What to do when everywhere you look is dark during divorce

It’s been a tough week for humanity. People losing their lives or livelihoods or whole neighborhoods and everything they have worked for their whole lives. It seems like half the world is flooded and the other half is parched.

And we sensitive beings can only watch in horror or write a check or send another kind of donation. And count our blessings. It’s hard to count your blessing when your own personal world is dark as well.

It’s hard to do anything with forward momentum when you feel stuck and sad and paralyzed. That’s what a divorce feels like.(Tweet it!)

At least it did to me. And that was after years of disappointments, unfulfilled promises, and working hard to be the best partner I could be. It was never about me. Not really.

That is how I felt in my marriage near the end. I didn’t see anything to look forward to other than my children. The idea of my life stretching out before me as a series of stupid fights and unmet expectations and heartache just depressed the hell out of me. There were days that I could hardly manage to get out of bed.

There were two things that did tip the scales for me. A good counselor who helped me learn tools to cope with my broken heart and the feelings of shame and helplessness. And writing a book of poetry to chronicle my experience through the five stages of divorce. It’s called Divorce Poetry: Breaking Free. And at the beginning of the book, I didn’t see much hope.

Now I help other people through this blog and one on one counseling and my book is out there on Amazon for anyone who wants to read the story of my journey. It’s raw and real and a labor of self-love.

BROKEN HEARTED

The pain has finally split my heart in two
Halves that will not be again together
The break was ragged want to seal anew
Some are lost to me now and forever

My ravaged heart still beats a different time
I do not recognize the new-formed flow
Why did I not see the heart was mine?
Concentrating on my breathing deep and slow

And with two pieces I will now go on
The path unknown to me and so unclear
The sore muscles from overuse are strong
The worst is past and nothing left to fear

Although I cannot see my way ahead
Hearts are blind; I’ll use my eyes instead.

Often during my separation and divorce, I couldn’t articulate what I wanted to say verbally so I wrote it in a poem. It has always been the way I have dealt with strong feelings. My mentor always talks about how to deal with big emotions or roadblocks. “Make some five-minute art,” she says. I believe it gets you out of your head long enough to see things a bit differently.

52 ways to move towards joy after divorce

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I don’t mean Rembrandt kind of art. I mean taking a piece of paper and a pen and drawing stick figures. Or writing “roses are red violets are blue.” Knitting, pumping iron, singing a little song, humming. A client of mine who is a lawyer wrote a brilliant haiku at my request when she was going through a divorce, and I am quoting loosely here, no title:

When you think about
Your husband’s plane crashing
Time to get divorced

Okay, so no Pulitzer Prize here. But it serves a purpose and we laughed about it for an hour. It also got her to see how ridiculous her situation had become. She didn’t really wish the father of her children ill will. But she did need to get away from him and end her marriage.

I brought poetry to couple’s counseling. It was humiliating. My ex charmed the counselor and explained that he had no idea why I was so unhappy. I poured my heart out and she called me a trouble maker. Okay, so we picked the wrong counselor. But it was too late by then. His happiness was always more important than mine. And the fantasy he conjured up in those sessions was a reality check for me.

So how about this week, you make a little art. Take pictures. I would love to see what you’re up to. There is something about keeping your hands busy that frees up your mind to deal with things.

Back to school this week, so go buy some colored pencils and draw a train or scribble. Playdough is good. How about baking? Draw on a picture in Instagram. Snap chat if you feel like it.

Or play your favorite music and sing at the top of your lungs.

Do something for you.

Joining our private FB community, Breaking Free, is a great start.

Navigating bitterness after divorce

Is joy your singular motivation?

An angry bitter life is a choice.

What will you choose?

I have spent most of the month of August travelling. And yes, for those of you who have followed me, that was after my son’s surgery and a postponed move from a house to an apartment. There are a few boxes left to be unpacked and I brought a set of dishes back home that was very special to my mother. I put them in my luggage, wrapped very well, and didn’t break one.

My interactions while travelling were with a large very diverse group of people. Remember when air travel was fun? No, I don’t either. Have you been to an airport lately?

Bitterness abounds – how will you combat it?

I heard a lot of complaining and anger in totally inappropriate situations. When did yelling become okay in polite discourse? When someone asks a question, is screaming the response of an adult? Those airline counter personnel and TSA folks are just trying to keep us all safe in a very unsafe world, and making their days longer and nastier doesn’t really help the process.

Long lines, intrusive searches, more long lines, inadequate air conditioning, way too many people in a small space. Cell phones ringing and people talking loudly into them. Everyone gets cranky, but not everyone totally loses their shit at a stranger for the smallest infraction. It’s exhausting. It’s unkind and it doesn’t seek joy. It raises everyone’s blood pressure. And what kind of example does it set for our children?

52 ways to move towards joy after divorce

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I’m not sure what it is that makes people feel so entitled to spreading bad behavior. Politics aside, I don’t think we should accept rude as a way of life. No one wants to get yelled at, but sometimes we need to call people out on their outbursts. Or if that’s too risky, then try to lead by example. Be kind. Let someone in line ahead of you. Everyone eventually gets on the plane.

I asked a woman with two small children if I could help her by breaking down her stroller near the entrance to the plane. She looked at me with shock on her face and then blushed and smiled and handed me the stroller and picked up her toddler and walked onto the plane.

Did that cost me anything? I remember travelling with two small children. It was not an easy task.

Empathy is an art form that we need to bring back

Think about it. Who in your life responds with anger (besides a teenager) ? I had the good fortune of being around a lot of teenagers at a family event. They were snarky, but not all the time and for goodness sakes, their brains aren’t quite developed.

I mean adults. Co-workers, family members, people out on the street? There is a lot of anger out there. And it’s frightening. We see new examples every day.

I believe that bitter and angry is a choice. This year I am not going to join the impolite, angry, and bitter ones. The victims and the blamers. The “Why Me” people. There is no room for joy in the life of a blamer. We can all be grown-ups and take responsibility for our own mistakes as well as our triumphs.

Bitter and angry can be a weigh station as we’re working through a loss or a tragedy. Not a place of permanent residence. All of us who have gone through a separation and divorce have howled at the moon, maybe yelled at God, or been furious with our exes. But then it should pass. Or at least evolve into some kind of acceptance.

Bitterness after divorce

When ending a marriage, or a relationship of any kind, blame is where a lot of people go and stay. Being the wronged party can garner sympathy and a certain amount of kinship.

Staying in victim mode after divorce won’t get you closer to your goal of living a better life. Bitterness is ugly and toxic.(Tweet it!)

All people have pain and loss. Our goal should be to live as truthfully as we can bear and forgive ourselves so that we can forgive others.

One of my goals this year is to complain less and enjoy more. Simple? easy? We’ll see. Won’t you join me in the quest for joy?

Relationships are hard, even the good ones. Not admitting fault out loud is okay, especially if it’s a legal battle. But inside, in your heart of hearts, you must be willing to look at the truth. We are imperfect beings. Living messy, imperfect lives. But the examples we set for the people around us have profound long-term results.

This year, I choose joy. Do you?

Now over to you: How will you choose joy this week?

We make plans and God laughs

When I planned to write this blog post, I intended it to be an update on my move. A post about my graceful transition into a much smaller, newer, nicer apartment. About eventually getting motivated to finish all the packing. Organizing the changing of the cable, phone, internet, water, and electricity on my own. Except that I didn’t go anywhere.

And I didn’t execute any of those plans.

I didn’t move last week. I’m not even completely packed.

Instead, I got a phone call from my adult son in the middle of the day. He told me everything was okay and not to worry.

Generally, I am a calm person. But these are not the words a parent wants to hear. Word of advice here to the almost adult and adult children out there. Don’t start a sentence to your parent with “not to worry” or “be or stay calm.” Our worst-case scenario is based on years of parental fears and sometimes well founded, documented events.

Here is a recap…

Son: “I’m calling to let you know that I’m okay. Don’t worry.”

I took a deep breath, searched my memory for where he might be, and could not remember exactly where he was on that day.

“What happened?”

Son: “I fell … on my arm, I was on a bike. (his voice was calm but laced with pain) But I’m okay.”

“Which side?” (he’s left-handed)

“Left side.”

“Can you move your arm?”

“No.”

“Can you rotate your shoulder?”

“No.”

“You probably broke your collarbone. Are you on your way to a hospital?”

“Yes.”

“Is your arm immobile?”

“Yes, well mostly, the roads aren’t too good…”

A day and a half-later, I picked him up at the airport at 4:00 AM. My daughter was with me. He is a handsome boy but he was broken. He was bent and had the sheen of travel and pain mixed up together.

By the time we got home, it was close to 5:30 AM and we had an appointment with a surgeon the following morning.

On unexpected moments of motherhood

It had been a long time since I tucked him in. I woke him at a little after nine. No one got much sleep. Except my daughter (his sister) who thought she had done her duty by driving to the airport, so we left her sleeping.

I helped him up and pulled his clothes away from his wound. He was scraped and scratched all the way down his left side. At the hospital in Nairobi, they had put long adhesive strips of plastic over the gauze. I steadied myself and peeled them off slowly so his wounds could get some air.

They were slick with blood. I didn’t react, just blew on them a little and helped him on with his shirt.

My ex-husband and I went with him to the various meetings. The orthopedic surgeon wanted the abrasions to heal for a few days before surgery.

My original move date was the 5th of July. The first open time on the operating room schedule was July 5th at 2:00 PM.

It took me a couple of hours to change the move date. Half a dozen phone calls and a couple of trips to the bank and new landlord and the old landlord. I was kind of on autopilot. I put off the move until the 11th.

The morning of the 5th arrived. I was exhausted. It was a long, stressful day and our son did his best to entertain us before he went into surgery. The nurse told me he was old enough to go without his parents. I laughed at her.

On sharing parenthood moments after divorce

After he went in, we tried to distract ourselves with phones and work and walking around. Made some small talk. But mostly we worried. Surgery is scary and my ex-husband and I have very different approaches to all things health and medical.

There was no question that we were both going to be there for him. We split the pre-op visits almost in half. After the eleven hours we spent in the hospital on the day of the surgery, I had no problem having my ex check him out the next day.

His significant other and mine didn’t come to the hospital. We never talked about it. Her presence occasionally surprises me. But this time, it was just the parents. For us, sometimes it means just the parents.

In the waiting area, we sat together watching the monitor. It was a monitor like the one in airports only instead of planes landing it had the status of patients as they went from pre-op, to operation, to post-op.

When we finally got the text from the Doctor after the surgery, we hugged each other three or four times and jumped up and down. The relief I felt was like a wave washing over me. I had to lock my knees to keep upright.

My ex-husband has evolved into a great cook. He brought sandwiches that I didn’t want but ate anyway. Later, he wouldn’t let me pay for coffee or dinner. And we laughed when we saw our son in the recovery room because he came out of surgery with only one sock.

We’re divorced, but we’ll always be bonded by the shared memory of our son as a toddler.(Tweet it!)

Running across the kitchen floor with one sock, the other grasped firmly in his sticky fist.

Over to you: when was the last time life changed your plans? I’d love to hear!

On living alone and moving house after divorce

I am moving in two weeks. I have 70 flat boxes leaning against the wall in the kitchen. I’ve only packed 10 of them. And I can’t seem to move forward.

The house I’m currently renting was sold, so the move isn’t altogether voluntary. It’s the house I moved to after my divorce. It’s not the house I raised my children in, but it is the house where I declared my independence.

It has not been an easy house to love.

It is old and worn and tends to flood in the winter. My daughter and I came home one day last January to a waterfall from the balcony on the second floor into the basement where 12 inches of water collected.

Everything in the basement was soaked, and I lost a lot of stuff. Photo albums, books, rugs, luggage. Then came the mold last summer when the basement never dried properly.

Then last November, I left to spend the weekend with my man. Someone (or a group of professionals, more likely) broke down the back door and stole all of my jewelry, my laptops, and dumped every drawer in my daughter’s room. Adding insult to injury, they made away with my brand new pillow cases to carry their loot.

There were only a few things that I couldn’t replace. My great aunt’s wedding ring, my son’s mezuzah.

I have learned a lot about loss in this house.

But in this kitchen, I have whipped up many meals at odd hours for hungry children, teenagers, and friends.

I have enjoyed watching the babies grow into school-aged children on this street. And seeing the older children learn how to drive, graduate from high school, and bring home dates. And then, not much later, coming home tired in their uniforms from the army with their huge packs on their backs full of dirty laundry.

It is a nice neighborhood. My neighbors have a Whatsapp group for warnings and good wishes and requests for sugar or a hand in a flood.

There is an amber light that shines through the trees in the park behind the house. It changes throughout the day. When the heat breaks, I can smell the honeysuckle.

I’ve adopted 4 street cats that are endlessly sweet and destructive in and out of the house all day. I can’t take them all with me and I feel guilty.

I have fed and housed many stray people too, over the years.

In this house, my door has always been open(Tweet it!)

It is time to move on to a smaller, more manageable space. My children are mostly gone now and I think that’s the hardest thing about moving. My son is off on a year-long adventure and may never live with me again. His sister pops by to shower and change clothes and raid the pantry. She picked the room with the wall to wall mirrored closet doors in the new place.

The man in my life lives in another city and neither one of us is ready or willing to uproot and move full time. He’ll help me pack, be in charge of hooking up electronics, and help with the emotional and physical heavy lifting, including relocating some of the stray cats he brought me.

So, I guess I need a little more time to adjust to the moving out and moving on. And I may pack nothing today. I will clean out another drawer and fold some laundry and move very slowly, the only pace I can handle.

There is no right way or wrong way to do this. The movers are coming on July 5th, and I will gladly accept the offers of friends to help pack. I am not going to be able to accomplish this on my own and that’s okay. I have learned how to ask for help.

Today I will sit on my couch in my living room and look out the back door through the garden to the trees beyond and watch the light. And try to imagine myself in a new space with less stuff and more peace of mind. And a new chapter.

Now over to you: what was your experience living independently after divorce? I’d love to hear!

 

Moving forward and the magic of tidying up

My landlords just sold the house I’ve been living in for the last six years. The first place I lived after my divorce. My moving out date is July 1st. And as I look forward with relocation looming, I started to think about getting rid of things I no longer want or need.

I’ve had many deep conversations with my coaching clients about holding on to things we don’t need and the burden it creates. Purging my life of things I don’t use happens once or twice a year. I have a friend who is a professional organizer, and she comes to fold linens and add moral support while taking bags of stuff to be recycled or donated. But this time it’s different. I am moving from 4 bedrooms with a basement to 3 bedrooms and no extra storage.

I’m a big fan of audible books. I have belonged for about a year and have 10 books on a waiting list, one being, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. I’ve read articles about the book and I’ve heard Marie Kondo speak on a morning show. I think her ideas are brilliant but her execution a bit severe. Still, I wanted to start thinking about downsizing and was open to getting inspiration from any place. Another very organized friend gave me Move your stuff: Change your life. I wasn’t ready to move stuff at the time. Now I am.

Making space

So, I bought Marie Kondo’s book, knowing in advance that I don’t live like the Japanese. Space is at a premium on the Island of Japan, so I would keep that in mind. The narrator had a lovely voice. And in the introduction, she claims and almost boasts that she has no rebounds with her clients. I was in the car listening and laughed out loud. The Konmari method is what she calls her system, a combination of her first and last name. She even organized as a five year-old. I laughed even harder.

As a teenager, she read home improvement magazines and tried almost every organizing method and system. She bought countless baskets, bins, and shelving units only to get rid of them as they didn’t work in the end. Then she talked about the spiritual aspect of decluttering and thanking each item you discard for it’s service. This also make me laugh.

I am not so attached to everything I own as to kiss it good-bye and send it on its journey. Okay, so she wants you to touch everything in your possession and decide if it gives you joy. If not, it is thanked and sent on its way. Full disclosure here, in the last two years, I have had two floods, one mold attack, and a robbery. I have less things because of all these events. Especially precious things. The losses have been substantial and many items were irrespirable.

Embrace the opportunity to learn

The best thing I got out of the book was how to fold things into little rectangles and put things vertically into drawers so that each thing can be seen and identified. And her method of starting with clothes and shoes and moving onto other things was useful. I didn’t use her method exactly, but did throw out old receipts and pictures and got my paperwork under control for the first time in years.

From the book, I also understand that Marie Kondo lives alone and empties her purse out every night. That everything in her life has a space. No children or significant other to clutter her space. No pets to messy up her perfectly ordered life. She has a bookshelf in her closet. One tiny bookshelf with all her books. I am an avid reader and I love books. I’m keeping ALL of them along with the bookcases that hold these precious volumes.

She does mention not going through other people’s stuff. My children don’t live at home full-time and sorting through their things isn’t on my list until June. They know what date the move will take place so that’s a deadline I don’t have to reinforce. Like any self-help book, this one offers great wisdom and should be sifted through like any other advice. Taking from it what works for you.

My Post-Divorce Clean Up Advice?

Let some time go by. Don’t make huge decisions while you are still raw.
Don’t chuck things that remind you of your ex. Your kids might want them someday. Box them up if you have the space and deal with them later. Wounds are too fresh
Photos can also be put away and discarded later. At least keep the frames. They were expensive!
Allow yourself to pick a time of your choosing and invite a friend to help.
Going through old love letters and pictures is a good way to remind yourself you are desirable. If you’d like to chat, reach out.

We are not our stuff. It does not define us. Except maybe shoes (Tweet it!)

Over to you: how did you ‘clean up’ after your divorce?

On Mother’s Day after divorce

All holidays are a little more challenging after divorce. Anniversaries are difficult. Mother’s Day and Father’s Day too – especially if your children are too young to manage breakfast in bed or even know the days of the week. Or put crayon to paper instead of putting it into their mouths.

Mid-May is Mother’s Day in the United States and Canada. In the UK, it was celebrated in March. It has always surprised me that Mother’s Day is but one day a year. Motherhood is by far the most difficult and rewarding of all occupations. And it’s one you commit to for 18 years without a break. As my children get older, the worries get bigger. I had no idea that once they move out of your realm of influence, it is harder not to worry, hang on, and try not to interfere. With age comes wisdom and experience. Two things they don’t really want to hear about.

This year on Mother’s Day, my adult children will be away. One in the army and one in Africa. I do not share children with the man in my life and Sunday is just another day of the week here in Israel. My ex won’t remember, as it isn’t a local holiday. If I remind him, I might get a text. But that seems forced.

I speak with my coaching clients a lot about feeling appreciated. It’s tricky. We want recognition for our work but it was asked for it, we seem desperate.

For me, my own Mother’s Days ceased to be joyous when my own Mother died. She was very into multiple cards and small silly gifts. I have a brightly colored chenille robe that she bought me on her last Mother’s Day. I spoke to a friend this morning whose own mother passed last year. And she’s dreading the day.

Take the pressure off

So this year, let’s take the pressure off. If you have your kids with you, great. If not, your ex’s mother can get all dressed up and try to find a place to eat when everyone else is taking their mother out. So, you’ll end up at a crowded place with cold coffee and runny eggs. Don’t buy into the crazy.

If you are lucky enough to have a mother, then call her, send her a card, or make her breakfast if she’s close enough. Thank her on Sunday the 14th (and every day!!) for all that she’s done. And if you haven’t figured this out yet (everyone with teenagers say I!) we do not have children to be appreciated. If they turn out to be good, caring, decent people, then that’s a win. And sometimes we do absolutely everything right and it still doesn’t work out.

To be a good parent is to be a good person. Nobody is perfect. (Tweet it!)

Showing our children life’s reality is sometimes a painful thing. The year my Mother died, I cried for six months. My daughter was eleven and tall for her age. Whenever she saw me tear up she hugged me. And having these moments made it a little easier to be without my mom.

If your children resent you for the divorce now, that won’t last. When they have some real-life experience, they may thank you. Growing up in a tension-filled home without love isn’t doing anyone a favor. That is not the example I wanted my kids to grow up with.

Next Sunday I will toast my own mother. And take myself out for brunch if I want to or not.

Over to you: how will you spend Mother’s Day this year?

On the power of long-term friendships after divorce

long-term-friendships-after-divorce-tamara-mendelson

Traveling isn’t any fun anymore. The world is a scary place and the security checks and long lines in passport control (although necessary for our safety) are tough on the traveler. Being compressed into a germ-filled, flying tin can for hours on end doesn’t add to the glamour. Especially when not everyone shares the same level of personal hygiene or possesses an inside voice.

It had been some difficult months for me and I was looking forward to some quiet time with one of my dearest friends. We had three days planned. Thanks to a canceled flight with no explanation from the airline, one of those days were spent not going anywhere. I reached my destination 24 hours late.

I was so disappointed. Calling her from baggage claim, upset and teary-eyed, I waited to pick up the luggage I had checked three hours earlier. A night of sleep had been lost and the next night would be no different. She was calm and sweet and very reassuring. Spending time with her has always felt like a salve. She has an amazing telephone voice. I hung up the phone, grabbed my bag, and headed to the taxi stand. Coaching my client’s to deal with stressful situations is one of the most rewarding parts of my work. I help them face challenges head-on, it was time to listen to my own advice.

Getting by with a little help from long-term friendships

As I was riding home early that morning, I thought about our friendship. It began in the spring of 1986 when a mutual friend skipped our introduction brunch. The memories came flooding back.

The thing about life-long friendships is the love and acceptance one receives (Tweet it!)

That sometimes doesn’t happen in our marriages. It shouldn’t be that way, but oftentimes it seems to be.

We have known one another through 30 plus years. We’ve lived on different continents for the last 20 years. We see each other maybe once a year for big life events and very special occasions. We were married and pregnant the same summer with her youngest and my oldest child. Neither of our marriages survived but our friendship has endured for three decades. My kids think of her as an auntie and her kids call me auntie.

I remember when she called me in the middle of the night to tell me her marriage was over. She is one of the most intelligent, charming, and capable women I have ever met. The pain she was feeling was evident in her tone of voice. I listened carefully, holding my infant son over my shoulder. I did everything I could think of to reassure her that her decision was the right one for her and her children. When my own marriage broke up some ten years later, she was the one to insist I get a lawyer.

Learning from the best

My parenting style is modeled after watching her interact with her own children. Yes, they were children of divorce, but they were also children that knew they were cherished and would be very generous, productive members of society. The “cure cancer” kind of world-bettering people. She is a very successful businesswoman, and yet her children are her proudest legacy.

She was waiting at the gate when I finally landed and enveloped me in a hug. We walked arm and arm to the car. Our time together was closer to 36 hours than the three planned days. We hugged a lot and laughed a lot, exchanged small gifts, and caught up on our children & friends. My carry-on was falling apart, and she insisted on giving me one of hers. I will smile every time I use it knowing it was from S. A little good luck charm to help me safely on my travels until she and I meet again.

Be kind to yourself.

Now over to you: how did your divorce affect your long-term friendships?

How to navigate inequity and motherhood after divorce

I’ve been thinking a lot about equity lately, and the inequity of divorce. About how my generation is less well off than my parent’s generation. And about the fact that I live in a rented house and drive a beat up, 8-year-old car. The same car that both my kids learned to drive in (hence the appearance).

I have been generous with my time, resources and love from the moment they were born. But when I’m feeling down, I often wonder if that is enough. When children are grown, there is often a huge shift in motherhood. But motherhood with grown children AND divorce? Sometimes it’s a field full of landmines for my self-esteem.

My ex lives with his girlfriend in a huge house with a garden that she owns and they renovated together. They just bought the kids a nice used car to share. They have taken expensive vacations and regularly go out to the most exclusive restaurants in the city for family events and holidays.

It’s a blessing that my ex’s girlfriend and her kids get along with my kids and I know it’s irrational to feel like I have been replaced. But sometimes it gets to me. I supply tampons and socks and their favorite home-cooked meals. I can tell what mood they’re in and how they’re feeling with one word.

During coaching sessions, I see that many clients are going through the same feeling, often in different scenarios.

52 ways to move towards joy after divorce

Sign-up to receive a printable action plan for embracing your life
and letting go of pain after divorce
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Motherhood is giving your children what they need

We mothers know our children come home when they feel sick or injured. I will always be mommy and I have a very close relationship with both of my children. Someday, I might be able to take them on nice trips. But it doesn’t matter. It’s only my pride. They don’t see that sometimes it hurts a little when they talk about the next big adventure that I will not be a part of.

It’s hard not to feel competitive under these circumstances. It’s not within my means or my parenting philosophy to shower my children with material goods.

So I choose to believe that wherever I am, I am home to my children. (Tweet it!)

And that that is the most important thing I can give them as they begin to test the waters of adulthood.

Now over to you: How do you navigate inequity and motherhood after divorce?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Who’s afraid of a mammogram, Virginia?

A few weeks before I turned 50, I received a phone call from my HMO congratulating me on my upcoming birthday. I was a shocked: I’m always the one trying to get in touch with them, waiting on hold endlessly, being transferred to the wrong extension or department, and eventually being disconnected only to start the process all over again.

My dismay continued as the chirpy woman from the HMO wished me good health. I laughed and thanked her. I was ready to end the conversation. That would make a good story. But as I was about to hang up, she invited me to come in for a mammogram.

I sat down hard and fumbled for my diary. I had been meaning to make an appointment. It had been such an emotional year. I was going to do this and a long list of other things after my birthday. There happened to be a 10 AM appointment on my 50th birthdy that I politely declined. Partly out of cowardice and partly because, for the first time in two decades, I was doing exactly what I wanted on my birthday and a mammogram just wasn’t on the list. I speak with clients all the time who grapple with their age. This year, I was going to celebrate mine!

I was having a girls spa day with seven of my female friends. But if I pushed the appointment off for two weeks, I would have enough time to torture myself and completely obsess about the test.
This wasn’t my first mammogram. I had had a mammogram once or twice around my fortieth birthday. But that was before. Before my mother died of cancer, before friends’ mothers had died of cancer, and before friends had died of cancer. When my children were babies and I was still someone’s wife, I had a benign brain tumor removed.

Now, everything was different. I felt it every day. And it was everywhere.

People at parties spoke about recent colonoscopies, high cholesterol, and physical therapists. Not books they’ve read or places they had visited and restaurants that must be tried. If this was getting older, I didn’t want any part of it. Not the talk, not the tests, and certainly not the results. Come join a coaching session and we’ll cover it there.

And what if I did have cancer? Who would want me then? How would I begin dating at 50, bald with a bad wig and yellow skin? Or worse yet, what if ended up with one breast or none? Or if I became a swollen old woman from chemo and steroids? My married life was over. How was I going to start dating with cancer?

Still I knew enough to know that early detection saves lives. I could be the eighth of nine who didn’t have breast cancer in my lifetime. A dear friend of mine had her own post-fifty mammogram a year ago and the results were positive for cancer. She had surgery almost immediately, had a breast removed, only took a couple days off, and kept working. She didn’t tell very many people, and on the anniversary of her diagnosis, she started an emergency relief fund for other women diagnosed with breast cancer.

I was working on my own loss this year: the loss of a 17-year marriage and the breakup of a family. After the separation, I felt like a part of me had been removed. I still spoke in plural and realized the stories I told were about something we, my former husband and I, had done or seen together. And there were fewer invitations. Some people were more curious than consoling and I realized that my social circle was almost entirely married people.

My friend S. and I had long talks about our conditions. We were very supportive. She appreciated my gallows humor and invited me to holidays and dinners when my children were not with me. We reviewed her constant doctor visits, the weekly scans and blood tests, and what procedure to choose for her replacement breast.

I cataloged fix up lines and all my new friends on Facebook. I drove her to appointments when her husband couldn’t be with her. The offices and wards were cheerfully stifling. Some of the women looked healthy. Others painfully thin and drawn with headscarves and caps pulled over their ears. Some had moon faces bloated from medication. People spoke in murmurs. The only laughter was ours. And there was never quite enough air.

And I was uncomfortable with my own good health. Taking it for granted. I bargained with G-d that I would start working out. Stop eating fried foods. Give more to charity and be more patient with my kids if only I could miss this bullet. I was divorced in a sea of married people. And I was treading water pretty well.

But a cancer diagnosis without the support of a spouse was something I couldn’t handle. (Tweet it!)

After two weeks of sleepless nights, the morning dawned. I took my teenage daughter with me, and as we sat in the waiting room she was bored and antsy. The constant chime of her instant messaging rattling me further. I dismissed her after I filled out the paperwork. She didn’t understand what the big deal was and I didn’t want to burden her. I sat in the waiting area with eight other women who all had the same appointment time as I did. We were all nervous. We were all alone and waiting together. Somehow it was comforting. We wished each other good luck as if we were old friends.

One by one each woman’s name was called and they filed in with their paperwork. As our numbers decreased, we shifted to the chairs closer to the door. The testing room was freezing and dark. I posed for the pictures of my smashed breasts, then returned to the waiting room to wait for the ultrasound.

I started to think about my life. How difficult and exhilarating the last year had been. Doing things alone, the way I wanted to, for the first time in two decades. How happy my kids were and how my ex and I had finally become friends. I thought about how lucky I was to have people in my life that cared about me. And how being me didn’t seem to be enough for the longest time, and now being me finally was enough. Cancer or not, I would find someone to love me just the way I was.

I was the last one in the waiting room. The woman doing my ultrasound couldn’t find my records. We tried my maiden name and married name. I explained that I had just divorced my husband but we still had a family policy. She located my record. We chatted about work, children, marriage, and divorce. As I was getting dressed she told me I was remarkable. And she wished she had as much courage as I did. I thanked her and handed her my divorce attorney’s card.