A lot has changed since my last blog. Presidents have come and gone, I’ve switched up my career more than once, global warming has gotten a helluva lot hotter, the world has been under siege by an insidious virus, and I got divorced.
Emotionally, I go toe-to-toe with everything in that list. I process, I reason, and I move forward. Try the next thing. Get out the vote, apply for a new job (or buckle down on the one I have), tear out my lawn, go hybrid in my vehicle, keep getting vaccinated and wear a mask if I get sick…Except for that last bit. I keep spinning my wheels about the divorce.
And it’s been three years.
First of all, when you’re married for over 22 years, together for more than 25 and then still raising kids together, three years is just a drop in the bucket. It’s nothing. This relationship, such as it was and continues to be in its co-parenting form, is the very definition of my adulthood. I met him right after I turned 24. He decided he wanted a divorce right before I turned 50. For that, alone, he’s an asshole.
But blame is not my point. I’ve analyzed our marriage and our divorce. I’ve read books, been to therapy, sought religious support and pursued a few less healthy processing options. I’ve figured out the why of our divorce. So, no; that’s not what’s got me up to my axles in mud.
I cannot get over the fact that I’m no longer married. See, as a kid, all I saw were stable, happy marriages. Both sets of grandparents were married until death them did part–over 60 years for each. My parents are rapidly approaching their 55th anniversary. I was raised that healthy, happy people get married and stay married. There is something wrong with people who get divorced: they’re not emotionally stable, they’re not emotionally healthy, they grew up with some sort of deficit and are, as a result, themselves deficient in some way. I was raised true blue American WASP: You get married. You get a career. You make the babies. You make the money. You stay married. And that defines your success as a woman, as an adult, as a person, as an anything. Hell, the perennially debatable line between “human” and “animal,” for my family, was drawn between which species can couple up and stay coupled. Ironically, this would make the snottiest animal, the Canada goose, damn near human. But whatever. You get my point.
Divorce was not an option. If something shook loose in the marriage, you fixed it. You did everything in your power to pull it back together. If the wheels still fell off the bus, you took that sucker in for repairs and you kept going back in until you drove out again in a shiny, happy car. There were no trade ins, by God. You made a promise–you stick to it.
So I did. I tried everything, even to the point of near self destruction, which by the way, is never a good thing. I stayed in my marriage probably three years longer than was humanly reasonable and likely five years longer than I should. Bygones.
What I miss is the club. Because being married is like being in a club, a private, privileged club with high walls, fine dining, and decent sex. First of all, it’s a very special membership. You have to be invited to join. You really weigh the invitation, too, in some fashion. And then, you get to socialize with others in the same club and look at those not in the club with an estimating eye you didn’t have before. At night, you spoon into the safety of that club and count your lucky stars you joined. You’re not like Bob and Boots, Gina and Joey, Demarcus and Jenae, Billy and Rodrigo, or Amy and Stacia. You are doing it. You are married. Look at you–and they said you weren’t smart enough, pretty enough, nice enough…the list of “not enoughs” is long. But here you are: married; successful; achieving the dream and living it daily.
Don’t forget the propaganda: married people are wealthier, healthier and live longer. Studies show this. But I’m on the outside now.
Contrary to popular belief and all those dang studies, I find I’m actually doing better than before. I make more money, I own more equity in the house–and am likely to stay in good stead even if the real estate bubble pops again (yeah, I scrimped and scrapped, but got the house), and I’ve stayed pretty healthy. My triglycerides are down. I have fewer anxiety attacks. I lost a lot of weight during the end of my marriage, but gained back most of it after. Still, I exercise more than I ever used to because I’m not at home feeling rejected, dejected, defeated, and dismissed all the time. That’s a massive bonus.
Yet the scorn lingers. I think it must be the anger. I didn’t deserve this! I knew how to hold a marriage together. I was raised to understand discussion, negotiation, the value of compromise, the steps to nearly unconditional love, the moral footings of commitment, and that being willing to have faith is a fucking choice. You choose love. You choose to believe what’s possible. You choose what and who you want and you make it work.
You make your fate.
Why should someone like me be on the outside of that club? I learned the lessons. I took all the right courses. I played by all the fucking rules. I followed every single one of them. Career first, love and kids will follow! Go to church! Get a full education including graduate school! Invest in an IRA before it’s too late! Buy your own home sooner in life than your parents were able to. Volunteer! I mean C’MON! I paid all those dues–only to have my membership revoked, anyway.
It burns. Not gonna lie. It’s a big ole horse pill and I only choke on it those nights when I’m super tired, or when I see really happy families, or when I’m sick and no one is around to bring me tea. It’s the little things, really. Those tiny points of care that inject strength into your soul, having a life-long library of inside jokes, reveling in those nuanced intimacies of knowing another person almost as well as you know yourself–that’s love. That’s marriage. That’s partnership. And I miss it.
I’ve got new dues to pay now. The kind that show everybody it doesn’t matter, anyway. I’m smart, strong and sexy and am not defined by any man! Now you hold my beer and watch me go.
When you make your fate, it truly is a singular objective, adventure, and quest. All that time I was in the club, I was really just staging for the true experience. Apparently.
Sigh. He can go suck it.
The life you stake out is truly one you do on your own and for yourself. It’s my life, not our life.
Not anymore.
Mountain Lamb 