No no no no no, I thought. This is the new millennium, after all, and I felt certain things could be moved along if only the right therapists or books or audiotapes or workshops or aromatherapy could be found. I was open to seminars, Deepak Chopra, Marianne Williamson, Persian Sufis and Doctor Phil. I was as open as one can be without coming apart entirely. I was the village idiot of self-help.

I got all the books. "Spiritual Divorce," "How to Rebuild When a Relationship Ends," "Dumped," "Crazy Time" and even something called "The Good Divorce," which at the time struck me as the Good Holocaust.

Luckily, I had a good therapist. One with the ability to dispense Xanax.

My therapist said, People tell you to get over it, but they don't tell you how. His insight that there is no magic bullet that will erase the pain and propel one into spanking-new shiny lives, free of lingering trauma, fear and humiliation, was one I could certainly relate to. I felt relieved. I was not doing it wrong.

Time passed slowly, as when one is waiting for aspirin to work on one's severed head.

I got through the first Christmas (or "fucking holidays," as my mother referred to them at the time, incensed on my behalf that Christmas was coming and all I had gotten was abandoned). The first Valentine's Day. The first wedding anniversary. The first divorce anniversary. The pain slowly eased up; the psychic damage was beginning, if not to disappear, then to taper. I stopped wishing him dead, and started wishing him rich so he could send us more money. This did not happen.

And then, just as my mother said would happen, one day I walked down the street with my son and realized I felt happy. Out of the woods.

When people say it takes two years, believe them. Statistically speaking, this is the point in time when one has gotten through it. There is some truth to this -- also some rather flamboyant falsehoods, especially when you have a child running around wearing his face and yours, entwined forever: You have done this, it cannot be undone. You will always have children together; they will almost certainly outlive the marriage in terms of years. It's beautiful and hard all at once. It's marriage and its Siamese twin, divorce. Divorce, which apparently has become the antidote to marriage, although the jury is decidedly out. In the end, it's just life.

Still, I easily relate to what Karen Karbo wrote in "Generation Ex," "There is no statute of limitations on wanting to strangle your ex." I would add that no such statute exists on feelings of affection, anger and even love. You learn that you can love someone and be divorced from them at the same time, in the same way that you loved them before you were married -- except now you know they are capable of ripping your heart out. This changes things considerably. It gives you what time gives you: perspective.

After a couple of years, you can appreciate your ex for who he is and realize that he is separate and distinct from you. You can feel a certain amount of warmth for him, as you do your alma mater, or your car. You can love a car, but you do not attach yourself to the car. You do not buy little gifts for the car, thinking you can win the car over. You do not lose sleep over whether the car thinks you are attractive or if the car is thinking of you too, right now. You do not especially care whether someone else drives the car.

Kierkegaard muses in "Love and Marriage," "We read in fairy tales about human beings whom mermaids and mermen enticed into their power by means of demonic music. In order to break the enchantment it was necessary in the fairy tale for the person who was under the spell to play the same piece of music backwards without making a single mistake. This is very profound, but very difficult to perform, and yet so it is: the errors one has taken into oneself one must eradicate in this way, and every time one makes a mistake one must begin all over."

Right.

Or, you can wait two years.

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