Rebellious Thoughts of a Woman

A Loss, The Loss

My mother is sitting on the couch opposite me sewing up my younger daughter’s jacket, which is actually her sister’s old jacket. My younger daughter is sleeping, even though it is past noon. My older daughter is back in LA visiting her boyfriend after spending a few days with us. It would be a lovely tableau, except it is a very incomplete picture. My father is not sitting on the other end of either couch reading the Sports section because he passed away on Monday morning.

When I bought our tickets to fly down to Florida last week he was still at home; by the time my younger daughter and I arrived on Friday, he was in ICU waiting to be brought to hospice later that evening.

On Sunday his rabbi told us what a wise rabbi had once told him: at a certain point, you no longer pray for healing but for a peaceful journey. It appears that that is what he had. A peaceful journey for a man who was peaceful his entire life.

Both of his parents had emigrated from Russia with their families when they were young. There is one story of hiding in the back of a hay wagon. Who knows? No one talked of those adventures much. The focus was more on raising their three children, who in turn raised their children, who are now raising their children.

The wavy shock of my father’s red hair had rusted over the years and some on top was lost to two sessions of chemo. But his carrot-top days were still evident in back. As was his sweet tooth. He had not been able to eat for a few weeks due to his esophagael cancer (it was detected in late October), but while we were there we were able to feed him some Key Lime pie, raspberry jello, vanilla ice cream, and he could feed himself some watermelon and cherry candies.

What a thing it is to see a father die. But we spent our last day with him, and his last full day, watching football in the afternoon. It is a thing, though, to know that one’s father was such a good person. Everyone who came to his funeral or came to sit shiva with my mother or who called spoke of a man who was always sweet and soft-spoken. The man who told my mother after a couple of weeks of dating that he wanted to be together “for life” did just that for almost 55 years.

And now my mother will have a different life. And we who loved him will have a different life. But his kindness and gentleness will always be a part of our lives.

The Symbolism of the Laundry

I just did a load of laundry. One bath towel. One blouse. Three tee shirts. One tee shirt-pajama top. Three pairs of undies. One bra. One pair of jeans. One cloth napkin. Two kitchen towels. A white wash is in the machine. I think there are four white shirts in that load.

The laundry is hanging to dry on a portable air dryer on the terrace.

Before May 16th, the last time I did a laundry for one, was in the apartment where I lived in Ramat Gan (a suburb-city outside of Tel Aviv) before I got married. Since then I have done thousands of loads for two, then for three, then for four.

Then for three, when I no longer did his laundry. He started doing his own laundry when I stopped folding his undies. The idea of touching them disgusted me and so I left them in a pile on the bed. I guess he got the message.

Then for two, when I no longer did younger daughter’s laundry. She took the modern version of home ec last year and once she had to do laundry as part of her class, she decided that she was going to keep doing it for herself. And she has stuck with that.

Then for one, when older daughter moved to California. She did her first load out there, all by herself. Apparently it’s not so hard and she has managed. Though I do think that younger daughter showed her how to do it before she left.

I’m glad I had all those endless piles of clothes to wash. I’m glad I got to care for loved ones in so basic a way. I loved folding clothes; such a simple way to nourish and nurture. And I loved doing the wash, such an obvious accomplishment. And now I’m glad that I only need to do my little loads that go into the small-capacity machine in this apartment.

It’s very insightful, doing just my own laundry. I see how much I bought things for them and not for myself. I see how my clothes are brighter than I thought they were. I see the continuity of life. Their lives. And mine. 
 

Not a Post about Cleavage, but about the Village

I was planning on writing a humorous post on how if you wear a push-up bra with a lightweight sweater that is not low enough to reveal cleavage you will visibly show that you have partially constrained breasts and partially bouncing breasts, which is just not an attractive look, especially since it looks more like you’re wearing a small, ill-fitting bra than that you have perked-up breasts just eager to be subtly peeked at. But then I started thinking of three people I talked with yesterday, and the boisterous (vocabulary word) humor left me.

First was the twin sister of a student I had last year who started to explain to me that the doctors finally found out why her sister, her twin, had been having migraines and falling asleep during English class and other sundry maladies for the past year or so. And then, just as she told me the punch line, my sister needs brain surgery, her sister walked in to tell me the news herself. As my class walked in, I wanted to hug these two girls, but that is against the rules (and especially not good in front of an entire classroom of kids), whatever, and so I walked around the projector that had stood between us and just touched the arm of the girl who needs the surgery, who certainly needs more than an arm touch.

And then later that day, at my afterschool teaching job at the synagogue, I covered for another teacher who was running late because she was picking up her daughter from the airport to take her to the hospital to be with her husband, the girl’s father. It seems that he did the manly thing and ignored the irritation he had in his throat until it couldn’t be ignored any longer because he could barely breathe, only to find out that he has cancer there. Her comment to me was: my life changed in a minute.

After I absorbed their news, or as much as possible, I thought about how good it is to be connected with people. When I was with exman there was this understood rule of his not to tell people about what goes on in our house. This went beyond what we talked about, it also covered anything personal. I mean I had a cyst removed from my left breast when I was 25 and his suggestion was only to tell my parents after so that they wouldn’t worry. Why, why shouldn’t they worry, or at least know what’s going on with me? They’re my parents, after all, the people who raised me and cared for and about me for an entire life. I took his “advice,” obviously regretting it to this day. And look who still cares about me.

Why? Why hold yourself apart from others? Why not let people know what you are going through? Where is the benefit to holding in that your husband is ill and that you need support? It’s not that this woman poured her heart out to me, but she reached out for a hug, and a moment of relief.

For me, this transformation, of leaving behind the woman I had become with exman to the woman I am, is the most wonderful thing about having divorced him. Leaving behind a controlling man not only enables you to open up to the people in your life, but even more than that it enables you to feel yourself freed—and thankfully able to savor those connections. This, perhaps, is the strongest sense of before and after: before I held myself back from people and they, sensing that, held themselves from me; and after I am joyously out there to and for all.

What is life if it’s not shared? Obviously no one wants to get sick, but if you do, don’t you want to tell people? Have them pray for you or think of you? Don’t you want to look into someone’s pain-filled eyes knowing that she sees compassion in yours? I rejoice in colleagues and friends asking me how I am knowing that I can answer them truthfully (sometimes). And you know, no one goes running, not wanting to hear of my pain. What you get instead is their knowing that they can come to you when they need that compassionate look and touch. What more can a person’s life be about if not that?  

Tidbits from Retired Life in Florida (thanks to my mother)

• Some men surprise everyone with how caring they are to their spouses. After a lifetime of being the typical taditional-style couple with the husband working long hours at the office and the wife at home seeing to his comforts, in older age and with his spouse’s illness this man has become the caregiver and worrier, seeking to ease his wife through this part of life. Maybe the role he played before didn’t let him express what was always within.

• An 80-something women has recently married a 90-something man. My mother is prudish enough to wish she hadn’t overheard this conversation, but not so prudish that she didn’t convey it to me: the woman said to a friend on the golf course that now, now she is having the best sex she ever had. Pause for thought, imagery, and surely a smile to know that life does go on, in all its aspects.

• The control freaks that you try to get away from at work do not change when they retire to the golf courses and tennis courts of Florida. No, they volunteer to help manage things and then turn on the very people who lazily let them rise to the top of the retiree community ladder. You may retire from work, but not your personality, which means that you can’t escape from the personalities that bugged you, they just have more leisure time to annoy you.

• Take-out is king when dining out. Styrofoam containers are a key part of any restaurant meal. It doesn’t matter how hungry you are, you will take enough food home for a meal tomorrow. Is it because people who don’t like to cook continue to not like cooking? Or is it to stretch the retiree dollar? Or maybe it’s to give yourself more time to do the things you like and less the things you don’t like—finally. 

The Value of a Life

What makes people not value their own lives and at the same time value it so much that they think others can't live without them?

Last week in California a man killed his family (his five children and his wife) and then shot himself after losing his job. In October there was a similar story, also out of California. I’m sure, unfortunately, that there are other cases that I’m not aware of. I guess the thinking that goes on in the minds of these people must be: my family needs me, if I can’t support them, then no one else can support them and they should all die because they need me, and since I can’t support them, then they should die. Um, I’m thinking that this is more narcissism than anything else.

I’m probably not supposed to be angry at people who are so distraught that they murder their families, but I can’t help it. So what, the world revolves around you and if your orbit goes off-kilter you need to take everyone down with you to prove how vital you are? Or are you so claustrophic in your mind that you can’t see a sliver of possibility for your “loved ones” without you being at the center of their universe?

How does a person become so lost that the most important role in his life is one that he violates so dramatically? Is society still too focused on a man’s worth as being reflected in his “being a good provider” that when there is an obstacle in fulfilling that role the man loses his ability to value himself as a person as separate from his paycheck? I know this is a great simplification, but I love to simplify things, after thinking deeply, of course. But if the straw that breaks the camel’s back is losing a job or losing the house, then there is that implicit link between one’s intrinsic worth as a person and one’s extrinsic worth as a provider.

How to rectify that, especially as we continue to ground into this economic morass? Who knows? I don’t write self-help books or sermons. Okay, I’ll take a shot. If you were to think of the things that bring joy to your children’s faces you could find a clue to who you really are and how you are really valued. Maybe it’s the things you buy, in that case, not much help there. But maybe, really, it’s that your children know you are trying to give them what they want—that you want to make them happy. And if you break that down, it could be grounded thus: they are happy when you try to make them happy.

When I get together with friends we often meet in a restaurant or a coffee shop. Not much money is spent, because that is not the key factor, time together is. We get together simply to spend time with someone we enjoy being with, and we tell stories. We tell stories of past meetings, of things we have done since last meeting, and we talk about aches and dreams, and frustrations and joys. The coffee or salmon salad is not the center of attraction, we are. This can be taken as the advice that time spent together is what counts and not what is done. Who needs fancy parks when it brings more angst to get there when the core of the experience is the being together?

Maybe I’m still simplifying too much or am unable to see into the psyche of a man who only values himself by his paycheck and how he provides and what he can give his kids, but you know what, the mind is a gymnast and can change how it views things. There isn’t yes and no, and have and have not, there is part and there is some. Maybe a part of the problem, too, is that people don’t talk to each other. They don’t tell their spouses about the battering that they are taking just trying to survive, or about the relentless thought of failure that accompanies them throughout the day, or about the longing to walk away from the trials placed in one’s path. If only, if only people, especially men, didn’t realize that sharing is not a sign of weakness or failure, but is a sign that you are not an island.

For goodness sakes, don’t people get married and have a family so that they can share their lives with others? Is sharing about controlling it all? I especially detest the notion that a man or woman would not tell his or her family about problems in order to “protect them.” Protect them from acting on concern? Protect them from knowing that your spouse is considering murder and suicide? Protect them from what—their own lives, the reality of their loved ones’ lives? 

While this blog may not be the turn-to source for men contemplating killing themselves and their families, it is my source for thinking about our lives and our society. Trying to be like Atlas holding up the sky so your brood can bask in the sunshine is a pretty tough task even for a Greek God. It seems that the time has really come for the “man as center of the world in his castle” thing to come to an end. Maybe this is sexist, but I can’t help but feeling if these men had just talked to their wives about their FEELINGS they might have come up—together—with a solution that did not involve the end of all their days.

My thoughts go out to all those who are struggling, may they find hope in the future and a place of peace in the present. 

Mediation, or Sitting around a Big Table with Someone You Hate, Part 2

At the end of a short work week [I had off on both Martin Luther King Jr Day and Inauguration Day (this is standard in this county, not just because of Obama but because we teachers and children going to school supposedly create too much traffic for the attendees)], but as all of the Ladies Who Lunch (that would be the English teachers in the workroom) determined yesterday, short weeks just compress the requisite amount of weekly pressure into less time making it a tougher-than-normal week. And so, to top off an intense week I got to sit around that big round table again with mediator man and exman (“man” being a pejorative term for both).

Asking a student why he plagiarized a paper, speaking to a parent whose son cheated, asking another student to stop making sounds that befit a football stadium, parsing “no, that is wrong” in a manner that does not hurt anyone’s tender sensibilities, and worrying about yet another student who is seeping into depression was nothing compared to those 45 minutes. Oh, and having my co-teacher out of the room most of time, "tracking down information on our newest student." Um, shouldn't you do that during your planning period and not during class? Not only was exman in “form” with the insults, the bizarre interpretations of reality, and the demands, but mediator man was in all effect a lump of clay.

Two times exman threatened me, and neither time did mediator man say anything. I don’t know, but if his job is to create an environment conducive to discussion and mutual decision-making, having one client say to the other client “I’ll get you” would seem to be a little red flag for speaking up and scolding said belligerent client. But no, mediator man did nothing. I guess he was intimidated by exman, but have no fear, I have come a long way from being the woman who is called “nothing” with nary a protective word. And in keeping with exman—consensus here—being a sociopath narcissist, his rejoinder to me was, “No, that’s not a threat, that’s a promise.”

It all started with his opening ploy in the waiting room: “Hi, Laura.” Now this man has not uttered my name in years, so I guess he was trying to show that he’s really a decent guy. But that was dispelled quickly, when he told mediator man that we did not get carpet for the house because of my outrageous behavior. Oh yeah, being insulted in Lowes and then sashaying out because of it is outrageous to one who thinks his mouth can say whatever it wants and everyone else will bow before it.

A Divorce Story for Parents and Children

The following is a story that I wrote. At first I thought I would write a story about divorce for parents to read to their children. But as I was writing the story I realized that it's more for parents to read to themselves. This story is also posted at StoryRhyme. I would like to thank JC for encouraging me to write children's stories and for publishing them; I encourage you to go to her site and read her original children's stories--and her blog.

* * *

When Corinna’s parents yell at each other, she goes into her room, closes the door and listens to music, or she goes to her best friend Megan’s house. Corinna doesn’t like to listen when her father says mean things to her mother, and when her mother cries and tells her father to stop and yells at him when he doesn’t stop. And he never stops, even when her mother goes into her room and slams the door. It hurts Corinna too much to listen to her parents. Why can’t they be nice to each other?

It hurts as much as it hurts when her teacher tells her that she’s doing something wrong in class, because she hates when something she does is not right.

It hurts to hear her parents yell as much as it hurts when she and her sister fight. But maybe her parents yelling hurts even more because she knows that she and her sister, Amanda, will make up and be talking to each other again, and watching TV together again, and borrowing shirts again. But her parents, they don’t make up, they just stop fighting, until they start fighting again.

They never say sorry for the things they say to each other. They never say sorry for raising their voices at each other. They never say sorry for saying bad words. They never say sorry for saying things she and Amanda are not allowed to say.

Sometimes her mother comes up to her room after they fight and says that she’s sorry to her for having to hear them yell. She says that she’s sorry that Corinna has to hear that. But is her mother really sorry? Wouldn’t she stop if she were really sorry? Isn’t that what she has been taught, by her mother?

The Soap Opera Continues

Just a sad little run-down on why I feel so run-down. (Monday version)

My parents were here for a day, which was lovely, but ex got to exhibit his more childish-vindictive side. He kept closing my door (when I wasn’t in it), by now standard practice for him. Then, after my closet door slammed (which he just does not abide, tsk tsk tsk) he took a chair (I am surmising here because no one saw the act occur) and started banging on the floor above the room in the basement where my parents sleep when they come to visit me. Yes, a full-grown man, a lawyer, a financial consultant, an ex-army officer, who wears a suit and shirts with cufflinks, was banging on the floor to annoy my parents and me.

I went to the dentist today to continue the extremely expensive work that the root canal guy started last week. Yes, I am thrilled that I am not in pain, but it is not good to almost choke down tears in a dentist’s office when you are told the price of the treatment.

The visit to the dentist was a couple of hours after the heat pump guy came to fix the heat pump, which I had no intention of paying for because I paid for the repair in full in the spring because he just never got around to paying me his 50%. And he had my older daughter relay this message to me—that I need to pay 50%. And I had to stand there in front of the heat pump guy and my daughter and my parents and try not to have a complete meltdown screaming that I don’t need to pay anything. But what does it matter? If I didn’t pay the 50%, he would just not pay some college application fees or other such thing for my older daughter (no question here about younger daughter, he never paid his 50% for the Bat Mitzvah, it was more like 30%) and I would end up paying for it because I cannot let her not apply to the colleges she wants to because her father is such a bastard. (My father looked at me askance when I said that I would not toy with her applications. But hey, I know who to stand up to, don’t I?)

But I would not speak to him. She was actually standing there with her red cell phone telling me that he wants to speak to me, but I could see no reason to talk to him—or have him spurt sounds at me. So I said that I do not want to speak to him, and refused. Petulant? I think not. Taking a goddamn stand.

And when I got the email from the realtor that he told her that he and I would talk about the $2,000 worth of repairs that need to be done before the house would possibly tantalize someone, I replied with a list of my approved repairs and said that I do not plan to speak to him. Ever. Slime. How he manages to look at himself in the mirror and say, “You are the good guy and she is a leech,” I have no idea, because I only see tired eyes and chin hairs when I look at myself. And the gray that I thought was so cute, now I’m beginning to think that my daughter is right, it makes me look old. What doesn’t? 

Oh, and I’ve been whining on Momocrats about Caroline Kennedy, that I wish I were her. She married a nice Jewish boy; I just got the Jewish boy part. Oh, I really need to sit on a mental beach and relax.

And tomorrow it is back to work after this stress-free day off which I took to be with my parents and to prevent ex from having alone time with my parents. Last time that happened he said that he would call the police on my father for trespassing. I have a few parents who are upset with me—I just don’t seem to get their sons. Well, yeah, I don’t appreciate a 14-year-old calling my decision “stupid” and then broadcasting that to the class, or sleeping in class and then whining that he got a zero on the assignment that we did while he drooled.

Okay, I really need to imagine that beach. There will be sand so soft and warm that it is a smoother towel than any towel. There will be gentle waves that tantalize with their gentle repetition of beckoning. The sun’s warmth will caress the chill out of my mind and body. That is all I want.

For now.

P.S. Somehow I forgot the letter from the electric company. The "turn off" notice because he has not been paying his 50% of the bills and the extra letter that said that now we need to pay a two-months downpayment because we are so behind. Yes, I read that letter about ten minutes before the heat pump guy came. Amazing the things you can forget.  

Turning My Back on Rejection

Day in and day out I am rejected. At school everyday I face approximately 75 teenagers who would rather be anywhere except English class. There may be a few who want to be there, but it surely is not anywhere near the majority. Do you remember wanting to be in high school? Then I go home and face my very own teenagers: older daughter, who would rather be pulling out the hairs of her eyebrows in the privacy of her room, than talk to me; and younger daughter, who would rather text anyone in the world about “he said, she said,” than tell me anything about her day. Then there’s mr ex whose very presence reminds me that I have rejected my life as it was. And the “For Sale” sign in front of the house points to how my present life is what I have rejected, and that I am living within the walls of rejection.

Is that why I turned to blogging? To find an outlet where I can find people who accept me? You know, a club that doesn’t reject me as a member?

Is this how life works? We need to accept what we accept and not worry about what we do not? Or that we should not worry about what does not grasp us with warmth and that same level of acceptance that we require? Am I the interpersonal equivalent of a perfectionist? Everyone has to like me or I feel somehow lacking, that I didn’t color between the lines, so to speak. Or do I just need a core group of people around me, with me, physically and mentally? It’s hard to get that when the people who will give me a hug or go out with me on a Friday night are so far away. Is there a certain level of physicality or physical comfort that I need in order to feel balanced?

There surely must be negative vibes being generated in my presence that I unconsciously absorb when I tell my students (myriad times a day) what they must do, which is inevitably against their innate desire to be vegetables on a couch even in the middle of a classroom. And feng shui or not, being in a house that contains so much sadness and bitterness and, yes, hatred, must seep into more than my mind, it must be the source of so much exhaustion, and an inability to find comfort within myself and my life. I’m a pretty cerebral type, but the more I develop in life (okay, age), I realize that the words in my head are not enough to make a fulfilling life.

Last year when I had the torrid affair with the not-separated-enough man, I found myself carrying myself with comfort and confidence. Perhaps it was the sex-glow, but I think that it was the touch-glow, and the glow that comes from being physically accepted by another and by the body’s ability to carry (like a camel) the sensation of a touch for long after the intimacy has ended. And it was lovely, because I think that I was putting my hand on other people’s shoulders or arms more then than ever before. I was spreading the glow, and that just made it all the better.

Is this all about missing sex? Or is it about missing human contact? Or is it about both? Is it also about having teenagers who no longer want a hug from mommy and from whom I need to ask permission to give a peck on the cheek? It is, perhaps, also about being forced into a sort of isolation ward, where most of my interactions are with people who have to be with me. I love lunch in the teacher workroom, but honestly, we are work colleagues and so while we laugh a lot, we are not buds.

Is this how it’s going to be if I don’t create in the flesh friendships with people who I see more often than on a monthly or bi-annual basis? Is this where a lifetime of being an introvert has led me, to feeling isolated? Or is it merely how it feels to be living with people who have not elected to be with me? How many of our daily encounters are with people who want to be with us? If we are married, it is daily (okay, it depends on the day, but still, it is daily). So in essence, except for a spouse or significant other, we spend most of our lives with people who have to be with us. Generally, this seems to be okay, I mean there are people we don’t get along with; on the whole, in my experience, most people are good and have an aspect to them that you can find enjoyable or bearable. It seems odd to think about it, especially now when people are thinking so much about family get-togethers, that so much of our lives is with the un-elected. You have family and work colleagues. How often do we get together with friends? Especially once we have entered the realm of creating our own family? Is this balance what is missing? This need not to dump the people who reject me, but rather to balance it out with more people who I want to be with and who want to be with me?

Sounds like a plan, but this seems to be even harder than finding a potential mate. There is no Craig’s List list for friendships (an idea that I thought of way before Craig’s List even came on the scene, if you must know). But perhaps this should be my New Year’s Resolution (which I generally do not do): to create my own social situations and relationships. Maybe not having a husband to rely on for built-in company is actually good for me, because I am not as much of an introvert as I thought I was. And maybe one of the reasons that my marriage was bad for me was because of its isolationist tendencies. Change is good, as long as you change internally with the external change.

Anyone want to get together next Saturday afternoon for a walk? 

Thanksgiving at My Brother’s

My two daughters and I went to my brother’s house for Thanksgiving. In attendance were: my parents, my brother, his wife, their two kids (both teens), her parents, both of her brothers, one with his wife and two sons (teen and tween), the other with his wife and baby son (until it was time for her to leave and go upstate to her parent’s house where she really wanted to be), one of her two sisters and her husband, and the son of the other sister (who spent the holiday with her boyfriend—“when will she get the ring?” was the question of the day, and his young daughter). It was a full house. Oh, and a teen friend.

In accordance with tradition, my sister-in-law cooked far too much delicious food. Let’s just say that she had an entire 14-pound turkey that was not even carved as part of her leftover feast.

One brother-in-law regaled us with stories of his eating adventures in China. These included: leeches, dog, and (I think) monkey brains. But he did have some insight into more than just his food forays when he said that he wanted to give these impoverished “restaurateurs” a $20 tip for serving him the best meal he had in China in their extremely bare home/restaurant. First he told them (through his employee, who was taking him around the country) that it was a wonderful meal. As part of their thank you, they gave him three bottles of bottled water (which, he said, are very expensive there). When pressed, his employee told him that he couldn’t give the $20 to them since they wouldn’t be able to give him anything in return, and that would be unbearable to them. I, of course, joked that he could take one of their children who were sleeping on a plywood slab on the dirt floor. That broke the levity, but it was a moment of insight into the importance of self-respect and what it means to give, and to give back.

When he and his wife left, the news fluttered out that he just found out that he has cancer.

One of the sister-in-laws told me that her parents, in their early and mid-80’s are not doing well and that she spends her days tending to them, and her sisters tend to them on the weekends.

And my sister-in-law’s parents looked better than last year, but they’re both suffering from a medical book of illnesses.

And my parents are starting to look frailer.

It was weird, all of the “children” are in our 40’s and 50’s; our children are teens, going to college, applying to college, or heading into high school; and our parents, somehow, became our grandparents. We all moved up a rung on the ladder, and we are now in a position of responsibility (at least in regards to our families). We are who we are. While I still have illusions of grandeur, I am also this divorced woman, who is a teacher, who lives in the suburbs, who says “uh huh” and “oh, I’m sorry” much more often than I am consulted on issues related to girl’s self-esteem, women’s need to not listen to men and their lectures unless they offer a few lectures of their own, and how to break the cycle of control and abuse.

Family gatherings, a time to gather and to gather insight. Also a time to quiet the discontent and simply flourish being with people who love you because you are family, and since we have been family for so long, we are all related to the first degree (us Italians and Jews, it’s all the same by now).

(Oh, and I’m thankful that mr ex isn’t around to make any snide comments about anyone. It truly is liberating not to have an arrogant man around.)

(I just wrote “snide comments, and a woman at the next table in Panera’s said “snide comment” about ten seconds later. The universe is an interesting place.)

Divorce and Custody: Virginia Style and American Style

This is what I found when I was searching the name of one of the bastard lawyers my nice lawyer told me about: the Mommy Go Bye Bye blog.

And this is the paragraph that stopped me:

Virginia judges say a father may hurt the mother of his child, by abusing her, without hurting his chances of gaining custody. Judges surveyed for Influences on Judges' Decisions in Child Custody Disputes in the Commonwealth of Virginia, a 2001 Virginia Supreme Court study, also reveal that children over five go to fathers more than they go to mothers when cases go to court. The study explains that judges in Virginia believe #1) mothers have “more problems” than fathers and #2) mothers are “less competent than fathers. Pages 4, 6, 7, 20, 21, 23, 24, 29, 30, 38, 39, 40, 41, 53, 55, and 57, however, are especially relevant to the current trend of giving children to fathers who are abusive, violent, and dangerously controlling men. Those pages are excerpted and contained in my compendium "The High Price of Conscience-free Justice." Or you may look for the study on the Virginia General Assembly website.

And then there was this:

Breaking the Silence: Children’s Stories — a powerful new PBS documentary that chronicles the impact of domestic violence on children and the recurring failings of family courts across the country to protect them from their abusers. In stark and often poignant interviews, children and battered mothers tell their stories of abuse at home and continued trauma within the courts. Co-produced by Tatge-Lasseur Productions and Connecticut Public Television (CPTV), this one-hour special also features interviews with domestic violence experts, attorneys and judges who reveal the disturbing frequency in which abusers are winning custody of their children and why these miscarriages of justice continue to occur.

This program is made possible by funding from the Mary Kay Ash Charitable Foundation. One of the most effective ways an abusive father can inflict pain and declare his domination is to take custody of his children away from their mother. As Joan Meier, an attorney and professor of clinical law, explains, “To win custody of the kids over and against the mother’s will is the ultimate victory...short of killing the kids.” While there may be a perception in society that the family court system has a maternal preference, statistics show that, in the past twenty years, fathers are more often being awarded custody. Furthermore, in family court cases where mothers allege battery, fathers are given custody two-thirds of the time.

And if that was not enough, there was this:

“U.S. courts remain incredibly reluctant to punish men for crimes against their families," Silverman observes. "In this country, family violence is still seen as a private matter.”

“Men could beat, maim, and murder their wives with impunity until this century,” he continues. “Until the 1990s, it was legal in some states for a man to rape his wife. Like slavery and racism in this country, violence against women and children is the legacy of longstanding legal and social structures.”

* * *

When I attended the parenting class that I was required to by Virginia law after getting a divorce when children are involved (I don’t think mr ex ever attended a session)  there was a mother there who had been a stay-at-home mother, who home-schooled her five kids, who lost custody of her children to her physically abusive ex-husband, who was given the okay by the judge to take the minor children out of state to live. How respectable, daddy dearest was a pilot. The judge then told this woman, who had not worked outside of the home for years, that he better see a record of her going often to visit her children who were going to be half-way across the country with their father, even though she has no money. She, of course, was not given spousal support. This woman also relayed that she was ostracized by her church for getting a divorce.

There really isn’t anything to add, except the horror, the horror. Any wonder that so often we get duped by these guys, they dupe the system, too.

There's this pseudo theory that only the courts have taken a hold of called Parental Alienation Syndrome, which states that the abused parent will turn the child against the abusing parent. In order to prevent that from happening, the courts have decided to  simply give the kids to the abusing parent, who, of course, in no way will try to turn his kids against the other parent. How do you say "stupid" in legalese? I know, Parental Alienation Syndrome.

Watch the video, it’s chilling, especially the judge who says that no new evidence was presented although the child had told her mother that her father had sexually abused her after the first court case.

Why, why does the world still go round when children are not listened to and protected, and mothers are not listened to and protected? Why, why does the world still go round when abusers are given license to abuse? Why, why does the world still go round when all that is good is debased by those who have more powerful pockets and mouths?

Get Your Words Off Me: Excerpt 26

I've taken a break lately in posting excerpts from my book, Get Your Words Off Me, but I thought that it was time for a new one, and specifically this one, which explains how he got the master suite and I got the guest bedroom. 

* * *

KICKED OUT OF BED

Why have sex with a man you detest and who makes you hate yourself?

When we were working on our marriage by going to therapy, I felt that it would be an affront to the effort to turn him away when he wanted to have sex. I was, still, unfortunately, seeing submission as a positive attribute instead of what it was: an absolute relinquishment of the self. By cooperating I thought I was behaving fairly, which is ironic considering that his actions were fundamentally unfair and caused me to feel—to be—violated and used.

One night, a few weeks after we had begun our reconciliation process, he got into bed and reached out, touching me, when I was already asleep. That night I finally reacted instinctually—protecting myself, not my relationship. Out of the depths of my sleeping self, I shouted “NO!” He immediately withdrew his hand. I woke, stunned, feeling the “NO!” as it exited my mouth from my unconscious and hung between us.

Then, shockingly, he said sharply, “Get out.” The absurdity of his telling me to get out of our bed when he was the one attacking me, when he was the one who had repeatedly asked me to come back to bed, was enormous. But I realized, as I lay there in the dark with the “NO” still echoing between us, that I had no desire to fight to stay in that bed with him, it was the opposite of what I wanted. I was not going to explain or apologize, or soothe. What a relief to have finally spoken what I felt. So, I stood up, walked out of the room and returned to “my” couch (where I had been sleeping before the attempt at reconciliation).

I have not returned to that bed since; except for one night when he was out of town on a business trip a short time after I had left that room, when I still felt that it was, to some extent, still my room. It is now his bed and his room, I have ceded the space. I should have said, “No, you get out, you are the violator.” But, as with so much else in this marriage, I took what I was dealt and tried my best to survive. And so, in the middle of the night, in my oversized tee-shirt and cotton shorts, I walked out, leaving him naked, alone with whatever demons or remorse may eventually plague him. 

 

My Ex-Husband Never Became President, Neither Did I

The other night, watching Michelle and Barack Obama on the stage in Grant Park I couldn’t help but (yes, think of myself) think of how we choose the man we will marry (and I am assuming in these days of SAHF, the woman we will marry). I am not talking about being a gold digger, but about the selection, both sub-consciously and consciously, that we ponder as we date, especially when we are too young to have a resume to present. Don’t we pick people who we think will succeed? Don’t we go with the guy who we think will go to the White House of his chosen profession?

I think that we are able, to a certain extent, to decide who we will fall in love with. All of the things that you find wrong with a guy in the first five minutes of meeting him, isn’t that just your way of telling yourself that he doesn’t meet your expectations for a husband? Granted some of the rejects are on their way (my first and only set-up blind date seemed to be on his way to being a bigwig in whatever field he was in, but all I could talk about was how I was moving to Israel in a couple of weeks, and he had to go back to the office to finish some things after less than an hour), but we do have to be somewhat selective. And even those who go for the deadbeats, don’t they usually talk about how they think they will turn him around? I worked with a woman who kept referring to the fact that her husband was a diamond in the rough when they first met, and after a few years he had built a successful company.

But going back to the Obamas, I’m sure that they were taken with each other’s physical, intellectual, and emotional compatibility as well as the potential that the other has in making her/his way in the world. I mean do you really want to hitch yourself to someone who has no ambition? Obviously we want success for ourselves, but don’t we also want to be with someone who has stars in his eyes—especially at the beginning of the journey?

When I started dating mr ex he had just become an officer in the Israeli army and he had plans to either be a spy (HA!), lawyer, or businessman, and perhaps politician down the line; and I was determined to be a writer of the intellectual bestseller by the age of 24 type (no comments). But beyond his career goals, this was a man who was at the center of a few groups of people, and they all listened to what he said (which was good, since I couldn’t always figure out what he was saying since my Hebrew was pretty basic, but it set the stage for me, or rather his stage). Not only was he the nuclei of different groups of friends and colleagues, but also of his family—he was the older son who everyone listened to. One of the interesting things about being in the military (this seems to be pretty universal) is that there is an intense selection process that tracks people, and you can really see how someone is valued and judged by the track he is put on. And boy, was he on an impressive track.

It all seemed good. He had been vetted. But the vetting process only works well if who you see is who you get, and the who does not transform in unknown and unexpected ways.

My point here is not that most of us fail to meet our own expectations, never mind how our significant other fails, but we at least begin with a heightened estimation of that person. I believed he could do all of those things (so much so that I even petitioned against the whole spy business) and I think he thought I would be a bestselling author (even though he didn’t “appreciate” what I wrote).

Maybe it’s harder to correctly analyze this when you are young (I was 22 when we started dating and he was 20) and don’t have much to go on. But there’s always something. What did the person do in high school? What college did the person attend? What was his SAT? What did he do during his summers? What did he do when he got out of college? Sure, it’s not quite on a track, but there’s a general direction.

Which leads me to an awfully obvious question: Am I jealous of Michelle Obama? You betch’ya. Even, God help me, Laura Bush. I made my choice, and I thought it was a good one. For goodness sakes, I thought that I had hit the bonanza with him, that we were on our way to tête-à-têtes in important circles with important people. In my own defense I do want to note that both of these women met their men in their 30’s, after the adult formative years and when there was more to see and assess—you know, more to fall in love with (or not).

Reconciling yourself to your own inadequacies and failure to launch are hard, but it’s hard, too, to reconcile yourself to the fact that your spouse didn’t live up to his own expectations—or yours. And it really doesn’t matter if it is because the world is against him or if he just didn’t have it in him.

Or maybe more tellingly, because other people saw in him a flaw that it took me so long to recognize. 

A Mother’s Blessings

Tomorrow my younger daughter will, in a religious sense, be recognized as an adult and become a full participant in religious life. (As she says, now she’ll try not to sneak bread during Passover.) This is for me, as well as for her, a milestone. While she had to practice her Torah portion, and the blessings, and write her own sermon, for me it has been a time to think about her finding her way as her own person out in the world (especially since this time has entailed even more driving duties than usual for me). It is a time to reflect on the beauty that is motherhood, and those who I have mothered. Even though I often dwell on the challenging aspect of things (because that is much funnier than the purely praising, and of late so much more in sync with my interactions), I will take a moment to think about this joint life-journey. Since I have two daughters, one 17 and one 13, this reflection comes from being at this game for over seventeen years.

While I have spent 17 years putting my daughters’ needs above mine by wiping, cleaning, cooking, driving, talking, folding, registering, arranging, listening, attending, watching, purchasing, bandaging, and coddling, I can’t say that I have put them above me. Was I supposed to? And what does that cliché mean? Does it mean that I should have esteemed their minds more than mine? Should I have let mine atrophy in order to develop theirs? How does that work? I let my personality wither to grow yours? Isn’t that counter-intuitive? Don’t young girls, especially, need strong mothers to be strong themselves—to put their heads through the ceiling, if need be?

Perhaps because I had to fight against a controlling husband I did not lay on the ground to be walked on by my daughters (well, not full-body walking, at least). I couldn’t let everyone try to diminish me or rewrite who I am, now could I? But is that really the way to go about being a parent? A mother? Giving yourself up for them? Letting the career go or change or transform or take a hiatus, yes, I did that. Letting my fashion sense become even drabber since either they were spitting on me or I am I spending on them, yes I did that. Not go out to play with friends, well, I did that less often but I still did it. Closing the door, sometimes just the figurative door and sometimes the literal door, to escape them and escape into me, yes, I certainly did-do-that. How can that possibly be seen as a betrayal of my role?  

----You know, I’m still drained from being called crazy and stupid. Not from their father, but from them. I thank my daughters for giving me the opportunity to bring forth my knowledge and understanding and love. And to find my knowledge and understanding and love through our relationships. I thank them for letting me get to watch them grow and try to keep them safe as they find their way. But they are teens and I am stressed from this bitter post-divorce process, and so I feel that I have failed. But I tried, I did. I have done all I could—can. And that, too, is the message. We can only do as best as we can, and hope that the rays of love and concern have been transmitted.

Sweetie, I love you and wish you joy and happiness in all that you do. Mazel Tov!

Trying to Keep it Together

I lost it this evening. Sometimes all the encouraging words and thoughts and wishes for a better future are not enough to overcome a present that is just painful. Okay, I don’t have a life-threatening illness, and I appreciate that, I really do, but screaming out in pain from something my child says to me is mighty painful.

I was already drained after agreeing to let the rabbi in ex’s family deliver a few words to my daughter at her Bat Mitzvah. Yes, this is the man who I turned to after slime kicked a bag at my head and asked him to please talk to slime, that he is out of control. This is the man who at that time was studying for his doctorate in pastoral counseling who told me that no, he would not talk to him because he “doesn’t want to take sides, he loves us both.” So the very notion that he really will be there is bad enough, but that he will speak churns at me. Sure, I could say no, you don’t deserve any respect at this venue, but I know my daughter would not be happy about that, and that she would remember that he spoke at her sister’s Bat Mitzvah. Perhaps I am still an enabler.

Then there were the hours spent buying food for the big event at three different supermarkets after work. And no, I do not ever expect to get paid by slime, but my parents have stepped up instead of the man who was supposed to be by my side. (I wonder how father’s feel when they discover the man to whom they entrusted their daughters have so debased that trust?)

When I walked in the house, four hours after leaving work, I realized that I forgot to tell my daughter to walk the dog, since I had not been able to walk him the morning since he was in slime’s room. So after getting one daughter’s nastiness about my yelling, I was blindsided by my other daughter.

After telling her that no, she can’t have my car to buy something for her camera so she can take pictures this weekend, and no she can’t have my credit card she turned  so very nasty on me. Her survival instincts are truly horrific.

“You put shit on his car.”

“What?”

“There was shit on dad’s car, obviously you put it there.”

Here’s where all self-control and bladder control is lost. First I asked her, calmly, if she really believes that, then she said yes, there’s no other explanation for it otherwise. That’s when I slammed the utensil that was in my hand on the chopping board, and screamed so loudly or deeply that, I guess, all internal passages opened up and I started peeing. Then I crumpled onto the floor and was just a scene from some movie where “woman loses it.”

Yes she is 17. But that is an excuse for some things, not this, not believing all the things he says to her about me. I am her mother. I have never done anything to hurt her except to be her mother. (And if she finds this when she is older and is embarrassed, good for you. And if she finds this and is embarrassed by her mother, then good for you.)

I am too tired now. Too tired of this ridiculous home situation. Too tired of how trying to get out of a bad marriage has resulted in a far worse divorce.

Please, please let me have a little light in this tunnel. 

The Week in Review

Home: The “For Sale” sign is still in front of the house, although the price has been reduced. slime finally agreed to reduce the price by about half of what I wanted (which is what the realtor recommended minus a bit)—and that was before the economy tanked even more. His agreement was probably just a ploy to show the judge that he is cooperating in the sale of the house. Let’s just reduce the price to practically foreclosure level and be done with it. No one has been by to visit, and I have gotten very lax in keeping the cleaning up to ready-to-show-in-a-half-hour status. Who wouldn’t be tired of maintaining a home at show quality for almost a year and a half?

I dread the idea of having to clean again because I detest living here. I detest that things have worked out so that I have lived in the same house with a man from whom I have been separated since March 2004. I don’t want to rant about my fault, or his fault, or my lawyer's fault, or the economy’s fault, or fate’s fault, all I want to do is rant at the injustice of this living arrangement.

Court: The court date is coming, it is November 6th. My lawyer (who needs to rise to bastard level) suggested that I write a letter to the judge to explain what it is like for me, and especially my daughters, living in this house, all of us together. I am beginning to compose that letter. Maybe threads are starting to show here.

slime: I think he gained weight because every time he walks around I hear the floor responding with a creak. So even when I don’t see him, I hear him. And if it’s not the floor, it’s his throat clearings because he never gave up cigarettes even though he promised me that he would before we got married many years ago.

Oh, and if I have to be exposed to the way he disregards his daughters, especially his younger daughter, anymore I think I will finally break down. It was her birthday the other day, I did not see a gift nor did I see a cake from him. Not that my cake was the best ever: it was a delicious defrosted Strawberry Shortcake from Trader Joe’s with imaginary candles. She is so sweet, she even made a wish and blew out the candles, and my older daughter held back and did not mock me and my candle improvisation.

But worst of all for me is when he calls my older daughter into his room, and then has her close the door so that they can have a private conversation in his bedroom (the master suite). It seems to me that this is a monologue, since I rarely hear the mumble of her voice through the closed doors. This arrangement feels weird and makes me uncomfortable for her—and me. It feels unseemly, because it feels as if he has made her his surrogate wife, in the talking aspect of things. And that is unsettling.

School/Work: One colleague recently resigned for an unspecified reason, but apparently she is an alcoholic. It is so upsetting to see someone you know and respect having such a hard time; I wish her complete healing and a successful recovery.

I’m getting a bit overwhelmed with all of the data we English teachers need to collect for the higher-ups. I broke the silence at a meeting today and said that I “philosophically oppose a test for Night” and that “we are supposed to be focused on writing, which is what everyone says the students need to improve.” But really, who cares about my protestations, my students need to be bubbling scantrons to prove that they have learned something from the stream of teachings that comes out of me on a non-stop basis.

My students are now writing essays on something important to them. I am so looking forward to reading their essays, especially since I only need to read 50 of them since my co-teacher will be reading our joint classes’ essays. A few were on tee shirts, and stuffed animals, and trophies. I explained the assignment discussing the rocks I collected on my spring break vacation to visit my friend in Monterey; what a joy it was to walk on a beach in the company of a friend without any responsibilities for a week; no wonder those stones make me feel good. I hope this assignment makes them feel good too. I mean who wouldn’t want to spend a few hours thinking about your favorite tee shirt and where you got it and what it means to you?

Dating: No boys on the horizon. Apparently someone emailed me from match.com, but I didn’t want to spend $30 to sign up to read the email that I have already decided would not be worth the investment. And may I say that I posted on match more than a year ago and this is the first email in just about forever. It could be a good sign, but it could also be a waste of time, hope and money and I don’t feel like wasting two of the above. I broke down and checked out Craig’s List, and emailed one man; but it turned out that I had met him for one coffee date. His response to my repeat email was that I should be ashamed of myself. (He knew of my blog, where I had written that he had been nice but in a worse home situation than mine, so no thanks.) So I really think that I shall stay away from there. Lurkers, there are too many lurkers.

And that is about a week in the life of.

Madonna Verbally Abused? Is No One Safe?

From the Mail Online, October 17:

“Madonna is building an extraordinary divorce case against Guy Ritchie, claiming he was a cruel and verbally-abusive husband who would belittle and ridicule her in front of others.”

“Her lawyers say that 40-year-old Ritchie's comments made Madonna feel worthless, unattractive, unfeminine, insecure and isolated during their eight-year marriage.”

“After a period of time, Madonna says the constant put-downs created a distance between them and that she felt totally isolated in the marriage. That's when the love started to die and when their sex life also suffered badly.'”

Can I just say: Oh My God! Is no one safe? Even taking into consideration that she and her lawyers are preparing her custody case and are building her husband up as an abusive man—Oh My God! Madonna claiming that she was verbally abused. Is no woman safe? Or, why are so many men incapable of dealing with strong, independent women—one at a time, of course?

Ladies, there’s a reason why there’s a ceiling above us in the work world, it’s because it’s there at home. Hubby Bubby must have his ego coddled when he gets home. What about us? I wonder how many more men get their meals served to them when they come home compared to the number of women who benefit from the same treatment—both of them after a day at work? And I don’t want to hear about some division of labor where he mows the lawn and she cooks. There is a huge difference between something that is done daily to something that is done occasionally.

Today at lunch in the teacher workroom a teacher in her mid-twenties complained (in her upbeat way) about her 30-something boyfriend enjoying the dinners she prepares but finds no available time to reciprocate. No, I won’t say that this is a case of "meal abuse," but the scales are surely not balanced, and it has been percolating in her, otherwise she never would have mentioned it in such a public forum. (Twelve English teachers who can facilely turn a brief episode into a telling anecdote is surely a dangerous place to reveal secrets.)

And we have a similar situation in politics. What are the attack ads and negative comments if not a form of verbal abuse writ large? But I will not dwell here except to say that calling someone names when you are 40 is as bad as when you were 10, only when you’re 10 it’s called being a bully but at 40 and 70 it’s called politics. I guess it’s the bullies who are able to bully themselves ahead.

But back to Madonna. Poor, poor Madonna. I mean who could she turn to for support? (No, not Victoria’s Secret.) Where does someone who is an icon turn for help? But come to think of it, I am an icon too. Don’t my children see me as an icon? Didn’t I have to pretend the verbal abuse from my ex-husband away for a while, as if confronting what was being said to me in front of them would diminish my status in their eyes. It took a while to realize that the very act—in their presence—was enough, already, to lose some of my status; status that I could only get back when I confronted or stood up to my abuser, my EX-husband.

My “nothing,” “ugly,” “fat,” “leech,” “useless friends and family” is like Madonna’s “worthless, unattractive, unfeminine, insecure and isolated.” Peas in a pod, the two of us. But, no, unless the pod can contain the millions of women who are abused—verbally, emotionally, physically. In Virginia, where I live, a husband can verbally abuse his wife with impunity; there is no law that restricts what a man says to his wife, except to threaten her life (glad they have that caveat). I sent letters to the editor to the Washington Post about verbal abuse, but they didn’t think it was important enough to cover (that was a day after a woman and her children were killed by her ex-husband who had been emotionally and verbally abusive); meanwhile, every time I publish a post here or at places such as Midlife Bloggers or Blogher or iVillage about verbal abuse, there are too many responses from fellow sufferers—past and present.

Enough. Guy—and guys—zipper it! If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all because words hurt. Words hurt and betray and wound.

Madonna, if you need an understanding shoulder to cry on, I’m here for you.

Show Compassion for the Unhappily Married

The Rosh Hashanah sermon that the rabbi at my synagogue gave was about being more understanding to people who are unhappy or troubled in their marriages. The “come away” was not to judge people in this situation, which I guess means not to make them feel that they are failures, or that they are not properly mature to commit to a commitment, or that they are not deserving in compassion because they didn’t do what they are “supposed” to do. I was surprised by what he said, I had thought that people understood that when a person, or a couple, gets divorced it’s not because they didn’t try, but because it didn’t work. It’s like those people who think women rush to get an abortion without considering the various alternatives. If you are aware of the options, you can assume that the people in the midst of the problem know the options as well.

Judging others, shouldn’t that be a sin? I mean if gossiping is a big no-no, shouldn’t this be even bigger? Who put you in charge of deciding what is right and good for people? As far as I know, even therapists don’t tell people what to think or where they have gone wrong, they ask questions to get the client to consider the situation from other angles, to consider themselves from other angles.

I’m assuming that when someone tells someone else that she is unhappy in her marriage that the person she confided in is a friend or someone with whom there is a modicum of friendly feelings, so why would that person then go out and judge? Am I being naïve here? Do I assume too much from people, you know, that they care about the people they are talking to the same amount when they are face-to-face as when they are apart?

And why in this day and age are people judging others so harshly? Do we not get it that marriage is hard, that raising children is hard, that working is hard, that getting by day to day is hard? And you know what, even if the person did not work at her marriage and just decided that she didn’t want to be in it any more, isn’t that a valid enough reason to end it? And isn’t knowing that someone is unhappy enough to wish her happiness?

Is it jealousy or envy? Are the people who stayed in their unhappy marriages the ones who condemn those who break the commitment because they wish they had the strength to go—and not the weakness to stay? Is this similar to the most vociferous gay bashers who are often latent homosexuals who are afraid of their feelings?

Perhaps the expression “the grass is greener on the other side” has been transformed to “the grass is dried up on my side so why don’t you come over.” That sentiment must truly be sinful, and the antithesis of everything that we are taught, in whatever faith or non-faith tradition in which we are raised.

Sometimes our grass becomes poisonous and we need to change our diet. Sometimes our grass doesn’t grow enough to provide us with the sustenance we need, so we must move on. Sometimes our grass turns out to be Astroturf. Yes, compassion, I guess it is like fertilizer, helping new grass sprout within the soul of a marriage-saddened person. Why not spread some fertilizer this year instead of lawn mowers.
 
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First Birthday Party for One

I went to the first birthday party of an adorable third cousin the other day. At the party was the birthday boy’s aunt who, after a disastrous first marriage, remarried last month. Also present was a friend of the birthday boy’s father, who will be getting married in April. There was wedding talk. At the party were also the infant children of friends, the 5-year-old child of a friend, and the teenage children of the birthday boy’s mother’s cousin. There was looking at children standing, running, sliding, and, generally, being children. And there was me, unaccompanied by any children, no wedding dresses to discuss, and no spouse to get me a bottle of water, hon, thanks.

I have begun to get used to and accepting of this situation, a post-modern version of the spinster aunt. Am I simply an “unaccompanied woman,” since that’s what I am and that’s certainly how I feel? While I have no intention of getting maudlin here, I need to acknowledge that not having children who are of an age that they have no choice but to come with me and without any leverage (or desire) to force them to come whether they like it or not, and not having a someone to fill in the gaps between going from group to group is lonely. And I wish it weren’t.

In what has become an awful habit, I check out the men in different settings to see if any would be click material if not married. And, as is generally the case, no one has click potential. In my defense, I must say that I don’t get out much. Both of these facts lead me to what is becoming a coming to terms that I will probably remain unaccompanied. Or maybe I am mentally preparing myself to be alone so that I won’t be disappointed (too much) if that, indeed, becomes my reality.

Who the hell cares if I’m lonely? That’s something that I need to deal with, by either stewing in my own juices or getting out more. I have often been alone (what a shock, a writer who likes to be alone), but this lemon tree in my front yard is not even letting me savor the richness of solitude. It’s being at a party knowing that I once had the accoutrements but now do not that is especially difficult. Those could be my kids eating the sushi and listening to grownups talk about wedding dresses. That could be my spouse who rubs my back as he listens to me talk to someone about our wedding 23-years ago. And that could be me, making sure my children get a slice of cake with rainbow frosting and say thank you when we leave. And that could be me, telling hubby that we need to stay for a few minutes. But it’s not.

No. This is my reality. And you know, all of those people, no one made me feel alone, I did that. I need to grow into my life, and shed my expectations and disappointments. I’m getting there. After all, I didn’t fake cancel going to the party because I didn’t want to be alone. And I didn’t come late and leave early (well, I left early, but that was the time the party was supposed to end). This is it babe. Deal.

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Looking at Marriage in a Glass Half-full/Half-empty Way

Just thinking of your husband brings a smile to your face. 

Just thinking of your husband brings a frown to your face.

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