Tag Archives: believing in love

save the date

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A couple of years ago I asked anyone who would listen for an invitation to a wedding. I really, really wanted to go to a wedding.

I can’t explain why except I felt like I had been to a lot of divorces- including my own. Well, of course you don’t go to them- they are thoroughly unceremonial, to say the least. But you attend them in every way possible.

Our favourite babysitter Kate  – who I have known since she was 12 and my babies were new and little and needed so much- came to our house a year ago with her mom, recently treated for cancer, sharing the happiness in her life. Oh, the hope that floats us.

An upcoming wedding.

It is just what I asked for.

My children will sing for her at the church and the reception.

We are saving the date.

We can hardly wait. It is just what I asked for.

When Kate and her mom came over last year to tell us this happy news- they sat in my kitchen to tell us their news. I love that spot in my house for the memories it holds- click here to read WHEN OBJECTS TELL A STORY 

bullshit

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I went to get my haircut last week with my favourite hairdresser.

I have not seen her in 6 months. I really needed a haircut.

She is a beautiful black woman with a shaved and fantastic head- so ironic considering her work.

She spends hours on other people’s heads every day and not a single minute on her own -ever.

( Can I remind you how badly a wasp would look with a shaved head?)

She was married to an Italian man many years ago and they had a beautiful baby boy. Their marriage failed  and when they split up she shaved her head. There is an expression in Italian about cutting  your hair being synonymous with taking back your identity. She really went for it.

As a single working  mom she had little time to spend on her hair and besides this was an act of independence so deep she drew strength from it.

Today there was something different about her. She was alive with joy in a way I have never seen.

She has fallen in love.

One night 6 months ago she went to bed and prayed to God -“if I am meant to be alone – so be it- but if I am to be with another show me a sign.” She then said her favourite prayer from her childhood out loud.

The next day she got a call from man she had met earlier that month. He said he woke up in the night and found himself saying a prayer from his childhood. He said it to her.

She dropped the phone. It was the same prayer.

And so their courtship began.

I told her I was really excited for her.

She said ” I did not expect to find love, you know, given my age” (She is 46)

I said, hair wet and in sink, sink amplifying my words like a wind tunnel, ears filled with water, 

” BULLSHIT” in a fairly loud voice.

“No, you know what they say about women of a certain age”

BULLSHIT! I cut her off

All expensive heads in Rosedale hair salon were now looking our way.

I can’t have you believe this or say it if we are going to be friends.

She laughed and said “You are right. Just look at me”

Yes just look at you.

I said “You aren’t going to grow your hair  now are you?”

asking for what you want is very hard. But the ask is really important. Click here for how my ask got aborted

spectator sport

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As a smug married, I  regarded those splitting up with all the fascination of roadkill. I wanted a close look and a real understanding but was often afraid to look as I got closer. It grossed me out. I found it sinister and feared its truth.

If moral indignation is jealousy with a halo- there were later moments when I judged harshly people  splitting up, a reality that on one side is disappointing to me, but on the other helps me be patient with how people view me and my decision to leave.

In time I found I was a little envious of their bravery because I was searching for my courage. I wondered how they arrived at their decision. What was their last straw, their defining moment, their note of permission that no one could deny.

Francine Prose says “perhaps what should have tipped me off was the puzzling fact that whenever I heard that friends (or even celebrities) were splitting up, I was suffused with vague inchoate yearning and with something like the jealousy I imagine prisoners experience on learning that one of their jailmates  has made a successful escape.”

She did finally leave her husband and subsequently remarried then found that spectator divorce no longer brought her solace, comfort and inspiration. As a once again newly married person she represents the other team – the one longing to keep their hope up and not be the last ones standing.

The happily married, in this day of epidemic divorce rates, float clinging to their marriedness, as if on an ice flow while so many pieces break away- their friends’ marriages,that one acquaintance marriage-the ” epitome of the perfect married couple”, even the pillars of the institution- their parents marriages and friends of parents (often to a chorus of “why bother” as if life ends at a certain point and fresh starts are inconceivable and certainly a dramatic sadness after all the building and memories).

I am on a lonely team now. I can’t find my players- as a divorced woman who still believes in love, hope and partnership – I don’t always find that in other divorced people. Some have given up, many are too pragmatic/logical to go one more round, many, I fear, are broken from the experience. I cling tightly to my belief-like a ridiculous oversized stuffed animal that a grown up girl should let go of- experience sometimes attempting to pull it away from me.

I have a weird job but I love it. Check out my other new post to hear how I spent last week by clicking on this. Come along… you’re not that tired of me yet.