Get Divorced, Be Happy by Helen Thorn

Author:Helen Thorn [Thorn, Helen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473593817
Publisher: Ebury Publishing
Published: 2021-09-02T00:00:00+00:00

A few long minutes later my phone rang, it was time to tell her, which went like this:

‘Hey dude, what’s up?’ she said; she had such a happy voice …

‘Hey man, Japan looked amazing. Umm … Ellie, I am really sorry.’

‘Shit dude, what’s happened? Are the kids OK?’

‘No, they’re fine … It’s over. He’s left and it’s awful.’ And then I did a cry that could only be described as bovine. You know those sounds you heard on All Creatures Great and Small when James Herriot has half an arm up the back end of a cow.

‘Fuck, don’t go anywhere. I’m coming over. I am getting in the car RIGHT NOW.’

I blinked and she was outside my house. I went to the front door and we embraced. There she was. My friend, just there, just holding me. We sat at my kitchen table, she made me tea and I told her everything. And then she went to get me another cup of tea, and, when she got to the sink, she broke down and cried. I could see her body collapse. My strong Ellie was broken. And then I went to her and we sobbed together, and she said, ‘I’m so sorry this has happened to you, dude!’ Yes, we call each other dude, a lot.

Ellie will be the first to say that she doesn’t ‘do’ emotions. She’s the funniest, smartest and most sarcastic person on the planet. She doesn’t do soppy or sentimentality, but she has the biggest kindest heart I have ever known. To see her so sad was hard. Usually when she gets teary about anything, she quickly says, ‘Oh, there’s something in my eye!’ That morning, after we had a good old ugly cry, she said, ‘You’re gonna be all right. It’s shit, but we are going to get you through this.’ And with her as my wingwoman, how could I not be all right?

Throughout the whole year, Ellie has done little daily acts of kindness, like spontaneously making me lamb biryani, or organising a surprise Zoom with a group of friends when she knew I was really down, and was just always at the end of the phone when I needed to be angry or cry. But the most spectacular thing she did was for my birthday. She spent weeks putting together a massive scrapbook of photos and messages from all my friends and family, and a few fabulous podcast guests, too. It was called ‘The A to Z of Helen’ and she handed it to me at my birthday lunch. I remember her saying, ‘look, just LOOK, at how many people love you, Helen; you don’t need a man!’ And she was right. I was encircled with extraordinary people who poured buckets of the good stuff all over me. I wouldn’t wish what I had gone through on anyone, but what I am grateful for is to see the true love that I always had around me in a new illuminating light.

My ex wasn’t

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