Well, team, I’m getting divorced. Again. We stuck it out longer than we probably should have, and I won’t say too much more about it because the whole situation is tender enough that the players deserve privacy, but I’m here to talk about change and the d-i-v-o-r-c-e is driving that theme.
I have vastly more social time now than I have in the last decade, and have enjoyed spending time with friends, but it’s a little unsettling how new my friendships are. I moved to Munich during COVID after moving every two years for ages, moving away from friends over and over. COVID was isolating, living in a failing marriage was isolating, and I was glad to spend most of my time and energy with the kids during some fragile stages. The little darlings need me less exclusively now: they want to spend time with their friends, and with Papa, and enjoy being in a group setting with other adults. Let the dinner parties begin! But with whom?
Last night I introduced two friends to each other, and was shocked by how long it had been since I’d done that. It occurred to me that my friends hadn’t been meeting each other for years because they all live in different places, or the place that I could bring them together was so fraught with tension, germs, or both that hosting felt unsafe.
This summer the kids and I will go home to Colorado and my best and oldest friend will bring her kids to meet us there. I cannot believe my luck: I get to see Sarah, light of my life for 25+ years, and since she’s bringing her daughters I get to make two new friends, too.
I kind of feel like two divorces don’t really make me a bad person because there are other people in my life I love absolutely permanently: Mom, Dad, George, Nancy, Jeremiah, Sarah, Deb, Anke, Dick, Kyle, Scott and Eric, Laura Louise, Deano, Marie, my kids. There’s just no question that I will cherish them forever. I still have a lot of love for my husbands, too: the first one, so funny and curious, and the second one for making me want to be a mom, but those relationships always felt more volatile. I’m glad to know that I can sustain love for years and I’m ok with the decisions I’ve made about continuing with some relationships but not others, but with all of this meeting of new people I keep having to describe myself and it’s cracking me up that there are so many ways to explain who we are.
Pick your favorite headline:
- Exhausted special needs mother files for second divorce.
- UN worker triumphantly announces completion of major year-long project, on time and under budget, noting that most of the work was completed in her fourth langauge.
- Middle-aged lady has a few friends that she likes, thinks her kids are reasonably happy, and can do a pull-up if it’s at the kids’ playground so the bar’s low enough she can start with her arms bent.
Nobody’s perfect, right?