hope, indeed, springs eternal

    Today is "I Survived My Divorce Day," so designated because it was the originator's divorce that took place on May 28th. Well, why not celebrate? Or at least acknowledge?
    I am out of sorts today, so this post might not be all that it's supposed to be. It's a rainy but disturbingly bright Memorial Day and I woke today with a sore neck and powerful sense of the wrongness of my life right now. Something is, indeed, rotten in the state of...everything, I guess. So take this at face value (as much as such a thing is possible here) and try not to seek the deeper meaning.
Some Things I Do Not Miss About Being Married

• The sense, which I had in varying degrees at different times but may have had all along, however unconsciously, that I was not doing it right. That I was not capable of doing it right. Or that I did not want to.
• Never being solely responsible for any decision, no matter how inconsequential. This is more a function of our specific marriage than the institution in general, definitely.
• Feeling compelled to accept gifts that I disliked, especially jewelry, which entailed later wearing gifts that I disliked. The pearls (too sedate), the engagement ring (specifically what I did not want, and the unholy row about not being consulted--wow), the sapphires (too dainty), the knots (too frumpy), the bi-color studs that matched the large, bi-color, expensive bracelet... (yellow and white gold, alternating?! Who likes this stuff? I don't!)
• His family. With only a couple of exceptions--ugh. I could not have known it at the time, but, truth will out. In this case I certainly became aware of their feelings when we separated.
• Sharing everything, automatically. Sound selfish? It is. But I went from being a very childish 20-year-old (and youngest sibling) to being in a very egalitarian marriage. I had not known what "sharing" meant, and when I learned, all at once, it came as a shock. In all fairness, it probably did for him, too--he was a 22-year-old only child with much older parents. Saddled with an immature, homesick, profoundly bored wife. My God--ick. Certainly not every Ph.D. student's second-year dream.

Some Things that I Do Miss About Being Married

• My ex, specifically. Not what you expected? Well, there is much about him to miss, like:
  1. Great hugs.
  2. A very sure, very handsome smile that lit up his face and made every photograph of him slightly annoying in its perfection.
  3. His back-rubs, and face-rubs. He could, in a half hour or less, make a migraine go away. Before he entered his current profession, he'd thought to become a physical therapist; he'd have been a great one.
  4. An amazing cooking repertoire. For someone whose mother could start with the best ingredients and make a meal that tasted like paste, he has a real talent. That fish curry stew was fucking weird, but....
  5. His presence, familiar and comforting. Part of my life for 15 years, impossible even now to believe that he's gone, and essentially at my doing.
  6. The sense that he never fell behind in a conversation. Everyone knows I can be hard to follow, and most people just give up at some point. He never gave up, and never seemed to want to. He hung in--he never left me alone.
• Money. Oh, yeah: I really miss being part of a two-income household, especially where the other income was more than twice mine. Miss it enough to want it back, considering what it costs? No. But it was nice to feel able to buy whateverthefuckever I wanted to buy, without wondering how the bills would be paid.
• The house, both the literal and physical home. Security, safety. The pool table, always taken for granted. The basement, when bad weather threatened. The attached garage, when it was raining and the groceries need to come in. Having a place where I can lie down in the grass. For an unattached female living alone in a downtown apartment, one's options for this last one are pretty limited.
• The cats.
• The social calendar. It drove me crazy, lots of times, to have social stuff that I "needed" to do that wasn't my choice or my doing, but a recluse becomes more reclusive when left to herself. Being with him (a very gregarious person in general) forced me out of my shell. He was good for me that way.
• The sensation of being really necessary to another person.
• Social acceptance, anywhere, automatically, thanks to the not-so-secret key to the club: the ring.
• Someone to do the yucky stuff--and being relied upon to do the yucky stuff for someone else. I'm not a squeamish little girly-girl, but I'm also not one to kiss a big bug on the mouth. When there was a big bug present, he would do away with it. The exception was a spider of any size, which would turn him into Milhouse. I was in charge of arachnid elimination, and I took my duty seriously. What's to make fun of? We had a mutual responsibility.
• Shared history, with someone who wanted one. The only person on the planet who would understand so many inside jokes, and also many things that would make me weep to try to explain. He would just understand. The Cat wrote in a post yesterday, "one of the sad things about getting older is that one by one people lose whole lifetimes every time another friend dies." It doesn't just happen when they die. We lose people on purpose sometimes, which can be even worse.

Some of the Best Things About Being Unmarried

• My schedule is my own. I wake, eat, work, and sleep when and how I choose.
• My exquisite musical taste has become, um, further... 'unrefined', thanks to not needing to moderate my listening to anyone else's taste. I listen to whatever appeals at the moment.
• I have options--including the option to kiss inappropriate men.

That last list is short, but perhaps it is because in making it I unwittingly hit upon the most important difference: I am free, now. Free to make my own choices, and my own mistakes. Free to do what I wish, even if I end up screwing it all up in the process. In these specific circumstances, I was right to seek out the freedom at the cost of everything that I lost in the process. And, hard as it was, I survived.