DRAFT CHAPTERONE Ending /Start So you did it - you separated. And, chances are I''ve met you before. I mean,not you you, but an iteration of you. And I know that it''s hard. I''ve beenmarried three times (although technically I don''t count that firstone) and had two young kids with my second husband when we split up. I also know that you tried everything, because I did,too. I know it has kept you up too many nights. I know how your stomachflip-flops when you think about it.

I know how insecure you feel about all ofthe question marks in your future. I loved my marriageand I adored my husband. But there were so many things we could not fix, andwe found ourselves ill-equipped to deal with anything unexpected. Still, Iloved being a family and sharing a name and a bank account and I basked inthe traditionalness of it all while living an otherwise unconventional life. In the early days I found it therapeutic to write. Ieven eulogized our marriage; I celebrated the short but beautiful life it hadlived, immortalized it with words. I praised my ex-husband for being the onewho always made sure the chicken was cooked through (something I could never,ever seem to do properly) and I recalled the one morning, early in ourrelationship, when I woke up to his eyes wide open next to me, telling me I"made everything ok". I talked about the stages of grief(because they absolutely apply to these situations, too) even though no onehas died, and that the shock lingered for a long time - too long - long intoour co-parenting relationship.

Long after the ink on our separation agreementhad dried. Long, long, long. And I should have knownthat was all coming, because over the past nineteen years, I have had thehumbling and life-changing experience of sitting across the table fromhundreds of people in various stages of a separation or divorce. I''ma senior family law clerk. That''s a terrible, vague title for acareer that doesn''t entail anything clerical at all. I meet withpeople, one on one, to cull out the most personal of personal details thatwill eventually be woven together to tell their family law stories for amediator or judge to maybe read one day. I work with talented, senior familylaw lawyers to prepare clients for each step of their family law matter,whether it''s going the traditional "kitchen table"route of negotiation with the aid of experienced lawyers, to a mediator, orto court. I have a front row seat to all of the drama - and trauma - thatcomes with the territory.

I have (sometimes literally)held the hands of folks as they navigate foregin situations that feelimpossible. I''ve given and received the kind of hugs you onlyunderstand if you''ve been through it. I''ve talked peopleoff proverbial ledges. I''ve fought with people about doing simplethings to avoid legal catastrophe (like that time I had to convince a[well-to-do] client to set his home up with Internet access (in 2016) so thathis teenage children would continue to go to his house, in order to forego areally costly Motion). I have hugged people in tears, choking back my own. Ihave seen things go really badly in Court, and I have marveled, time andagain, at how much we would rather have a complete stranger make majordecisions about our own families than make them ourselves. I have also seen things goreally well. What that really means is that neither parent was happy, but theframework for really happy children had been established.

And twice, I haveworked on files where the couples, already knee-deep in separation, actuallysuccessfully reconciled. Over the years, I have foundthe most fulfillment in helping people arrive at a solid "PlanB" when their "Plan A" didn''t work out,gaining intimate knowledge of what it feels like to have your life turnedupside down, only to have every single issue arising from the breakdown of arelationship staring you in the face like some kind of family law cerberus -parenting, support, property - and what it feels like when everything feelsraw and exposed and uncertain. I didn''t knowanything about family law before I became a law clerk. In fact, I neverwanted to be a law clerk at all, I don''t think. I didn''teven know what they were, or what they did. I wanted to be an actress and acomedy writer for Saturday Night Live. I wanted to draw on five years oftheatre school experience and change lives with my wit. As high school drewto a close and some acceptance (and rejection) letters from my top choiceschools started filtering into my parent''s mailbox in the throbbingmetropolis of Brampton, Ontario, I started to reconsider everything when Irealized I''d be on my own with the associated bills and really on myown in terms of finding work later.

And so I did whatevery young person with no ideas for what to do with their own future wouldhave done; I took a "gap year" and worked full-time in acomfort shoe store in the mall in Brampton. When mycollege-bound boyfriend asked me to move in with him, into a cheap onebedroom in North York near the school he was attending, I broached thesubject with my parents carefully, and was sure to omit certain important details(like that my roommate was going to be my boyfriend) and they made it veryclear: at 18, I could move out, but I had to be in school, and I had to payfor all of my own expenses, including tuition. Theproblem was that school was already in session - it was early September 2001.During the very first week of classes, 9/11 happened, and then life, and theneed to do something with mine, became really intense. I went to myboyfriend''s college, picked up their course book, and actually - forreal - placed one hand over my eyes, flipped the pages of the book withanother, placed my index finger on a section of the newsprint, and thenuncovered my eyes to see what I''d landed on: even this totallyunbiased manner of decision making had failed me - I was very clearlystraddling the line between "Early Childhood Educator" and"Law Clerk Diploma Program", my 3 inch acrylic nailperforating the page while punctuating the dramatic differences between thesetwo potential career paths. So I applied to both, for aJanuary intake, and I chose the Law Clerk program after watching ErinBrockovich. I moved out around Thanksgiving, started classes in January,finished in 16 short months, and got the first job I applied for at aboutique family law firm where I''d spend the first five years of mycareer. I started out the way most young people do in acareer: raring to go, but naive and without any anecdotal or relatableexperience.

I couldn''t listen to a client talk about their broken,thirty-year marriage and say " Iunderstand " becauseat 25, in a too-short skirt, with the only objective being shopping thisweekend and choosing a club to hit, I really didn''t. I tried my bestthough, and I learned you didn''t have to have the same livedexperiences to be able to help, but you had to have almost never endingpatience and empathy, and you had to be able to listen. To validate. Toconvince your clients everything is going to be ok. Themore I saw things turn out ok, the more convinced I became that it waspossible. The times I saw things end up really not ok scared me. I started my own adult life sometime after that. I gotmarried, and went on to have two little boys.

I enjoyed 8 years of marriagewith a solid human who inspired me, and caused me to grow up in many ways,and someone who provided the conditions and sense of safety under which I wanted to grow up and to be better. I had not known thatfeeling before - that shelter of safety that people talk about. And I baskedin it. We did all the things in the right order: boughta house, got engaged, got married, had kids, renovated and took on therequisite second-mortgage debt. I worked hard in all of those stages - anever-increasing (and anxiety inducing) desire to progress at all things. AndI think I gave those years every single thing I had. We took carefullyplanned family road trips and made loose retirement on Canada''s EastCoast and talked about flying somewhere for our tenth wedding anniversary. Wewere just like everyone else.

But somewhere along theway (I''ve learned you can never pinpoint the exact moment when thefirst of invisible fractures is sustained) things fell apart and we ended uppart of the statistic I was already so intimately acquainted with - the fiftypercent (or 40%, in Ontario) of people whose marriages end in divorce, withtwo young kids, "irreconcilable differences", and alifetime ahead of us yet.