suddenlysinglewomen

Stormy seas, rocky shores, waves crashing,  black skies and starless nights – such calamities awaited sailors before there were lighthouses built to guide them safely into port.  Some days I feel like the only things out there facing me are stormy seas that I cannot see how to navigate through.  I search for my lighthouse beacon and I cannot seem to locate it.  Do you ever have days and nights like that?

I’ll get frustrated and rant and rave in my brain because I do not understand why such bad things happen to a good person.  I am a good person, I do the right thing even when it causes me pain.  I live and play by the rules because I think those rules are there for a reason.  Yep, I am a rule follower.  If it says “No Left Turn”, then I drive out of my way to turn left where there IS a left turn allowed.  If I know I’m exiting the freeway in a mile, I’ll go ahead and move over to the right in preparation.  I do NOT cut in at the last minute.

“Why do bad things happen to good people?”  I’ve heard that expression my entire life and have never heard an answer to it.  My friends have lost their husbands, really good and loving men, to cancer and I wonder why?  I look around and see men my age leaving their beautiful wives, women my age, for younger models and I wonder why?  Last year my city was heartbroken when three young children were left as orphans when both their parents were killed in an automobile collision coming home from a family vacation and we were left to wonder why?  What had these children done to deserve this?

The answer?  Absolutely nothing.  Sometimes there are no clear cut answers to why things happen.  We can totally drive ourselves crazy trying to figure out the “why” when there really isn’t an answer.  I believe in a higher being, and I have to believe that he/she knows the “why” and it just hasn’t become clear to me yet.  That higher being has to be my lighthouse beacon in the dark, helping me to find a safe port in any storm that life may throw at me.  I believe I would call that having “faith” that I can get through anything that’s thrown at me.

So I will continue to follow the rules, and I will still always try to do the right thing because it brings a certain stability to my life that I need.  But fair warning, if you try to cut me off at the last minute to make your exit and you haven’t waited your turn in line, I just may not let you in – – – just sayin’!

I have many friends who enjoy puzzles, especially those with second homes and busy grandchildren!  I remember doing puzzles as a child, but not so much as an adult – that is until I started visiting those people with second homes and busy grandchildren.  It can become an obsession to get one finished.  Just a few more minutes . . .?

What do they do with the puzzles that have been “done”?  They box them up (hopefully with all pieces included) and give them to the next person, and so on and so on and so on.  Somewhere down that line of “puzzle passing” is yours truly.  A couple of months ago I received about a dozen “done” puzzles from one of those friends.  Never one to turn down a freebie, I gratefully accepted them.

A week later came the Ziploc baggie . . .

with the pieces she had recovered from the carpet under the puzzle table.

She has no clue which puzzle they belong to, or if in fact they belong to the SAME puzzle.  Hmmmm, now that’s “puzzling”!

And you guessed it, I just couldn’t resist making the analogy of the missing puzzles pieces to my “post divorce” life.  I know you’ve felt it too.  Some days you just can’t see how you fit into the giant puzzle of life.  I thought my puzzle was well designed and put together with no missing pieces.  I didn’t see that in reality my life puzzle had pieces that were being lost or removed or put in the wrong places.

People who do a lot of puzzles sometimes use this certain kind of pad on their tables to keep the pieces from sliding off or getting lost.  It literally holds the pieces together – non-skid!  Though I had tried to hold the pieces of my marriage and my life together, my pieces were skidding right off the edge of the table and falling to the carpet below to be picked up at a later date.  Once I got those pieces picked up, I wasn’t sure where they belonged or how they would ever fit together again.

As of today I still haven’t figured out which puzzles those pieces in the Ziploc belong to, and I still haven’t figured out where some of those missing puzzles pieces of my life belong – I still need . . . “just a few more minutes!”

I’ve wanted to post this for the past two weeks but had to “think on it”.  Divorce is never easy, the changes it brings to your life are countless.  You go into survival mode first to protect yourself, then for your children and/or immediate family.  What happens to the “ex”tended family?

I was an active part of my husband’s family for well over thirty years; I thought that would count for something. I wrongly assumed that our’s was a “relationship” that they would still want to hang on to.  Funny thing about the family of your ex – they can be guilted into feeling that maintaining a relationship with you is somehow being disloyal to him.

Suddenly the phone calls stop, the birthdays are over looked and the Christmas cards come sporadically.  I didn’t see it coming, my bad.  Thus my feelings were really hurt and I was bewildered at how easily I could be erased from their lives.  After all, he divorced me – not them . . . right?

Wrong.  It’s just an impossible situation all way round and you have to accept that they’re not going to go against his wishes.  There will always be exceptions, and if you’re lucky to have that – good for you.  So this brings me back to my latest struggle to “do the right thing”.

This past June, something made me reach out and call my ex father-in-law on Father’s Day.  I could tell he was surprised, but pleasantly so.  We chatted for half an hour and got caught up on our lives.  I thanked him for always making me feel like a “daughter”, and for stepping up in the roll of father after I had lost mine in 1998.  He told me that no matter what, he would always consider me his daughter.  I ended the phone call with a smile and a warmed heart.

He passed away a week ago Monday, a mass found on his lungs and two weeks later he’s gone.  I’m saddened for the loss of a wonderful man, but more importantly for the loss my sons have of a grandfather who was a huge part of their young lives.  In their formative years, we all lived in the same city and he was a regular babysitter for the two boys.  If my husband and I didn’t have any plans, he came and grabbed them anyway – a day of adventure with PawPaw.  He was the biggest male presence in their lives when their father’s career path took him away from it.

It was a hard decision not to travel several states to attend the funeral.  I conferred with both boys and other extended family members to help make the best decision for all.  In the end, he knew that I loved him and he would never have wanted to put me in an uncomfortable position.  The extended family members that I talked to also knew how much he’d meant to me, and understood the choice not to take a chance that the ex might get riled at my appearance.  

Now that he’s gone, I feel a sense of closure to hurt feelings.  It’s a kind of release of those feelings of having to “keep in touch”.  I’m so thankful that I called him last June and was the one who reached out last.  I’m at peace and know that now he is too.  Love you PawPaw . . .

I love sharing things that friends have sent – I take no credit other than learning how to “cut and paste”!!  Thanks KJ!!

FINDING A WAY TO BE A MEANINGFUL WOMAN

You may notice that in my title I did not say “beautiful” woman.  It is not that beauty is not desired, but meaning and understanding, loving and caring, are more important in my mind.  Our relationships to our friends, our husbands, our families, and our children are far more difficult to accomplish than beauty.

Ultimately, our relationships to men become the most difficult to maintain in meaningful ways.

One way of looking at this is to compare gender roles in this country.  As Gloria Steinem said in 2008,

      “Gender is probably the most restricting force in American life, whether the question is who must be in the kitchen or who could be in the White House.  This country is way down the list of countries electing women and, according to one study, it polarizes gender roles more than the average democracy.” (New York Times, Jan. 8, 2008).  Gloria suggests that the best gender role is one that equalizes men and women.

But I think one problem comes in definitions of roles.  For instance, being called a “housewife” is demeaning in this country; but, if you really think about it, staying home to care for house and children is one of the most challenging roles a woman can have, and potentially one of the most rewarding in the long run.  We have been goaded into thinking that the only meaningful life is that of the professional woman; yet, creativity is not limited to the professions. Many very creative and productive women are at home creatively rearing children, writing, thinking, and making waves politically and otherwise.

Thus, while I believe that the professions can lead to busy, productive, and giving lives, there is no secondary role in being at home “professionally” caring for and creatively giving children happy and meaningful lives.  Our society will be the better for it; our relationships with our children later on will benefit from it; and we will have plenty of time to get the PhD, the CPA, and the MD after the children have matured.  Unlike the 1950′s, however, women are not restricted to staying at home and have many choices for lifestyles and gender roles.  Madeleine Albright is an example of a woman who has been able to live a political life, to write, to rear a family, and to share her insights with all of us after her political life has receded (see Prague Winter, Harper Publishing, First Edition, 2012).

Let us hope that all women can make choices about the courses of their lives in many ways; not be restricted to professional or home lives alone; and be considered meaningful when we choose to show our creativity and energy through child-rearing and husband-supporting.  We will strengthen our country and our children when we have such choices.

Yes, I admit it, I love to watch the chick flicks.  The ones where they fall IN love and live happily ever after.  I used to believe that actually existed for me and the majority of our friends.  Now I wonder if our parent’s generation is the last to stay together?

You remember that rush you felt when you had that supreme crush on the new guy?  It could be middle school, high school, college – even now.  Your adrenaline pumps, your heart goes piddy pat, your palms get sweaty, you fumble your words . . . . you remember??  You wonder if he’ll feel the same way?  You wonder if he even notices you?

Once your relationship/marriage starts to fall apart, the feelings you get are more closely related to a kick in the gut.  You’re breathless, but only because your life if falling into this tailspin and you have no idea how to stop it.  You’re falling OUT of love.  Do you remember when you first realized it was happening to you?

I do.  It’s oh so clear in my memory bank.  My son was home from college on spring break, my ex had just returned from another one of his over seas trips (for business) and I was working in his office filing papers.  I had the fun job of organizing receipts and matching them to credit cards, separating business from personal – etc.  When he had been getting ready to leave on this particular trip, I did what I did a lot – I hid a card in his briefcase.  I was trying oh so hard to get the “rush” back into our love.

As I was sorting things, I saw the card.  I flushed with excitement.  He generally tossed out anything that wasn’t “important”, but he had kept it this time.  I thought this was a great sign!  Right?  Well . . . .

It would have been great if it had been MY card.  Instead it was a card from a young woman who we knew from a restaurant that we frequented.  She had it mailed to his hotel over seas.  He had kept it, not mine.  Mine had been sweet, gushy and loving.  Her’s was, shall we say, provocative?  The awful gut wrenching feelings that had hit me two years earlier when I found out about the first affair came back with twice as much power because this time I knew what I would have to face down the road.

It was starting over, and I began to fall into a very large black abyss.  Falling out of love – it’s a downer and there are no parachutes.