The summer is almost over and I’m really not much further ahead getting my schtuff together than I was when it began, but at least I am feeling more of myself these days, and that includes the ability to again laugh out loud about life.
This past year I was chatting with a friend who was in the midst of a divorce. She was relating an awkward family situation that occurred at Halloween and asked for some feedback.
I’m not a laywer, psychiatrist, or family therapist, but I know divorce. My parents were divorced (technically separated) when I was 4 or 5, my father remarried a woman who was divorced, I am divorced, my new partner is divorced, my sister is divorced and her new partner is divorced -- hell I could start my own reality TV show for divorcees!
What, you ask, were my words of wisdom to her.... “just put it down to weird -- and be prepared for "it" (the weirdness) to surface when you least expect it. Things will happen that you will in no way ever be able to anticipate or prepare for and you’ll just say to yourself -- gee, that was weird.”
Turns out, I was right. The other day she popped by just to say “remember the conversation we had about the weird factor, you were right!” She explained what happened and finished with, “and then I thought -- you were right, this is one of THOSE moments -- the weird!”
Now that I have totally given away all of my secrets for dealing with deep emotional divorce issues there is absolutely no hope of my becoming a multi-millionaire now.
Oscar Wilde said “The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself.” If only that were true!
I thought my adventures in weirdness would end with my wedding. I’m quite sure there is some kind of etiquette now that one should follow when inviting parents and their spouses, etc. to your wedding, but there wasn’t when I was married and the extreme awkwardness -- what to say, how to say it, where to seat them, where not to seat them -- was, in a word, weird.
Who knew the pinnacle of weirdness would be just one summit in a whole freakin’ mountain range!
So much that I intend on writing a sequel to the movie “It’s Complicated” called “It’s Weird”. Here's the premise: Man meets woman, man marries woman, man meets another woman married to another man, man divorces woman, man marries the other woman who has since divorced the other man -- are you confused yet? If you are, just think of how I felt!!!
Anyway, my father’s second wife has recently passed away and she is dearly missed by him, my half-sister and her family and by me and my family. So now, all of a sudden, after 20 some odd years of my mother and father not setting eyes on each other (the last time was my wedding day -- why is Billy Idol playing in my head... it's a nice day for a - weird wedding?), my mother “volunteers” to take my son to see my father and casually drop-in and have tea with him!
Bring on the weird flashbacks!
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