Disclaimer: All facts gleaned from the filings stated hereafter are only as truthful as the petitioner. The tone of this article expresses a style of writing historically employed by America’s greatest writers and, as such, is for opinion purposes only. No intentional harm is due. Do not read if the topic of divorce (even your own) causes you emotional distress. Continue at your own risk.
January is often treated as a public rehearsal for hope, a month that asks people to believe in fresh starts simply because the calendar insists. Yet just before that threshold, when the year is still holding its breath, Kianna A. Adams chose clarity over ceremony. With the old year thinning to its final hours, she filed a petition for dissolution of marriage in Cook County, Illinois, on December 31, 2025—an act that stood in quiet contrast to the resolutions gathering just beyond midnight.
Adams, a 36-year-old warehouse worker residing on the South Side of Chicago, married Gregory J. Todd on November 16, 2024. The marriage, registered in Chicago, lasted just over a year before it settled into distance. By May 2025, the parties were living separate and apart, and the petition states that irreconcilable differences made further reconciliation impractical. There are no children of the marriage, no pregnancy, and no shared obligations pulling the parties back into alignment.
Todd, a 41-year-old construction worker, is listed as residing elsewhere in the city, and the filing reads less like an argument than an inventory—of what exists, and what does not. Adams asks the court to dissolve the marriage; to bar both parties from maintenance and from claims to each other’s pensions; to confirm that no joint debts or accounts exist; and to recognize that personal property has already been divided. She further requests that each party be responsible for their own debts since separation, and that she be allowed to resume the use of her maiden name, Adams.
Filed pro se, without counsel, the petition carries no flourish—only resolve. As January waits with its promises of renewal, this filing reminds us that some beginnings are secured not by optimism, but by the courage to close a door before the year turns.
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