"Why I Can't Have Office Parties" (Divorce Balance, 249)

Divorce Balance

Friday, December 17, 2004
Why I Can't Have Office Parties

Believe me, I've tried. Just this past Wednesday, in fact, I opened my office for our fourth annual "cookie exchange and potluck."

It's not that people dealing with divorce can't or don't have parties.

They just don't have them with me.

Again to Wednesday: The meeting room had already been rearranged. We had cookies. And let's qualify the take-out pizza someone brought as potluck.

Two clients were already there when I arrived. So I keyed the door to let them in to set out their goodies, while I went back to my Pontiac for eggnog.

That's all it took.

By the time I got back, these two had moved everything in the room back to exact placements for any other meeting we'd have during the year. Architectural Digest couldn't have distinguished it from a routine Wednesday.

"Boundary issues"? That misses their concerns. You see, when folks are married, they can have some sense that departing from the everyday is safe fantasy this time of year. The routine, however mundane (if that good), will be waiting for their returns come January.

Divorce steals that "comfort."

To many in the wash, agitate, and spin cycles of divorce, any week they're not working on structured recovery is a week they've got to tack on later.

I can deal with that.

So, I took my usual seat and we started around the room with an introduction of participants' issues for the evening. Just like any other Wednesday.

Well, except for the Monkey Bread.

—posted by Dell Deaton @10:40 AM EST 12/17/2004 [249]

ISSN 1556-6242

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