The post-divorce dating handbook didn’t prepare me for one thing…running into the exes of the guys that I date. When I first started dating right after our breakup, Jonah had just started kindergarten. A month or so later, D and I connected the dots of our lives and came up with this: his ex wife was the aide in Jonah’s classroom. Awkward. A few months later I was dating a guy who was going through a very bitter divorce (a lesson that I don’t need to learn twice). Our dots? His wife was going to the recently opened hot yoga studio that I also attended. She soon figured it out and flagged me down at a local restaurant to chat with me. That was very interesting and enlightening (until she later asked me to testify against him in their court case). There just isn’t an easy way to deal with such situations.
Recently I have been blissfully free from such awkwardness. Until today. I was biking at the gym when my former trainer passed by and said hi. The woman he was with said, Are you Molly? I took off my earphones and she introduced herself to me (again) as Mr. Big’s _________. Her voice trailed off and said that she didn’t like to say it. I said I understood. Ex is not an appropriate word to represent something that was once so important. It always makes me think of a big black ex mark crossing something out.
I was surprised that she recognized me and that I had forgotten her (I’m usually good with faces). Big and I had run into her last Thanksgiving while grocery shopping. Frankly, there is nothing more intimate than seeing a couple fondle produce together. She looked very flustered to see us then and I had compassion for her. We ran into her again in the parking lot and when she heard me laugh she did soften up and tell me that it was nice to meet me. I always told myself that she probably thought that a witty man liked him deserved a woman with my hearty laugh.
The encounter with her this time had me going in a whole different direction. I haven’t seen Big since February and we have no future plans to do so. This time I wanted to pull her over and talk. I wanted to have the kind of conversation that I had had with the yoga ex (but without the ensuing petition to slander him in court). She seemed really happy and healthy (she had been really sick for a while). I wanted to know if she missed him and what her life was like without him. I wanted to compare notes with her about him like I would with a girlfriend. Not to be catty, but to share him. To discuss what a sweet, tender and special man he is. She, of all people, would know.
As I churned along on the bike listening to my iPod, songs kept coming up that furthered the mental rumination. First it was Tom Waits, someone who Big and I listened to together. There is no way that I can listen to him with out thinking of Big and feeling a bit of melancholy because that is the tenor of his music and because it is all about lost love. Today it was “Grapefruit Moon.”
Grapefruit moon, one star shining, shining down on me.
Heard that tune, and now I’m pining, honey, can’t you see?
‘Cause every time I hear that melody, well, something breaks inside,
And the grapefruit moon, one star shining, can’t turn back the tide.
You can see why I’d want to cry with that one. Big and I shared something that I didn’t share with other divorcees that I dated and that is true love for our exes. I always felt sad when I heard him talk about his ex, sadder even then I felt when thinking about my own (I know that it’s probably transference). Well I got through one verse of the song and that was it. I skipped it. There was no use in exacerbating my feelings.
Then came a Sheryl Crow song “Now That You’re Gone.” I love this song. It’s pretty upbeat although it is still a breakup song. She sings, Now that you’re gone, I can breathe. I can relate to that, and I wondered if Big’s ex would say the same. It is so not my business, but somehow I feel connected to her and want to know how she is doing.
I fantasized about running into her in the locker room and chatting with her (although nakedness would be very weird). As it was I was already unfavorably comparing myself to her physically. She is so tall, thin and statuesque. Big always used to call me a little girl. Having been married to a guy that was shorter than me, I hadn’t felt petite in a while. I started to feel like proverbial chopped liver. I hadn’t even showered before coming to the gym. Why hadn’t I remembered my mother’s adage that you always want to look good when you leave the house? Thank God I have adopted her habit of always putting on lipstick so that there was at least color in my face. Then I went upstairs and got a good look at myself in the full-length mirrors and reminded myself how attractive my curves can be. Who knows, maybe she was looking at me and thinking how cute and curvaceous I am, grass always being greener and all.
We did end up in the locker room together. Fortunately I was already dressed and she was leaving in her gym clothes. We talked amiably about her health and her workouts, but that was it. No intimate spilling of our guts.
Then my iPod played me the perfect song for the moment “Life, Love and Laughter” by Donavon Frankenreiter. It reminded me to stop digging around in the past and just enjoy the present.
Don’t look back,
It won’t do any good
Don’t look ahead
You’ll just be misunderstood
Everything you need
Could be right in front of you
It doesn’t take much
To see what is true
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So, have you ever had a similar experience running into an ex of a lover or spouse?
Do you have conversations in your own head?
What do you really think about when on the exercise bike (or in savasana)?
Yesterday just wasn’t one of my finest days. I think the kids and I are suffering from a surfeit of summer and Utah’s death has us feeling raw as well. Layla got mad at me for making her get dressed to go out in the morning and told me that she hated me (not a frequent nor fun occurrence). Jonah wanted to listen to music, and Layla screamed for quiet. Jonah wanted to go to the gym and Layla wanted to stay home. They were at each other’s and my throats all day long. Usually I let days like this pass without a fuss but instead I felt cross and impatient with them both.
As I always do, I searched for something, anything, to make me feel better. Ironically the thought that cheered me up was that today I go back to work for the first time since May. Before yesterday I was feeling down about this turn of events, and then I realized that it is time. It is time to be busy again, to feel the hum of activity, to have the kids back in school, making new friends and learning a few new things. And it is time for me to get back to my other kids, my college students.
Today is Thursday, Thank You Journal day at Alli’n Son, a blog that invites other bloggers to link up their posts about appreciation. I think you all know what a big believer I am in gratitude. Simply put, when I appreciate things or people in my life, I find that I have even more to appreciate. Considering this economy and my ex’s difficulty finding full time academic work, I am so grateful that I have such a good job.
The following is a list of the reasons why I appreciate my work.
1) I have been able to arrange my schedule so that I am available most days to drop off and pick up my kids at school.
2) I love educating young women. My students are motivated and appreciative, and I often learn from them, especially about their generation’s values.
3) I love being a teacher. All things considered, I think that by teaching young women Spanish and Hispanic culture, I am contributing something worthwhile to the world. At the very least, they can order a cold beer on the beaches of Cancun.
4) I enjoy contributing to the advancement of women in our society. Although I’m not quite the feminist that I once was in my twenties (thank God for that because back then I was frankly a humorless ideologue), I do think that we need more women in positions of leadership in all aspects of our society. I am happy to share both my knowledge and some of my life wisdom with them.
5) I have talented colleagues. They have creative ideas, which they are willing to share, which is somewhat rare for academics. They are also compassionate people, who work really hard, yet acknowledge that we have personal lives that need our attention as well.
6) I am very excited to have my own office this year. My previous officemate was great, but there is something very peaceful about having a room of one’s own away from home.
7) I have Fridays off from teaching so that I can get grading and class planning done. In addition, I can have coffee at the Woodstar café with my buddy Tobey. This also means that Thursday nights are the beginning of my weekend, which makes the night that I hang with my yoga friends even more special.
8) I can do work from home. The benefit of being an academic is the freedom to do work at home in the evenings and on Sundays. Of course that can also be a disadvantage, but I am a glass half full kinda gal.
9) I have much time off, including January and the summer months.
10) My job flexibility has allowed me to start this blog, which I have really come to love. I enjoy the creativity of the writing process, the dialogue with my readers, and the almost daily process of reflecting upon what has gone right in my divorce. To a certain extent, this is my own gratitude journal. Thank you all for being a part of that!
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So tell me…What aspects do you like most about your job?
Do you find that when you appreciate your life, you feel happier?
A recent photo of Utah lovingly taken by Layla
“Madame, all stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true story teller who would keep that from you.” Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon
My husband said that he knew he liked me when he saw me walking my elderly dog in the streets of our neighborhood in New Haven. Mona, a brindled beagle and pit bull mix, had found her way into my life in the winter before I knew that I was moving to the East Coast. She was an older dog with an injured knee. A friend of mine was dating a veterinarian who saved stray dogs and she asked me if I’d be willing to adopt her. Now that I look back on it, it was kind of an impetuous decision but I said sure.
My dad took one look at her and said one of the most profound things that he has ever said to me, It looks like you have the same taste in dogs as you do in men. read more…
Layla's altar constructed twelve years to the day on which we made our own trip to the wedding altar
Yesterday was August 29, a date that I will always remember because it is the day when my ex and I got married. This year was the 12th anniversary of that moment in which we pledged to spend our lives together. We may no longer be romantically involved or living together, but we are still very much a part of each other’s lives.
We celebrated this date with our kids, who were very excited about it. My daughter asked to see my wedding ring and made me wear it. I put it on my right hand, where it was a bit small but nonetheless fit. As luck would have it, however, we got a late summer heat wave and my hands swelled so it seems I may be wearing it for a while. It’s a beautiful “dinner” ring from the 1920’s that never was meant to be a wedding ring so I am considering that I might enjoy keeping it on. Three years time from our original breakup allows me to feel okay with that. read more…
You know those moments when everything seems bleak? You go out on a bad date and fret that there are no interesting men left in the world. You find yourself getting older, definitely wiser, but not prettier. You don’t have enough money to pay the bills. You’ve got physical ailments, arthritis, allergies, back pain, ulcers, you name it. Or maybe these problems are mundane in comparison to this. I met a man in yoga whose wife of ten years suddenly died six weeks ago in a traffic accident. Imagine the pain that he feels.
Wow, you didn’t expect this from me, I know. read more…
