I Heart Microwaves

There are lots of things in life that we don't expect to do, and if we did, we might not start some things. On the top of my list of things not to do is getting divorced. I was committed through the spectrum of good and bad in my marital relationship to working things out and being married until death. I wanted so much for my kids to have their mom and dad together. And, interestingly, I discovered last night while thinking about my divorce that I wanted to be different from 50% of the population - I wanted to have a happy and healthy marriage, even with the work and pain. As in many things in my life, it drives me crazy to (just) do what the majority of people are doing. But through the conspiring of events and emotions and choices, I am on a new path, on which I can crumple or dance.

Pondering divorce, because my mind will ponder everything, even those things I didn't plan on doing, I have realized several things. One is extreme thankfulness for my microwave. This wonderful cooking tool is absolutely vital to my kids' and my survival. Without it, I might well never get anything cooked. I am even more thankful (though the microwave is way up there) for my rights as a women. I was watching a movie that took place in the 1930s last night and have recently obsessed over Masterpiece Theater's Jane Austen movies, and the women had an extremely slim chance of supporting themselves without becoming old maids dependent on male relatives, prostitutes or destitute.

Another realization is how awkward and strange it is to announce a divorce. It's a bit like telling someone about a death, though with embarrassment and confused emotions mixed in. I did not blog for almost a month because I had many friends and family members to inform of the change in my life, and some of the informing I put off due feeling embarrassed about the failure and about letting my friends down (of course, my dependable friends and family reacted with great love). People don't quite know what to say (heck, I don't) - whether congratulations or sympathy are in order. It's a mix - sadness and relief.

On the other side of reactions, in the last two days, I have met three women through work who have been divorced. Two of them gave me a big hug and congratulated me. One of them wears a snake ring next to her left ring finger because "a wedding ring used to be there." I realized as with all monumental events in our lives - an unplanned pregnancy, a death, an addiction, an illness - that my marriage and divorce experience opens up new views and emotions. My experience offers a way to connect to other people who have been or may go through similar events and a new way to love and to help bear my friends' and family's burdens.