Near the end of April, I realized none too soon that 1) I was single and thus 2) no one besides my mother could be expected to do much of anything festive for my birthday.
One of the most terrifying things about this year was how very poor I was, for just a little while.
(Note: I decided to write this post after coming across Sweetney’s version. In some ways, I am over this whole divorce thing and ready to blog about something else. But I feel as if divorce as I am experiencing it does not have much of a voice online, and I also feel as though divorce is far too prevalent in our culture not to be discussed optimistically, so here I am, still going.)
My family is quite large, so we rent out a hall every Christmas in which to get our party on. This year will be much like the last one: I, my grandparents, my aunts, my uncles, my cousins, and myriad other relatives will all stuff ourselves until we feel sick, a suspiciously skinny and rather poorly dressed “Santa” (who happens to resemble one of my uncles) will pop in to give gifts to the little ones, and then we will all engage in a merry round of “Screw Your Neighbor,” that gift game in which we all fight over which one of us will be stuck with a light-up snowman throw pillow.
This year, however, will be the first one in a long time that I don’t have a proper husband.
Oh, don’t worry … he’s coming to Christmas anyway.
Remember what I said about designing my life? Well, I have been very hard at work. Lest you think my last post was the product of a brief manic phase that would soon fizzle into distant memory, I now have a diagram for you.
I think you will agree that nothing says SERIOUS BUSINESS like a high-tech model. I am using this particular model to decide which city I would like to live in next. If you’re wondering why I’m thinking of moving at all, it’s mainly because I am so drunk with power that I’m in the mood to throw a dart at a map and then uproot everything just to celebrate that fact that I am the boss around here and I do whatever I want. In other words, my logic is firmly rooted in reason and maturity.
Are you ready? Merely by pointing your eyeballs at this screen, you can now enjoy an exclusive, hot-off-the-presses, tell-all view of my utopia:
When I was a teenager, we used to play the Blanket Game at parties. It goes like this:
1. Throw a blanket over someone.
2. Tell them to take off something they don’t need and hand it over to you.
3. Keep accepting socks, watches, hats, and clothing from them until they take off the predetermined correct item.
Guess what the predetermined item always was. If you aren’t sure, here’s a little hint:
This is Danger. She plays roller derby. She is a scary person. I tried to use a small picture in order to avoid inadvertently granting her the power to control all of you through the Internet.
THE DENIAL STAGE
When Jeff and I moved to St. Louis, he knew I was unhappy with the decor of our house, but money, of course, did not grow on trees. Except that year, it did, because he cashed in some investments and spent hours twist-tying money to a festive little potted tree. Then he gave it to me for Christmas and told me to make the house we lived in ours. He wanted me to have everything; it was almost an obsession. There wasn’t one minute of the years and years we spent together that he wasn’t striving to put the world on a string and loop it around my little finger. I learned to avoid wishing aloud, lest the poor man collapse in exhaustion from his determination to fulfill whatever request I had just absentmindedly uttered.
1. She’s flat-out terrified.
2. She has no game whatsoever. This girl not only fails to remember to wear hot underwear, but she will also strike up a conversation while perched on your toilet (just to PEE, of course—she’s still a lady). She may also discuss her cycles with you, regardless of whether you happen to be trying to eat lunch at the time. Come to think of it, this girl is not really for the faint of heart.
So, like literally six days after my life fell apart, I decided to get a cat.
I think you will agree that there is never a better time to make such a decision than when you are romantically heartbroken, with an utterly uncertain future and nowhere to live. This is truly the ideal time for a visit the Humane Society; it says so right in their pamphlet. When Jeff and I were negotiating everything, I actually ASKED, as in, on my LIST OF DEMANDS, if I could get a cat, because having a cat to snuggle with would make me “feel better about this whole divorce thing,” especially since I was leaving the bunnies behind for the foreseeable future. No red flags there! Carry on!
This video of an insanely awesome jump-roping team is long, but just when you think these crazy em-effers can’t top themselves, they totally do, and if you hang on all the way to the end, you’re rewarded with … oh, I won’t ruin it, but it involves a mascot. Also, I think I just found my new sport.
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