Ode To My Marriage: May It Rest In Peace

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It happened one night when I wasn’t looking. Perhaps somewhere between putting the children to bed, turning off the lights, or scooping up his dirty clothes from the floor. I don’t know.

He was just sitting there. On the edge of the bed. Watching me, watch him. Before the monotone muddle of his voice broke into my thoughts with such sledgehammer words I was left both stunned and momentarily breathless.

“I want a divorce.”

“What about our lives?” I was suddenly numb. “Our children? And that vow to love, honor, and protect me in sickness and in health till death do us part? Any of that ring a bell?”

Silence.

“Fuck you!” I threw back, no longer numb. The tangent now up and running as I continued to blast into him.

His eyes never left the floor. Not once. How could they? Weighted down with all that shame, that guilt that had been brewing like a storm. Under different circumstances, my heart would have reached out to his. But not now. Not for this. For once, I was incapable of putting his suffering ahead of my own, because I was too drowning in the wreckage of a life I believed had been built upon sacrifices and commitments and was now crumbling into ruins around me.

If I had a knife I’m pretty sure I would have used the damn thing. I would have thrust it into his flesh as far as it would go until I’d exposed him for the fraud he was. But I didn’t. I couldn’t for no other reason than my body betrayed me when I needed a show of strength the most. And cried instead.

The sigh in his voice was audible, was grating. “What do you want me to say?”

“I want you to say you made a mistake. I want you to say we’ll work it out. That’s what I want you to say.”

“No. We’ve been down that road before. And too many times. No more. I’m tired. Of you, of the screaming, the crying, no sex, the endless nights we go round and round with no possible resolution in sight. It’s not the life I wanted. Nor I imagine … do you. The simple fact is things have changed. We’ve changed. We’ve drifted so far apart, and the reasons that had once bound us together, somehow have fallen so far by the wayside I can’t even remember them anymore. Can you?”

It’s so hard to admit when you’ve fallen short of accomplishing the one thing you’ve pinned all your hopes and dreams on. Especially when it all began with so much love and infinite possibility.

What happened to us? Where did it all go wrong? Questions every couple asks in retrospect. I was no exception.

I believe the breakdown in relationships happen when you’re not paying attention to all the things you need to be paying attention to. The respect for each other. The liking of each other. The honest desire to keep the marriage fulfilled and growing in ways that remind you why you’re together. And without those components constantly factoring in or even realizing, bitterness shows up at your door. You allow it into your life where it becomes your daily companion. Burrowing like a cancerous disease into your spiritual fiber day after day, year after year, simply because it’s easier than the alternative.

There are so many valid reasons why you stay put when things become difficult. Or even recognizably unsalvageable. The children, if there are any. The money. He might make more than you. You might not be working at all and a divorce would force you to move, to get a job, or a better job at a time when jobs are scarce, changing your financial picture entirely. The dating thing. The idea of getting back out there especially when after you believed that world was far behind you, is frightening. You’ve aged, your body might not be in the best shape, you’re tired all the time, and after years of confidence bashing, seeing what happens to friends after a divorce, being cast off, forced on an excruciating whirlwind of Internet coffee dates, who in their bloody right mind would want that horror?

‘Better the devil you know.’ This was my daily mantra. Goodness knows I needed something beyond the wine or Valium, every time he’d shut me out, not talk to me for days, weeks. When I found myself on the brink, emotionally bankrupt with nowhere else to turn, feeling like a leaf lost in a monsoon.

But if that doesn’t work, that and professional counseling, what do you do then? How long do you continue tormenting yourself and those around you when you know the inevitable … is inevitable?

Sometimes the things you fear the most, the obvious things that stare you right in the face, usually end up being the things that hurt you the least.

In a few months, my parents will celebrate their sixty-ninth wedding anniversary. Wow. Such an amazing milestone. To think some people actually do spend their whole lives together, side-by-side conquering those insurmountable challenges. More than anything I wished we could have worked through the mess. But the truth was simply didn’t belong together. He was steak and potatoes, I was champagne and a vegetarian. We lacked the critical things that make two people fundamentally compatible: similar personalities and similar perspectives on life. And nothing we could have done or said to each other would ever fudge over something as decisive as that.

Some of the biggest challenges in relationships come from the fact that most people enter a relationship in order to get something: they’re trying to find someone who’s going to make them feel good. In reality, the only way a relationship will last is if you see your relationship as a place that you go to give, and not a place that you go to take.” ― Tony Robbins

When a relationship dies, you can’t help but feel like you’ve failed somewhere. It’s natural. Something that was special died. But the truth is you didn’t fail. Not at all. It’s just one more experience in a lifetime of experiences that make you who you are.

The day he walked out of my life, I was beyond petrified. Nights after the children went to sleep, I’d curl up on the floor inside my closet and cry until I was bone dry. I wasn’t sure how I would survive. If I could survive. The future didn’t exist for me. Facing so many uncertainties with two young children glued to my side, I only knew I had to. That and nothing else. So I put one foot in front of the other, taking any job I could, forging through eleven more years mired in one legal battle after another, until slowly, very slowly I found myself again.

Maybe marriage isn’t for everyone. Maybe just being part of a healthy relationship for as long as it lasts, is the best we can hope for. But it isn’t the end of the world either if that doesn’t go your way. Because if I’ve learned anything after all these years of stumbling and picking myself back up, it’s that people will come and go and the most important relationship you’ll ever have, is with yourself.

So, in closing, focus on what brings you joy. And whatever else happens is gravy.

 

 

 

 

 

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Book Club Tour Challenge Progress Report. Week Two. And Going Nuts.

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In a word. Oy. I can’t believe it’s two weeks in, and I’m already pulling my hair out. I knew this thing wouldn’t be easy. I knew as a virtual unknown with little following in the literary world, that I had my work cut out for me. And I might not succeed at all in meeting my goal, getting all fifty states on board and visited within a year’s time. But I also knew I had the state of New Jersey in my back pocket right from the get-go, so I refused to let anything faze me. I approached this like I approach any other challenge I set for myself. With wide-eyed optimism and dummy donuts for breakfast.

donut girl

The idea for the video to get the ball rolling, came out of the blue. Like one of those lightbulb moments. And I loved it from the start. It was a project unto itself where I spent hours upon hours of time and putting on make-up that I wouldn’t normally bother with, while trying to have this mumbo jumbo two-minute script memorized so I wouldn’t keep looking off to the side every other second at my cheat sheet, like an bleepin’ idiot. But once I finally had it down pat, once I felt that it was as good as it was going to get, I released it. Again I was under no great illusion here that this would be my ticket to ride. That after a reasonable amount of time and people spreading the gospel that this cute little old lady author was available for weddings and Bar Mitzvahs . . . that the other forty-nine other states that I did not have in my back pocket, would come banging down my door. Let alone knock.

Yes, I had a lot of shares, a lot of buzz and plenty of views over these past two weeks. But that’s it. And with time ticking (remember this challenge has a shelf life of 50 weeks), I immediately turned to Plan B: Meetup.com. In case you’re not yet familiar, this is the go-to website for anyone, anywhere looking for every conceivable type of social club or activity. A group to go hiking with, people to have drinks with, go to the movies with. Seriously, it’s great! When I moved to California not knowing a soul, it was a perfect way for me to meet new friends. And I did.

And now I believed it would also be a perfect way for me to go from state to state, introducing myself and my little book to as many clubs as I could find; all without ever leaving the house or changing my jammies.

In my mind, it couldn’t be any easier. Having so many opportunities right there at my fingertips, in such a centralized spot. It reminded me of the good ole days when I sold insurance for a living. Wow. Talk about pounding the pavement. Jesus. Un-believable. I would drive around for hours looking for business parks and literally go from door-to-door, in the hot Florida sun, all decked out in my professional skin: suit and heels. Just praying to God that someone would eventually feel sorry for me and buy something.

Anyway, I’m getting off track here a bit. I think the point I was trying to make is that I was so hungry to be successful, that I was willing to do anything. To put up with anything to get the job done. And despite the passage of time, I’m still that tenacious girl, and this job for me would be no different.

So I stuck to the plan. I created what I believed to be the perfect email. (I’m the writer, remember?) And day by day, in those spare clips of moments between editing my next book and helping take care of my granddaughter, I began to work my way through the website. Starting off though with the state of Florida for the simple reason that’s where I live. And as luck would have it, I found over ten clubs within a twenty-mile radius of my house. Wow. Another bonus, I remember thinking as I sent off the emails, as I waited and waited for a single reply. One day, three days past without hearing a word from any of the organizers. And when the fifth day came and went I began to get a little panicky. Thinking oh boy, something’s definitely wrong here. Maybe the emails didn’t go through. Maybe they got deleted somehow. And just as I was about to repeat the entire process all over again, because what else could I do, I finally received a response. A response I had not expected.

“Our club is meant for serious readers ONLY. Do not bother us again!”

Wow. If that didn’t burst my bubble, the next email that came a day later, sure as hell did.

“It is our club policy not to allow authors to attend our meetings. It’s too disruptive. I’m sorry.”

Too disruptive? Is she f**cking kidding me?

Needless to say, as much as I wanted to argue with the wall, I had no time or choice but to plow on. This was after all still my Plan B. A plan I still felt confident would work, complete with good odds, forty-eight other states to try, and a fresh batch of dummy donuts waiting for me on the table.

So on I went. Back to the computer. Doing an Internet search for the biggest cities in Alabama before proceeding once again over to the Meetup.com site. There I managed to locate one club in Birmingham, one in Mobile, and nothing, I mean nothing in Huntsville, Tuscaloosa, Montgomery and Dothan. This didn’t make me at all happy. But I shot off my whopping two emails anyway and repeated the process for Alaska and Arizona.

As you can imagine, Alaska isn’t exactly the book club capital of the world either, but Arizona certainly made up for the first two states, and in spades. Yielding over fifteen clubs. I was thrilled. And after I shot off all those emails, after I noted each club into the excel spreadsheet I’d created to keep track of all my doings, I began to feel as if the door was finally opening up, and things were heading in the right direction.

Yes, that was me yesterday afternoon at around 3:30 pm. All hopped up on those dummy donuts and giddy throughout the day and into the night. Right up until 8:00 pm when things went seriously south faster than Superman and a speeding bullet after I received an email from Meetup.com advising me that I could no longer use their site. My account was now shut down, locked out, and in other words sista, here’s the boot, screw you and go figure out another damn plan. Because this one . . . ain’t gonna fly.

I felt like crap. I could not believe this was the attitude and the perception I was now forced to face. How did I go from a million opportunities to zero in a blink? From easy peasy to what the hell do I do now to find all these clubs? I wanted to scream. Because honestly, nothing else seemed suitable for the occasion. Yes, perhaps I was having one of those melt-down, kick in the ass moments reminding me that nothing from nothing in this life ever comes easy. Especially those things worth having. Only I couldn’t concentrate on that. I couldn’t because I was still blinded and too caught up in my own small world of frustration to allow this wonderful message of resiliency to wrap itself around me.

But . . . that was yesterday. And today, well, like they say: it’s a whole new day. Another opportunity. Another chance to shine and make this thing happen. The only problem for me right now is, I seem to be coming up a little short on my next course of action. Plan C.

Any suggestions? I’m all ears.

 

 

 

 

Photo credit: Flickr themanwho66

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Who Am I Without My Sister? A Look At Love and Loss

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“I don’t believe an accident of birth makes people sisters or brothers. It makes them siblings, gives them mutuality of parentage. Sisterhood and brotherhood is a condition people have to work at.”

—Maya Angelou

This is true of all our relationships. You have to put in the hard work if you feel it’s something worth having. No question about it. But unlike the remarkable and sometimes not-so-remarkable array of people who come into our lives—the lovers, the husbands, the wives, the friends—we don’t get the luxury of hand-picking our siblings, the very same people who in time will either become our greatest ally or our fiercest enemy.

It is a tightrope. A never-ending dance between choosing battles and making those necessary concessions in order to get beyond what might seem now like nothing more than petty differences, but then an argument worth the bloodletting.

Yes, they push our buttons. Yes, they point out our mistakes, our frailties, keeping us cast in roles we’d sooner forget or hoped we’d grown out of, given all that we’ve done and the great distance it’s taken us to get there. But our siblings are also our champions, our keepers of our childhood, our witnesses, our partners in crime, our press agents, our safety nets, and our non-denominational confessors who not only see us at our best but our worst and still manage to love us anyway.

Me and Marilyn 001

My sister and I shared more than parentage. We shared a history of moments. Two years and two months apart we were quite an opposite duo. She was the peacekeeper in the family, the good daughter who wore black shiny shoes and crinoline dresses while I was the thorn in everyone’s side, the bad seed strutting around in purple sneakers and frayed jeans very happy to knock her block every chance I got. Which as it turned out was quite often and never more triumphantly sweet, considering she had a few years and definitely a few pounds over me. Being the older sister I suspect she automatically assumed that title gave her certain unalienable rights to do with me as she willed. However, I didn’t quite see it that way. Oh yes, we argued, we tangled, all the time in fact. Because that’s what sisters do.

And the funny thing is…as much as I wanted to wring her neck, in that same breath I always knew she was my world and I was hers. I knew this to be a lifetime companionship that I’d never get anywhere else, from anyone else. And together we were a force. One so powerful standing outside the touch of time shoulder-to-shoulder like granite against the world that the only thing that could possibly cut short this indomitable feeling we had, was death. The ultimate disconnect. That tangible never-again thing that happens to you when you want to tell her something and immediately reach for the phone and it dawns on you like a brick to the head she’s not there. The sound of her voice, the look on her face will never again be yours to behold.

Mari 1

Over the past twenty-seven years I’ve thought a lot about this religion of siblinghood. From the moment my sister died to this, the whole of it has become a curious obsession, a fraternity which I wanted absolutely no part of. And yet, like most things beyond our control, I was inducted nevertheless.

Since my sister’s death, nothing has ever been the same. I have never been the same. How could I? I lost my compass, my identity, my alignment to all that I held sacred. I imagine most people tend to believe when we lose a sibling that relationship no longer needs the care it was once afforded because it no longer exists. Like a root or a flower, it too dies.  But the truth is our siblings will always be our siblings. Even when the discernible part of our equation vanishes, that golden thread of “mutuality” we were born with somehow manages to survive beyond those borders familiar and maybe not so familiar.

I loved my sister, dearly. I miss her very much—still. And admittedly not a single day goes by where thoughts of her don’t drift in, unannounced. Sometimes I weep at those thoughts, sometimes I smile. That’s just the way it is. I know in my heart she’ll always be there but I also can’t help feeling somehow like an orphan, cheated by time. Time where all those big things and little things that collectively embody a lifetime of dreams—the trips to faraway destinations, the shopping sprees to stores yet unconquered, the children, the grandchildren—she will never know, I will never get to share.

That is what I mourn. The passage of time and a life, her life, unfinished.

As human beings, as siblings, the richest moment we experience together is the moment we’re in. Everything else has either already happened or not yet ordained.  But at one time or another we will have to suffer this life alone. And within that state of suffering we have the option of denying or accepting. Of hating the world or embracing all that was given. Of withering or growing. And every moment we spend trying to decide in which direction we’re headed is a moment toward a better understanding of ourselves and how this tapestry of life wraps around us. Fibers that are intertwined in such a way, that with time and with love can and will grow stronger.

All this I’m saying to you now, I’ve said to myself a thousand times. If for no other reason than to remind myself that life is a double-edged sword, a myriad of things filled with such great beauty and such great sorrow and you cannot have one without the other.

It’s a package deal. Oh yes, I know this truth better than most as it’s the same truth that drives me from one day to the next as I struggle along getting this compass of mine re-aligned, fusing my presence of being back into my life and the lives of those I love. It’s work. Something that doesn’t simply happen overnight. But it’s worth it. Love is always worth it.

So the next time your sibling calls and you feel like there’s something more pressing to do, such as answering your emails or watering the lawn and you want to hang up … I say … don’t. I say spend the time. Do the hard work. And by all means embrace the moment.

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