One of the most dangerous habits of humankind, I think, is our tendency to shape our lives into a narrative—to snap our life events to a sort of universal grid. We don’t just live our lives; we also tell our respective stories, whether to an audience or just to ourselves. This is a forgivable enough tendency in that it’s a perfectly natural thing to do, but it leads to some seriously flawed thinking.
For instance, there is no such thing as a happy ending. For anyone. There are happy times and sad times, but each of us only gets one ending, and I’m willing to bet that most of us won’t find it to be all that pleasant. SPOILER ALERT: The main character dies. The fact that so many people would likely accuse me of being grim, cynical, or depressing for pointing out this incredibly basic and universal truth only strengthens my argument that we have abandoned reality in favor of an idealized narrative—one that doesn’t end with our own deaths but with a nice wedding or, you know, retirement party or something. (Gold watches for everyone! Yaaaay!)
And this manner of thinking is fine. You could even argue that it’s a reasonable approach to allowing yourself to enjoy your life despite its harsher realities—the same type of suspension of disbelief that allows you to enjoy the movies you are now attempting to cast yourself in. But this manner of thinking is also potentially disastrous, if you are the sort of person who reads your lines and plays your part whether it’s a good idea or not.
Some people have children even when parenting is not something they’ll particularly enjoy. Some people buy houses they can’t afford. Some people get married when they would be happier single. Why? Because that is what happens next, of course. Some people will spend an unbelievable amount of money on clothes, because these are the clothes called for in the script; this is simply what their character looks like. This is the luxury car their character drives; this is the dumbfoundingly expensive engagement ring their character wears. These props are necessary for identification purposes; how will their audience recognize them otherwise? Which character would they be otherwise?
Some people wait around for plot twists, unaware that, without a concerted effort on their part, very little about their lives is likely to change for the better. Some women cast men into predetermined roles and then experience surprise and disappointment when that commitment-phobic philanderer turns out to be … well, exactly that. But he accepted the role of husband! they might protest, as if that could really be expected to change anything. This wasn’t supposed to happen.
I don’t mean to be overly contrary here, but really: according to whom? Is there a script somewhere?
Go ahead, dress up like the bride, and play your role. Say the words you’ve had memorized since you were six. Film the whole thing. Post pictures on your blog. There’s nothing wrong with any of it, if it’s really what you want, what will make you happy—if you’re doing it for yourself, not your audience. Be careful, with that audience: the more you cater to them, offering up cinematic special effects as quickly as your digital SLR and photo-editing program can pump them out, the more you will feel you owe them when it all falls apart. When you realize there’s no movie called It’s Been Years Since Our Really Pretty Wedding and We Have Exhausted All Potential Avenues of Conversation That Two Human Beings Could Possibly Explore, So Nothing Is Really Going On Except for That Part Where We Both Get More and More Bored and Resentful Regarding the Ways In Which We Confine One Another to Our 2002 Personas, and Oh My God You ALWAYS Interrupt Me Like That When I’m Talking and Come to Think of It, I Kind of Hate Your Stupid Face.* When you realize you ran out of script quite a long time ago, and come to think of it, you actually don’t have any idea what the fuck you’re doing or why you’re here. Cut! Cut!
[*If someone made an independent film with this title, I would be so excited to watch it.]
One of the most stressful parts of divorce is this sense that this is not the ending your audience was promised; this is not what they came to see. This notion is, of course, utterly ridiculous, but listen to any friend struggling with the decision to divorce, and you will hear it: I don’t want to be that person. I am not that person. As if they had simply been assigned the wrong trailer on a movie set by mistake.
The saddest thing about all of this effort, the most profoundly disturbing truth about all of this bending over backward for centerpieces and birth stories and decorating schemes, is that no one else ever even really cared that much. With the possible exception of your mother and your best friend, everyone in your audience has fallen asleep, or gotten up to pee, or is busy trying to open their smuggled bag of Skittles without crinkling the packaging too loudly. We look at wedding pictures, baby pictures; we smile; we feel happy for our friends. But five minutes later, we’ve moved on to worrying about whether getting our bangs trimmed this short was a mistake. We have our own productions to star in, after all.
The random and unintentionally hurtful comment we made about your divorce—or your job loss, or your shoes, or God knows what—is already forgotten by us, if not by you. Even the intentionally disapproving ones, the ones who will tell you that people like you are the reason no one takes marriage seriously, the ones who imply that you are selfish and irresponsible, the ones who openly pat themselves on the back for not being you, the ones who say quite earnestly that they really hope they never become you, are thinking about something else entirely not more than thirty seconds after the conversation is over, even if their words sting you for days. So if I were you, I would avoid constructing a sizable portion of your decisionmaking around pleasing a group of critics who have already forgotten you in favor of this ham sandwich they’re eating for lunch.
Unfortunately, it is not that simple, because even if you manage to ignore those people entirely (and then teach me how, which should absolutely be your next step), you still have an even bigger problem. To make this whole metaphor even more confusing, a part of you is sitting in your own audience, and that part of you might just be the one person in your theater who finds the whole production utterly fascinating. Who loves to watch. Who collects scenes and moments with hands clasped and eyes wide, who sobs openly at your tragedies, caught completely in the moment as she clutches her tissues in that darkened theater, as if tomorrow is not a new day entirely. Be careful, oh so careful, what you choose to do for this part of yourself, because I have this sneaking suspicion that this part of yourself is flat-out insane.
This part of yourself is in love with the character you have created. This part of yourself sets your photoshopped face as her avatar and writes fan fiction about you and would probably (facetiously, ironically) wear a “Team You” shirt if the Twilight people decided to make one. You can’t trust someone like that, or at least you shouldn’t. This part of you sweats over your every move and will be devastated if you gain weight, or announce to People magazine that you are gay, or are photographed without your makeup on, or in any way ruin the illusion. This part of you is convinced that everything you do matters, that everyone is watching as fervently as she is. This part of you is arrogant enough to think you are the center of the universe and insecure enough to let that make you afraid.
This is the part of the post where I would make a point, if I had one, but to tell you the truth, I’m still deciding what, exactly, any of this means. The script is unavoidable, I think, but I’m hoping to at least incorporate some ad-libbed elements. I’m hoping that I can, at least sometimes, behave as if no one is watching. I’m hoping to resist the urge to sell anyone a “happily ever after” where none exists. I’m hoping to at least remember not to take any of this too seriously, if I can.
In a brilliant commencement speech that you should absolutely read before it disappears from the Internet entirely, David Foster Wallace opens with a joke:
There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?”
And then, after blowing everyone’s mind like nine times, he concludes his speech by advising these new graduates to remember a seemingly simple truth, repeating it to themselves when necessary: This is water. This is water.
And I guess that right now, that’s all I’m trying to do: write a new script, make a new character, but do it all while remembering that I am even doing it in the first place, in hopes that it will save me, somehow, from living according to the expectations of anyone else and the expectations of that part of me that is convinced that I am hot shit and should continue to prove it.
And when I look up, squint into the spotlights above the stage, and say “line, please,” I am trying to remember to ask myself exactly who it is I think I am talking to, because the truth my ego keeps trying to ignore is that I am the only one here.
28 Comments
Awesome. That is all.
I thought this post (and all of your posts) was really great, but I have to take issue with this part:
Some women cast men into predetermined roles and then experience surprise and disappointment when that commitment-phobic philanderer turns out to be … well, exactly that. But he accepted the role of husband! they might protest, as if that could really be expected to change anything.
You really don’t think that if you marry someone it’s reasonable to have an expectation that they won’t cheat on you?
I do think that sometimes women will, early on in the dating process, cast the guy as their Prince Charming, without actually getting to know him first. Men might do this too – love is blind and all that. And not being secure that there are plenty more where he/she came from.
Lauren, I think what I was trying to say is that I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect that a commitment-phobic philanderer won’t cheat on you. I really don’t think those vows are going to stop someone like that. I would define that as an unreasonable expectation, yes. I do think women will often ignore traits like that or fail to really investigate them because they are eager to fill that role of husband.
As for cheating in general, of course you hope that you’re marrying someone who will uphold his or her commitments to you. Of course. THAT is a reasonable expectation. But even when someone who seems wonderful cheats on you, I’m not sure you can be shocked. Surprised and hurt and disappointed and very upset, yes, but flat-out shock would indicate that you haven’t really been paying attention to how often it happens. Even people with good qualities cheat. This is not Hollywood, and the heroes and the villains are a bit less distinguishable from one another.
If I gave the impression that I think cheating is just GOING TO HAPPEN, I didn’t mean to. But to say that it is ABSOLUTELY NOT GOING TO HAPPEN is to imply that you think you are immune to having such things take you by surprise in your life, and you are not. No one is.
I won’t say “hope for the best and expect the worst,” but “hope for the best and acknowledge the worst as a remote possibility, at least” might not be terrible advice.
Thanks for the response – when you put it that way, I agree 100%, that infidelity (or any other problems that drive 2 people apart) can happen in any relationship, and you can never guarantee it won’t happen in yours. But I would like to think that if I get married, the vows mean something and I can EXPECT my partner to uphold them, while of course accepting that the universe doesn’t always conform to my expectations. And, as an aside, I wish committed philanderers (e.g. Tiger Woods) would simply not get married. It’s like, clearly you’re not a one-woman kind of guy, so why try to pretend you are?
I have to thank you for the link to David Foster Wallace’s commencement speech. I read it once and then printed it out and read it through again, slowly. It is amazing and thought-provoking, and I kind of want to tape it to the wall in my office. So again, thank you.
I love that commencement speech. Just amazing. Thanks for reminding me of it.
I also love this post. And I love your brain, which is just an indirect way of saying you.
Hello, Jennifer.
This post made me think of a Margaret Bonnano quote I’ve repeated to myself and others many, many times down the years: “It is only possible to live happily ever after on a day-to-day basis.”
Also, I thought of a slip of paper from a fortune cookie which I have taped up in my kitchen because I liked it so much: “Only you can change your life. No one can do it for you.”
I’ve been meaning to ask you, can you please go ahead and publish your book? Because it’s kind of hard to carry blog posts around with me to underline and make notes on and re-read and force everyone I know to listen to as I read out loud. Just sayin’, it would make my life easier, that’s all.
Bethany, it will cheer you to know that I have been working on my book all day today, when I wasn’t napping, though I do take like four naps on book days, because clutching my head and groaning over my awful book is an exhausting process.
(Well, not all of it is awful, but some of it? Oh man. OHHHHH MAAAAAAN.)
The May 2 deadline is looming. By which I mean Danger is looming. Sigh.
Brilliant.
That’s all.
Fucking brilliant.
Will you marry me? After my divorce, I mean.
I guess I conclude from this that my audience is me, and that I am best served if I keep sight of that.
What you wrote is so spot on. I have had similar ideas randomly floating around in my head since I went through my divorce several years ago. Alas, I am not as brilliant as you so it never became a cohesive, well thought out premise. I applaud you and agree wholeheartedly.
“With the possible exception of your mother and your best friend, everyone in your audience has fallen asleep, or gotten up to pee, or is busy trying to open their smuggled bag of Skittles without crinkling the packaging too loudly.”
I love the way you phrased this. One of the hardest parts of my divorce was worrying about what everyone else thought about me. When I got to the point that I realized no one else gave a crap anymore, it was incredibly empowering. And it proved that everyone could see how much happier I was, even though he wasn’t.
This is why I’m so glad you’re back and writing. “This part of you is arrogant enough to think you are the center of the universe and insecure enough to let that make you afraid.”
Thinking of this part of myself as a deranged superfan wearing a “Team Alice” bedazzled t-shirt helps to keep it at a distance, and I must thank you for the wonderful image it evokes.
I agree about women casting men in roles, but the same is true of men. What about the husbands who are all, but you are my wife, which means that the time period in which I have to actually put forth effort toward making this relationship work has expired, HURRAH. It’s like they think marriage is the finish line of a marathon and once you’ve crossed it, you get to lay on the couch for the rest of your life.
MEP, I hear you, but that sounds more like laziness or apathy on his part, rather than a conflict between “this is who I have cast you to be in the imaginary scenario of my life” and “this is who you really are.” Not that it isn’t upsetting or frustrating–it just wasn’t the sort of mistake I was thinking of.
But I totally agree that there are plenty of men like that out there–my friends have left a few of them!
My question would be, if I now get to create a new role for myself, can I have Jennifer Garners body from Alias?
I smuggle little bottles of wine into the movie theatre. Red wine goes surprisingly well with popcorn! And if you wrap the bottles into napkins they don’t clink against each other in your purse, alerting everyone of what you have with you.
Your book is going to be great.
The speech is available in book form, too.
“This Is Water: Some Thoughts Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life”
(http://www.amazon.com/This-Water-Delivered-Significant-Compassionate/dp/0316068225/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_5)
Corinne, it’s nice that those who want it can have it as a book, but my understanding is that several people have had to stop hosting the speech online because of copyright issues, removing something gorgeous and smart from the Internet, which makes me really sad. There’s something unsettling about the fact that words said into open air by a guy who is no longer alive have become so proprietary, and may soon only be accessible to those who have a spare ten dollars. I also heard it was edited, which bothers me even more.
It just seems socially counterproductive to limit access to really good philosophy to those who can pay for it.
I want to sit on comfy worn-in leather couches in a coffee shop with you, picking your brain and soaking up your insight over extra dry cappuccinos.
I linked to you from Undomestic Diva’s twitter.
Thank you! This is what I needed to read NOW. This came at the right time for me. Thank you for writing it and reminding me that 100 years none of this will matter and what I should be paying attention to is me and my family.
Life isn’t about what others think of you; life is about what you think of you.
Again, Thank you so much. Your words have moved me.
Gah. Gorgeous.
Judging by comments, ’twas Undomestic Diva’s tweet that got me here.
Love.
Also? Really glad I hardly ever wear makeup, and thus can’t be “caught” without it. Heh.
Amazing. You’ve summed up so much if my journey over the last few years in a beautful and eloquent post. Thank you.
Wow. This is the first post of yours I’ve read (I saw you linked at Five Star Friday) and I’m def subscribing. Glad to find such a great new read!
Damn, girl.
I just stumbled upon your blog, and I’m so glad I did. All of this resonates with me, and I LOVE discovering writers who blog, as opposed to the many bloggers who write. Cheers!
I love this article!
My divorce was, in fact, exactly this wake up call that you described! I got to the point of being so tired of people (”friends”) judging how I was handling my separation and pending divorce, that I actually made a LIST of the people I knew and their priority to me. I listed everyone I knew, family and close friends all the way to acquaintances and co-workers, and assigned a priority number to them based on how much I actually gave a shit about what they thought of me, my life, and and how I handled anything. #1’s were the most important: family and my best friends; #2’s were important: people who mattered to me and that I cared about; #3’s were people that were not super important, either I hadn’t seen them in a while, or didn’t keep in close touch with them and if they fell off the grid, so be it; and #4’s were the people I just could not give a shit about, if they decided I was an evil bitch from hell then they could think what they wanted, I could not be bothered.
This whole exercise was SO FREEING! I wholeheartedly encourage ANYONE to do it in their life at any time. It brought into focus that I can’t, and more importantly have no DESIRE TO, expend energy and time on every person in my life and caring about what they think about me. There are people I care about and those are the people that matter to me. Outside of that circle, I just can’t be bothered.
Be present in your life, care about what matters and make sure you understand what matters to you – and WHY.
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