As I've gone through this amazingly tumultuous time in life, I have been blessed with the friendship of so many people. From old friends coming out the woodwork to offer their support and hugs, to my co-workers and partners who are cutting me so much slack...and I really do need it. I've discovered this divorce-network of sorts...as one friend put it...it's a divorce club. She said, "It's not that we keep others out...it's just that we're the only ones who really get it." This isn't some real club with meetings, I'm talking about a union of experience. But it's also very real. When someone has been through it; you can see it in their eyes. Elizabeth Gilbert described the experience as having a bad car wreck everyday, for two years. And while I wouldn't say it's THAT bad, it is about a car wreck a week in my experience.
It was two of these divorced friends who gathered me up, a few days after the great split, and got me totally shit-faced. Then they drove me home in my own car and deposited me in kitchen... knowing my parents were at my house and would make sure all was ok with the chickadees. And you know what? They were right...just once...I needed to get totally shit-faced over this thing.
Or acquaintances who are now good friends after they appeared at my house to help me pack and came on their free Saturday and Sunday mornings with food and to help move. Or my one darling bloggy friend who came and brought her husband and loaned him to me to do all those husband things that I wasn't sure I could do on my own (like put together all the damn furniture from Target...I'd still be putting that stuff together if it weren't for Mr. Tonks).
And then there was tonight. Younger was playing in a school concert. I doubted her father was going to make it (although I made sure he had the schedule of events). I had not uttered this fear to anyone because I keep hoping...seemingly against all odds...that he'll figure out how to parent on his own. Apparently, Younger's best-friend's mother had a similar doubt. So do you know what she did? She came to watch Younger's concert, along with Younger's best friend. Best friend's college age sister came too. And when I said to her that it looked like he had not come, she leaned over and nudged me with her shoulder and said, "That's ok, because the rest of her family is here," motioning to herself and her girls. And then she invited me over for post-concert tiramisu. We ALL need friends who offer post-concert tiramisu, right?
You know, when you need it and you're open to it, life really steps up, puts it's arms around you and let's you know that you'll make it through.
4 comments:
I love, love, love what you write in the first paragraph:
it's a "divorce-network of sorts ... a union of experience. But it's also very real. When someone has been through it; you can see it in their eyes."
While divorce doesn't change who you are - your character and your spirit remain mostly intact - something inside your core permanently shifts. Before I joined this "network", I genuinely believed that I understood what the friends who had gone before me experienced, but I could not have been more misguided. In any event, there will certainly be friends who follow, and you will then be in a position to scoop them up and give them what they need, because you will know precisely what it is that they need, which includes telling them that in a year's time, they will not remember what this felt like.
One more thing (hell, I need to start my own blog): anytime you would like the two said friends to get you shit-faced and drive you home, or to talk about whatever stage of the process you're in at that particular moment, you know where to find them . . . the back porch at those two said friends’ home is pretty great in the spring/summer and wine flows abundantly there . . .
If you ever need a get-away, and get shit faced (or not), I always have a room for you. I can even accommodate two girls if need be, and they are willing to sleep in the same bed...
Love you dearie and we so need to get caught up.
You realize that your friends giving up their (our) weekend to help you and the girls get moved and settled says more about YOU than it does us? You're a wonderful friend, an awesome mom, a tremendous woman and I love you madly. The girls, too.
And even though I can't support you through all this like Jane can (having never been there), I will always, always, lend an ear, have a hug, be ready with a cold martini and will gladly offer my husband's services anytime (um, in a non-dirty way).
You're the best, sweets. That's all there is to it.
That...was all sorts of awesomesauce. Really beautiful.
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