April Fool

Two years ago today, I got divorced.

April 1st.

No, I didn’t choose the date. That was simply the day I was assigned to end a 24-year marriage. And yes, I am fully aware of the irony. I’ve had two years to sit with it.

It was cold that day. Not just “a little chilly,” but the kind of cold that settles into your bones and makes everything feel heavier than it already is. It rained the entire time—steady, gray, unrelenting.

And today, two years later, it is the same.

Same cold. Same rain. Same gray sky.

It’s strange how the world can feel like it remembers something you haven’t even said out loud yet.

—

There’s no cinematic version of divorce.

No swelling music. No moment where everything suddenly makes sense.

Just a courtroom in Warren County. A judge. A stack of paperwork. Signatures in black ink.

And then it’s done.

Not with a dramatic ending.

Not with a sense of closure.

Just… finished.

—

And I cried.

I cried and cried and cried sitting there in that courtroom.

Which, I think, surprises people.

Because I was the one who filed.

There’s this quiet assumption that the person who cries is the one who didn’t want it.

The one it was done to.

But that’s not always how it works.

Sometimes you are the one who is forced makes the decision.

Sometimes you are the one who signs the papers.

And it still breaks your heart anyway.

—

It reminds me—maybe a little on the nose, but true—of a Taylor Swift lyric:

“I broke my own heart because you were too polite to do it.”

And that’s exactly what it felt like.

Not dramatic.

Not explosive.

Just the quiet realization that if something was going to end…

it was going to have to be me who ended it.

In the pub after everything was official. My eyes are red from crying so much.

—

People tend to think of endings as singular moments.

A door closing. A line being drawn.

But that’s not what it felt like.

It felt more like walking away from a life that used to be yours…

and then every once in a while, passing by it again.

Not to go back.

Just to notice.

To recognize that it was real.

That it mattered.

That it existed.

—

I don’t think my sense of humor started here.

But I do think it changed here.

People often describe my tone as chaotic, unhinged, or slightly concerning. And while I won’t argue with that, it’s not random.

It comes from learning how to hold two things at once:

Something that hurt

and something that is, objectively, a little absurd.

Because if you don’t laugh—even just a little—at the fact that your entire life can pivot on April Fool’s Day of all days…

what are we even doing here?

—

Cedar Paddock was born in that space.

Not from everything going right, but from figuring out how to keep going when it didn’t.

From turning chaos into stories.

From realizing that sometimes the only way to survive something is to tell it a little sideways—through chickens, through humor, through a version of the truth that people can actually hold onto without flinching.

Because the truth, when it’s too direct, can feel too heavy.

But told sideways?

It becomes something you can sit with.

—

If you’ve had a day like that—

one that quietly, definitively split your life into before and after—

you probably know this feeling.

It doesn’t go away.

But it changes.

It softens.

It becomes less sharp, less immediate.

And sometimes, it even becomes something you can look at and think,

“…that’s kind of unbelievable.”

—

It’s still raining today.

Still cold.

Still April Fool’s Day.

And while I wouldn’t choose that day again, I also can’t pretend it didn’t shape what came after.

Because what came after mattered too.

Maybe even more

Maybe even more.