Everyone is Divorced

Everyone I know is divorced. OK, that may be a slight exaggeration. But not by much. It seems like everyone I know is either divorced, married for the second (or third, or fourth...) time or is in the process of getting a divorce. Most of the people I work with have been divorced. One teacher at my school recently went though a bitter, hurtful divorce that will affect the rest of her life. Most of my friends are divorced, some after years and years of marriage. 20 years. 30 years. Some are remarried. Some are alone and looking for someone special. I hope and pray they find that person. Some have quit looking and say they will never marry again. They have been too hurt. They are not willing to face that possibility again.


I went to get my hair cut and colored and streaked the other day (God, what we go through to look beeyootiful) and, when I asked my hairdresser about her annual trip to the Jersey shore, she quietly said they wouldn't be going this year. Just being chatty and friendly, I wondered aloud why they weren't going, they had gone every year, I knew she loved it there. And she replied that she and her husband were getting a divorce. After 14 years. It was a complete surprise to her. She's pretty sure there is someone else. He denies it. But he has been on a LOT of hunting trips, weekend trips where she can't reach him and long weekends away with lame excuses and working late and...well, I think she's right.


I have been at a technology conference the last couple of days and I ran into a friend I hadn't seen in a couple of years and how are you and what's new and how's your family and your husband...oh. Divorced. And he's remarried. Oh. Sorry. So sorry.


I can't imagine being divorced. I just can't imagine. Tom and I have had our ups and downs and I have yelled at him and I even, back in the old days before kids, dumped a pitcher of kool-aid in his lap one time. But we worked it out. We have never, even at the worst of times, come seriously close to divorce. Divorce has never been mentioned. We just...work things out. We yell. We talk. We laugh. We make up. We go on. We each have our own faults. (him MUCH more so than me, of course) But, we enjoy being together. We like the same things. And we have our own interests as well. We love our family. We have so many plans for the future. Retirement. Lots and lots of travel. Time with our family. We have so many shared experiences. So many shared memories. A word, a phrase, a sentence, can bring back a memory and make us laugh, share a glance, shake our heads. I can't imagine starting all over again with someone else. I can't imagine.


He knows I interrupt him in the middle of his sentences. He doesn't mind. He knows I am overweight. He doesn't mind. He knows I figure out the end of movies and often blurt it out to him. He doesn't mind. (well, he does but he lives with it) He knows I need to shop, need to eat out with my friends, need to spend time with other people sometimes. He doesn't mind. I went out with my friends for dinner just the other night. As I left, he said to have fun. Have fun. That's pretty nice. I'm pretty lucky. I try to tell him that often. That I'm lucky. That I love him. That I appreciate him. Sometimes I forget and it's not until I find out someone else is getting divorced that I remember to tell him.


I need to tell him more often. That I'm lucky. That I love him. That I appreciate him. Because I do. All the time. Even when someone else is not getting divorced.