Starting (Over)
What really happens after we get divorced? Are we really starting our lives over again, or are we picking up where we left off before we were married....
Neither really. It's more like starting a next phase--not a getting over or over again or picking up something we've lost...
We never get back the years we've lost. 40 is never the new 30...
Sure, there are loose ends--paperwork to get out of the way, goods to sort out...
But we're never really the same person going out of a marriage as we were going into it. So, logically, we can't simply pick up where we left off...
Yeah, maybe when we're young, and the marriages are short, we can easily pick up where we left off. That's not quite the case when you're married in one chronological age and divorced in another...Things change too much.
The people we'er with shape and change our lives. They effect our ability to trust, the choice of person we get involved with again (if we even choose to get involved again), how we feel about ourselves.
I was pretty much crushed after my last divorce. And even though Steady Eddie is quite different than my ex-husband--by age, physical appearance, and a lot of other traits--I find I have major fear of commitment, and general fear of losing my freedom to the wrong person yet again...
I sometimes think that our society puts a great burden on monogamous relationships...
And I think, too, about a short film I caught during the Film Festival, a really beautiful short film--Terminal Conversation--about a guy whose wife's cheated on him, and a discussion he has with a mysterious stranger about marriage and relationships and divorce...
The line I keep coming back to is one where the stranger says something about "maybe you were her soulmate, but she wasn't your soulmate..."
And then I keep coming back to the last tarot card reading I had, where I didn't even mention Lucky Bastard, yet the reader saw him, and she told me "he's a soulmate, but you're not meant to be together in this lifetime..."
And I think of the feeling I get when I look in his eyes, and how we are in so many ways, reflections of one another....
He was sitting at my desk the other day, checking his email and we were talking about careers..."You know," he said, "you really should check out (WSI or SWJ or something of that nature)..." and he turned around, "I think a lot about you a lot. I think about what I can do to help you out. you know that, don't you?"
No, I don't know that. I do know that we'd make an awful couple. But I don't naturally assume that he thinks anything about me when he's not here.
And I think about what the reader said about Steady Eddie "oh, don't worry too much about him. He'll get along without you."
But I think that he'd be awfully lonely if I wasn't around. And I'd miss him if he wasn't around. Even though when I look at him, and look into his eyes, I am not seeing the reflection of my soul--I am , though, seeing kindness and caring and warmth and I feel very safe...and want to do what I can to make his life very good...
I don't think I'd be in this strange, and godawful, and wonderous place in my life if I had simply started over--picked up where I left off....
Which was what I tried to do before I realized I was too old at 40 to try to be 30...
And just decided to be. In a new life. Not the continuation of an old one...but a new phase of my life...an no one else's life...
Neither really. It's more like starting a next phase--not a getting over or over again or picking up something we've lost...
We never get back the years we've lost. 40 is never the new 30...
Sure, there are loose ends--paperwork to get out of the way, goods to sort out...
But we're never really the same person going out of a marriage as we were going into it. So, logically, we can't simply pick up where we left off...
Yeah, maybe when we're young, and the marriages are short, we can easily pick up where we left off. That's not quite the case when you're married in one chronological age and divorced in another...Things change too much.
The people we'er with shape and change our lives. They effect our ability to trust, the choice of person we get involved with again (if we even choose to get involved again), how we feel about ourselves.
I was pretty much crushed after my last divorce. And even though Steady Eddie is quite different than my ex-husband--by age, physical appearance, and a lot of other traits--I find I have major fear of commitment, and general fear of losing my freedom to the wrong person yet again...
I sometimes think that our society puts a great burden on monogamous relationships...
And I think, too, about a short film I caught during the Film Festival, a really beautiful short film--Terminal Conversation--about a guy whose wife's cheated on him, and a discussion he has with a mysterious stranger about marriage and relationships and divorce...
The line I keep coming back to is one where the stranger says something about "maybe you were her soulmate, but she wasn't your soulmate..."
And then I keep coming back to the last tarot card reading I had, where I didn't even mention Lucky Bastard, yet the reader saw him, and she told me "he's a soulmate, but you're not meant to be together in this lifetime..."
And I think of the feeling I get when I look in his eyes, and how we are in so many ways, reflections of one another....
He was sitting at my desk the other day, checking his email and we were talking about careers..."You know," he said, "you really should check out (WSI or SWJ or something of that nature)..." and he turned around, "I think a lot about you a lot. I think about what I can do to help you out. you know that, don't you?"
No, I don't know that. I do know that we'd make an awful couple. But I don't naturally assume that he thinks anything about me when he's not here.
And I think about what the reader said about Steady Eddie "oh, don't worry too much about him. He'll get along without you."
But I think that he'd be awfully lonely if I wasn't around. And I'd miss him if he wasn't around. Even though when I look at him, and look into his eyes, I am not seeing the reflection of my soul--I am , though, seeing kindness and caring and warmth and I feel very safe...and want to do what I can to make his life very good...
I don't think I'd be in this strange, and godawful, and wonderous place in my life if I had simply started over--picked up where I left off....
Which was what I tried to do before I realized I was too old at 40 to try to be 30...
And just decided to be. In a new life. Not the continuation of an old one...but a new phase of my life...an no one else's life...
posted by Tish Grier at 11:58 PM
5 Comments:
Shalom Tish,
After my divorce the thing I felt the most guilty about was that I had wasted 13 years of my ex's life by pretending to be someone I wasn't.
I should have never gotten married because I'm just too selfish of a person.
Getting divorced was scary as hell but it was the right thing to do and I've never looked back.
B'shalom,
Jeff
Shalom Tish,
And oh. Happy Birthday.
B'shalom,
Jeff
Hi Jeff...
thanks for the b-day wishes :-)
I think that I never should have listened to all the pressure that was on me to get married, and all the mystical crap that played up the romance side of marriage over the practical.
But it was also, for me, not putting myself in the right place to meet the right kind of person. I needed to be around *single* ph.d. types--my Fathers always thought that someone of that kind would be best for me. I just couldn't hear their suggestions over my own hormones.
I don't know if I"m just too selfish to be married, or if it's some kind of weird fate thing that makes it so I can't put the whole enchilada together with one person. Nature, nurture; mystical forces or predestination--who knows?? and I'm tired of trying to figure it out.
:-)
T.
Hey Tish....
Sometimes I wonder if soulmates really exist. Is that "Notebook" kind of love really out there - or is it just the stuff movies are made of. Are we with "Mr. Right" - or "Mr Right now"? Not out of choice so much, as out of the fact that we grow as people.
I want to believe....but there's too much evidence pointing against it all....
Happy Happy! :)
Hi Rebecca...
As my life gets (slowly) longer, I begin to think that truth is, after all is said and done, much stranger than fiction...
I think we love the soul mate stores because their resolution is so simple--one man to one woman, perfectly matched forever more...
and yes, we grow, we change. There was one guy psychologist who some years ago made the pronouncement that our first marriages are for reproduction. Then after the kids are grown, we should get divorced and find partners for the second half of our lives. I thought that was really, really callous--and I still do. But for some folks there may be a tiny grain of truth in it. As I see in my own relationships, things are really different in middle age than they were when I was younger, and I won't even speculate as to what might happen when I turn 60.
Post a Comment
<< Home