This morning Scott got a call from one of his best friends with news that he is divorcing. Scott was surprised. I was not. It is not that there was anything this couple did to make me think that their twenty-five year relationship had passed its peak, it is only that I learned a long time ago that there is no way to know what goes on behind closed doors. We may think we know what is in others’ heads and beds, but we wear too many different faces for this ever to be true. So, I make no assumptions about people’s marriages and families, and I am rarely surprised by news of divorce, affairs, arguments, and betrayals.
What does surprise me is that with this third, very loud divorce among Scott’s family and friends recently, I can’t ignore that they are all squarely in the mid-life crisis bracket, and I have no idea how it came to pass that I have peers of the age to be having mid-life crises. Their kids are old enough that they no longer require attention twenty-four hours a day, and so it begins: the seeping in of accumulated disappointments, resentments, and backbit anger. I would like to think that without the unique and necessary myopia that children require when they are young, there is no way I could get so completely busy that I wouldn’t notice being unsatisfied for years. And years. And years. But, it is no guarantee – one of the big three is a (voluntarily) kid-free couple in their forties who have been together since high school.
I am reminded of how thoroughly unmooring divorce can be. Even if the marriage is not an especially lengthy one, it is different from ending other kinds of relationships, more unsettling. There is this time of being at sea, no compass, no stars, no sun, just bobbing along in the fog from wave to wave until at some point, and maybe for no particular reason, the compass appears, the fog lifts, and steering becomes an option.
All of this makes me increasingly aware of how old I am, which in the big picture is not old, but it is older than I’ve ever been. To borrow from They Might Be Giants, I’m older than I’ve ever been and now I’m even older. And now I’m even older. And now I’m even older.
With the new year just past, I have been teaching that we can start anew at any time. We can reawaken at any second, start over, change everything. But I’m not sure that right now I need to reawaken; what I would rather do is stay awake while everyone else sleeps. I keep thinking of a pause button for life, the idea of putting life on hold, right here where things are pretty good, so I can go do all of the chores and tasks I’ve been putting off without disrupting anything. Maybe it’s more of an intermission that I’m seeking: an opportunity to take a break from the action, process it, get out of my place and stretch my legs, refresh, and think things over before the next act starts without me – because it all just happens so fast.
In summary: seeing people unconsciously unhappy for a long time makes me sad and makes me aware. I just don’t want to miss anything in this life.
