in my chest.

Then I would put them back.

A few weeks ago, I found them again while looking for something else in the closet.

This time I didn’t put them back.

I read them one last time, then carried the folder to the shredder and began feeding the pages into the machine.

Page by page.

The strange thing is, those papers stopped mattering years ago — but I've carried the words and meaning my entire life. 

When the last page disappeared, the room went quiet again.

The past was still there.

But it no longer had a place in my closet.

And after forty-seven years, that felt like enough.

        

I notice everything

How Old Are You, Really?

Early this morning the house was completely quiet.

No voices. No phones ringing. Just the kind of silence that settles over a place when someone has lived alone long enough.

A strange question crossed my mind.

How old would you think you were if no one had ever told you your age?

Inside, I don’t feel like someone living in this century.

The smallest things rarely escape me.

When someone stops calling the way they used to.
When the tone of a voice changes.
When the small habits people once had quietly disappear.

Most of the time, nothing is said. Sometimes I do say something, then instantly regret it.

Maybe that’s what happens when you’re an old soul.

Old souls spend a lot of time watching the world and wondering how it became what it is. People change slowly. Life shifts quietly. Most pretend not to notice.

Introverted. Aloof. A loner.

Labels often given by people who have never felt the weight of thinking too deeply about everything.

Once the need to fit in disappears, so do the filters. The performances become easier to see. The half-truths. The quiet ways people avoid what is obvious.

In quiet moments the same questions surface.

Why this place.
Why this time.
And whether anything done along the way truly mattered.

The smallest details hold my attention.

Wind moving through trees.
The quiet shift of seasons.
Leaves turning, falling, disappearing.

The strong people who once surrounded me come to mind often. They made the world feel steady and understandable. Without them, the world feels unfamiliar.

Older people are easier company. Simplicity suits us. Sitting around a fire. Listening to stories. Letting silence exist without rushing to fill it.

With many others, though, there is a feeling of standing outside the room looking in. As if I arrived in the wrong century.

Old souls often walk alone. The pursuits others chase rarely hold much appeal, and that distance creates long stretches of solitude.

But when someone does understand, the connection runs deep. A kindred spirit is one of life’s rarest gifts.

This has always been true.

If the question from the beginning needed an honest answer—

How old would you be if you didn’t know your age?

Somewhere around 150 or 200 years old would be my answer. 

Old furniture.
Horse carriages.
Ancient streets and quiet buildings.

Another era entirely.

Probably the one where I would feel most at home.

Because the smallest changes rarely escape me.

The things people begin doing.
The things they quietly stop doing.

And the exact moment something between two people changes.