I’m going to be selling a house. I make three more payments to my ex-wife and then the buyers send her a very large check–because she can figure out how to pay taxes on that–and the chapter closes. It has already closed with my ex-husband. My son walked across the stage and graduated from high school. I don’t have any reason to talk directly to my ex-husband. He hit a concrete pillar and ruined his bumper last week and was kinda stranded at home after work on Father’s Day so I had my son take him leftovers, which I had to drop off because my son is still only on a learner’s permit, but I didn’t say anything to him per se.

He’s a terrible driver. He wrecked a car that his parents bought him outright on the day that he found out that I was pregnant and accused me of taking prenatal vitamins–I hadn’t been–and was found at fault being rear-ended at a light on a really nice car with a sunroof and leather interior that I had bought, but he had made the final two payments at the end of the loan. He’s just a different person than I am. He’s not a bad guy, but if you’d imagine Mr. Peanut and Peter Pan having a child, that would be my ex-husband.

My ex-wife deals with significant physical and mental health stuff and it colors the way in which she interacts in the world. When I fell in love with her she would have a few bad days here and there, and then it turned into no good days and being unable to track a 3-5 word sentence that I was saying. She didn’t really want to interact with me, and it seemed bizarre that she had said that she and I would “maintain a connection, and maybe ‘who knows?’ when my son is out and doing his own thing.” That was insulting. I also thought that because she had so many complaints about me and how I lead my life that the most compassionate thing to do after we divorced is to have zero contact with her. She finally figured that one out and doesn’t email me. I do have loan assumption paperwork that I’ll do tomorrow so her name is no longer on the house loan. It’s ironic that either of them ever had their names on a Title–I removed my ex-husband when I refinanced–because they’ve never contributed to this mortgage. I have my house paid off in 6-years, regardless of the loan, mine is the only name on the title, and then no more doing this rather exhausting career. I want to work outside. I volunteer outside and want to be working part-time doing service for real, tangible and meaningful things.

I had two Caretakers in the house while all the legal processes were settling. One was not a good person. She would complain about water bills and the like and didn’t realize that when you don’t pay rent, you don’t complain about monthly bills. She wound up moving out early and didn’t pay property taxes and the other Caretaker who is a good person had to call me and ask me for over $500. I couldn’t believe that her “friend” did that. Moved out early and then stuck her with a bill. I’m really good with gut level reactions to people and never trusted the other Caretaker. My ex-wife would tell me that I was the one with the problem and raise her voice. I have to admit that I would have never thought that she would stick the other Caretaker with a bill, and she did so right after the other Caretaker’s brother had died.

The subcontractors who are doing work on the house have done some truly hideous things to her. They painted her furniture, they shattered one of her tables, they let out her indoor cat. They even shredded one of her shirts, dabbed the pieces in paint and threw those on her comforter. Oh, and they tore up two cushions on a sofa sleeper in the house. Because I don’t really need the money and have a strong sense of justice, I sent an email saying that given a clause in the contract to having a “Right to Remedy” that if they didn’t clean all the paint and compensate her for her sheets, a comforter, a shirt, a table and either replace the sofa sleeper or repair the cushions that work on the house is indefinitely suspended. Looking at those pictures of the destruction evoked “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” and had she not found her cat in some bushes up the street and he’d have died, I don’t know what I would have done. I was nauseated and teary talking to her.

All people deserve dignity. All people have rights to being treated kindly, and being respected. You don’t have to go out of your way to chat with a gossipy colleague, but you must see that person as a person.

My mother who was given to trite sayings, as she was Midwestern, would say, “You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.” I have found that if the latter is coming out of your mouth, that is just a good person with whom to have limited interaction. My father, who was an East Coaster, but lived in Germany and Morocco during and then shortly after Vietnam actually ended, always did whatever he could for other people. I like to think that I’ve become a person who is a blend of those approaches, and believe that all people have dignity.