An unenviable place

There are numerous rites of passage in life.  When I was younger, I thought such rites were limited to the very small, but first steps and first words leap with lightening speed across time to the first lost tooth and first 2-wheel bike, and then even more dramatically to events like your first kiss and first car.  The universe of common experiences is vast.

As my college career waned, I realized there were other milestones my peers were beginning to experience.  Landing the first grown-up job.  Getting one's own place.  Having enough money to invest, or maybe go on vacation.  But none were so inspiring and influential among the fairer sex than that of getting engaged.  Now, as an awkward and introverted teenager, I had struggled to keep up with social norms.  While some girls had new cars waiting for them on their 16th birthdays, I waited tables at Friendly's till I could scrape together enough money to buy my own car - a 1981 Toyota Celica.  (My treat to myself: a wood bead seat-cover.)  And while other girls had boyfriends throughout high school and college, my one high-school crush went nowhere, and my first boyfriend in college was a creep who alienated me from my family and  pushed me around.

Once I left my polyester waitress uniform behind, I took up retail sales as I looked for my future direction (changing my major 4 times in under-grad).  I sold bridal gowns.  The girls who came in the store - from the overweight and pimple-covered to the pregnant and tattooed to the sorority sparklers - all seemed Together.  Confident and Complete.  Oh how I envied their places in life.  After all, who else gets engaged but women who have a defined sense of style, know who they are enough to be loved by someone else, and have enough intelligence to take care of themselves?

No one was more surprised than me to find myself among their ranks a few years later, engaged to a very nice man who would have been happy to take care of me for the rest of my life.  The trouble was, I realized you can get engaged without being confident or self-sufficient, and through a further series of missteps, I found myself at yet another milestone, and waaaaaay earlier than any of my so-called peers.  At 26, I was divorced.

As I spent the rest of my twenties as something of a sad celebrity, my dating exploits gossiped about 'round many a corporate water cooler, I watched colleagues and friends move on to other happy places.  While I went back for my graduate degree and found a one-bedroom apartment so I could finally be alone, the Married Ones were moving into great starter homes and getting pregnant.  When I could finally afford my own townhouse, the Career Ones were finding their mates and buying big houses to match their big salaries.  And when I realized I had finally found the Big Love with (appropriately for me) tragically poor timing, Those With Small Families were up-sizing their homes.  At that point, my life became so rocky I mentally checked out of the Keeping Up game.

Fast-forward ten years, and I am now in an unusual place.  While I think (hope, pray) that JBL and I have come safely through the worst part of our journey together, I am witnessing the fallout of unhappy marriages all around.  I've seen the gamut, and it is far from pretty: the ones without kids who chose an open marriage to keep their Couple Identity, the ones who are Staying Together For The Kids, the ones who Muscled Through divorce to find peace after years of struggling while managing the mental health of their children, and those who Just Snapped.  Each road taken has fundamentally changed all parties involved, and some are slowly killing the so-called survivors.

That last group is the most shocking because, in my world anyway, the ones who snapped are Those People you never thought would do such a thing.  Queue the trite cliches: They seemed so happy.  How could she walk away from her children?  I never thought he'd do that to her.  One of these Snappers is someone very, very close to me, and I've gotta tell you, it's taking a lot to quiet the cliches playing through my own mind and support this person.  Me, of all people.

So here I am, vindicated.  I've now been told, "I don't know how you did it," and, "that took a lot of strength."  It does feel somewhat better to know I'm not the only one, and to be able to say I understand when someone needs to hear it most, but I wish it didn't happen so damned often.  And to so many wonderful people.  Is it the right decision sometimes?  Absolutely.  But.  Divorce is a tragedy like death, causing a hush to fall over the room, and making strong couples to look at each other and wonder.  Watching people I love reach this place?  It's not where I ever wanted to be.