What Will It Take To Make Me Happy?

My therapist asked me this question the other day:  

"What will it take to make you happy?"

It was a good question.  It's been two years since I made the decision to leave my marriage and left.  I've been back and forth to the house physically over those two years — but not to the marriage. Tough. Up and down. Still sad.  And uncertain about what my "new normal" looks like — but over all, across many aspects, I'm living happier and feeling so much better.  

Now I'm spending my time, energy and finances (for the most part) on myself — a new experience. Totally new. My truth is that most of my life I made myself somewhat indispensable (or at least valuable) by taking care of things for others.  By doing that I got the attention I needed; the attention that wasn't available at home.  Good behavior got me attention (since second grade).  But that automatic-robo focus on the external (It's-all-his-fault) and lack of focus on my internal (What's my part in this?) in part created the unhappiness I found myself living in.  

From young adulthood on, my driven, commanding (ever-worried) behavior got me great jobs, made me great friends, paid our way (partially) through life (along with my persistent frugality).  But it wasn't all beneficial. Not for me or my relationships.  I trusted next to nothing.  If I wasn't hyper-vigilant, something bad was going to happen.  And a married a guy who virtually never worried (way before I came along) and thought about it even less after we married because mastermind-me was always on the job.  It was a vicious cycle.

We're both free of that now.  It's a better, easier, happier life — but it came at a price. And now, moving forward means leaving behind the only male partner I've had for 36 years.  It doesn't come easy!  Hard to turn off the motor in my mind that still looks for the clothes I think he needs (in thrift stores, of course) or still wants to pass along info I think he could use, or still thinks about feeding him the leftovers I know he'd enjoy having.  But that coupled life is no longer my reality.  My reality is grieving the loss of the marriage and grieving the loss of couple-dom, and I need to sit with that.  Something I don't find easy to do.

My daughter is going through a break-up and she's decided to write about it, which is SO healthy.   And it reminded me how I've shirked writing about my own transition.  From where I sit, it seems too hard to categorize or define or even know what my life is day to day.  How to write about that?  

What's on the table for me right now is so uncertain, so nebulous, that I scarce wanna write about it — but writing about it is what helps.  At least for me.  And I'd guess for our daughter, too. [FYI, that was just a place of transition for me, choosing to write "our" instead of "my" daughter.]  Anyway, none of this territory is known to me.  

I make choices every day and only as they benefit me.  I don't really need to consider anyone else — or if I do, it's because I CHOOSE to.  It's such a relief — such a gift to just focus on what I want and not need to take anything else into consideration.  Amazingly freeing.

And yet I've had two health scares recently (urgent care/ER) and at least one will require surgery pretty immediately and being on your own makes you feel really vulnerable. All the progress you've made on feeling strong and being able to exist solo, fritters away when you're in the ER and someone is asking, "Emergency contact?"

It's hard to write about this stuff, this transition.  It's always shifting to me.  But writing about it (along with time spent in therapy) forces me to examine it and that helps me learn from it.  I've examined a lot in my life and in real depth — but not examined myself.  I haven't been in help-myself mode in, well, forever.  At least that's how it feels.  It's a frightening business — but it's a must.

One of these days, I'll get into a writing routine again; find some "new normal", but it's not right now.  

Bear with me— it may take time, but I'm gonna figure out how to truly make myself happy. 

Moving On

It's been six months to the day since I last wrote.  Six straight months of sorting, reliving, moving, discarding, earmarking, revisiting, and preparing for the sale of the stuff and for the sale of the house we've had as our home for the past 23 years.

Physically, it's been daunting.  The amount of things that have gone from house to basement or attic or separate rentals or storage units has been exhausting.  At my age my knees are hurting, my feet are too, and at night, my hip bones ache.  It has all been done in the sweltering heat of an unusually hot southern summer.

Logistically, it has been the challenge of shifting things from here to there, truckloads, carloads, and still — there is always more.  I call it the fishes and the loaves.  You think you're done but you open another door, another closet, another hidden recess, and find there are still items to deal with, to decide, to divest.


Emotionally, it is what you might imagine. An endless confrontation of the memories of every moment you have lived.  I found an album where I had placed every engagement and wedding card we received.  There was a box with each and every gift card and greeting card from the time I was pregnant through their second birthday.  I had no idea that there were specific cards made that said —  "Congratulations!  You're Expecting Twins!"  I had about twelve each of the three designs that were made.  I had no memory of such cards.  

The cards represented all the well wishes, all the outpouring of love — from those we knew and those we didn't.  Gifts from people's mothers I'd never met.  Hand-knit teeny-tiny white baby booties from Jean-Louis' mom in Paris.  Matching hooded sweaters trimmed in blue and pink with pom-pom ties from Susan's co-worker's mom in Nebraska or North Dakota.  Ceramic plates with cherubic babies hand-painted by Aunt Doris on my father's side, with their names and weights and birthdates.  Loving expressions of joy at our great gift of healthy boy-girl twins.

Box after box after bin after bag of photos capturing the moments of our 36 years together — the vacations, the birthdays, the holidays, the milestones — all smiling and hugging and picturing happiness.  

What do you do with the thousands of images that you've stockpiled before things were digital?  The wedding photos, the engagement, bridal and baby showers?  What do you keep?  I, who always had walls and stairwells hung with framed photographs of family.  I don't want them staring me in the face.  Looking at me with eyes that question the close of that life lived.

Others are selling off the art, pottery, jewelry, household goods and knickknacks of my past.  I've kept quite a bit but moving into a house that's one-third the space forces you to be selective and I have been.  Let us hope that my former treasures find places in someone else's home and that they will bring pleasure to others as they once did to me.

I feel relief that it's almost at the end of a long passage.  The six-month road of dismantling what once was.  I feel a sense of lightness and ease at no longer being weighed down by so much.  And even better, I love my new home.

It is a tremendous gift to love where one lives  — to feel a sense of comfort and real happiness — to walk in the door and smile at the things you see.  I feel that here.  I settled in very quickly, probably because I've felt "homeless" for the past twenty months.  My nest is made and I am cocooning at the moment.  When I open my eyes in the morning I see a half wall filled floor-to-ceiling with sixteen pieces of art that I adore.  Lauren's framed wedding invitation with its silvery tree.  The blue castle from college-friend Peggy.  The framed Folon poster all signed on the back from my Random House buddies celebrating my first real apartment in Manhattan. The lovers kissing "In a Sentimental Mood" by Havlicek from Shirley Sender. The tiny painted grove of trees by Norman Kaplanoff bought in the basement of a Ukrainian church on the lower East side for 50¢ (unframed). 

Two more tree etchings, one from my daughter, bought in Florence (bottom) and one from my son that we picked out together one Christmas.  

Various representation of and from New York: the Flatiron Building, the Chrysler Building, the Brooklyn Bridge... 

                                           

and the lovely print of swimming goldfish that I bought on the street outside the Museum of Modern Art from a Chinese artist named Zhyoo (and I have never been able to track down).

The gorgeous watercolor of the Colorado mountains painted by Lynnie's sister Joannie Shapiro and...

   

"Shadow of the child I used to be" by m. ensign johnson.

I am a shadow of the person I used to be. Empty of virtually all my former identities...no longer a daughter, sister, not a wife, not a couple, not a co-worker, not a teacher, and not a mother in the way I was for 20+ years. Emptying me of the marriage, the house, the possessions and feeling hollow is hard but I'm beginning to feel the openness — in being able to start again and figure out just want I want to fill inside. What I want. 

What I want. Not what is expected. Not what I think I should be, need to be, have to be. Just what I want. 

I don't know what I want, but it's nice to begin imagining.

Wish me luck.

The Price of Being Right

There is a "couples" story that makes the rounds periodically; it's in reference to one of my many flaws that my husband always found infuriating — I never admitted when I was wrong.  Now I grant you, there is truth in this. I had a very skewed upbringing that left me with an intense compulsion to do everything perfectly and if it wasn't perfect, if I'd made a mistake of any kind, well then that was tough to live with.  

Still, one time when our neighbors Alice & Dick were over, something happened and I was wrong.  My husband was incensed and looked to Dick to enforce his indignation, "You see she won't ever admit when she's wrong!"

"Well, when she's right so much of the time, can you blame her?" Dick replied taking the wind out of my husband inflated cheeks.

Dick's response lived and grew larger within him.  For years and years, whenever he had the opportunity to bring it up, bring it up he did.  He couldn't believe that a male compatriot hadn't seen it his way.

I did have a hard time admitting when I was wrong.  I still have a hard time admitting I'm wrong but...I've gotten much better.  Over the years there were so many times when in the heat of some discussion or argument, I'd reply to my husband or children, "I don't want to be right!  I just want you to see what I'm worried about!"  But they didn't believe me.  

It took me a very long time to admit when I was wrong.  But even when I did, I don't know that it ever wiped out their experience of all those other times when I didn't.  They thought I always wanted to be right.  They still think that.

Now, with distance between us, as my husband and I communicate more honestly about our relationship — our past mistakes, the places we each chose a certain way that was probably detrimental to the long-term health of our partnership — this separation becomes more real.  Just the other day he reluctantly shared an observation, "I think you were right."  This in reference to my decision to leave our marriage of 29 years.

This was one time — my first time — that being right was incredibly painful and sad.

Where Do I Go From Here?

Six months ago in a Chinese buffet surrounded by my husband, two grown kids and mother-in-law, I took the last fortune cookie left on the table (notice I didn't choose it) and this is what emerged.

It was prophetic.

In all the decades of unfolding fortunes after gorging on Chinese food I had never NEVER seen this fortune.  I took it as a sign. I held it up for my husband to see as I read it aloud at the table's request.  He nodded in acknowledgment as we both knowingly and sadly recognized the meaning of those words. 

It was the universe sending me a message.

There is no easy way to change a relationship of 35 years (6 dating, 29 married) other than to take the plunge. And I know how much of a shock this will be to those of you who know us, because frankly, we have one of the better marriages around.  Still, life changes and at this point in my life I've decided to move out and go it alone.

There has been no monumental event, no infidelity, no major upheaval nor anger.  I still love my husband and always will.  But as my contemporaries die prematurely (at 55, 59, 62, 63) I desire that my remaining life be filled with joy and companionship.

I've come to realize that there are two sorts of companionship: one where you actively engage and do things together and share interests; the other where you coexist, share a domicile, and take comfort in just knowing the other person is there when you want or need them.  I need the former and my husband is content with the latter.

As I have long said, he is happy to be reading, writing, watching sports on TV, or doing yard work.  All of these are solitary occupations.  You need no one for these activities.  I on the other hand feel solitary most of the time.  My companionship comes largely from Netflix.

"How did this happen?" one might ask but the reality is that the things that once kept me occupied/distracted (two kids,a full-time job, caring for everyone) are no longer filling my time and the things that weren't a bond between us before have become more pronounced as the years have moved on.  

When I got married I believed it was for life; I completely believed in for better or worse.  But now, I find myself questioning whether I must honor my commitment when I need and want more.

My husband and I have had a wonderful relationship, a long and loving, sexually adventurous marriage.  We do great on vacations (visiting cities, museums, historical sites, presidential libraries, friends & family) and we're a great team in crisis.  First, caring for my mother in our home during her last two dementia-distorted years of life while my sister was dying of breast cancer on the other side of the country.  Then my sister-in-law's 27-month battle with brain cancer.  And now, my mother-in-law's diminished mental capacity following my sister-in-law's death.   But we don't live on vacation and we shouldn't be living in crisis.  

Everyone (well, most everyone) who knows us is surprised and saddened.  We seemed to be a pretty happy couple.  Just before breaking this news, my daughter told me that we were one of the few marriages she knew that was good.  Knowing this was coming, I hesitantly replied, "Appearances can be deceiving, honey."

I hate hurting my kids.  HATE hurting their idea of what is possible in a relationship.  And it saddens me to hurt my husband who is a really wonderful guy, but my life has come to the place where I have to go with "truth over harmony."  I need to try to find more happiness in whatever life I have left on this earth.

If you've been reading my blog and reading about my past family history you know that for me the glass is always seriously near-to-empty.  I haven't lived happy.  THOUGH I've been happy I have never LIVED happy.  I don't know if I know how, but I'd like to try.

Will I find more? I don't know. Is it a huge risk?  Yes.  Can I afford to do this?  Not financially, no, but emotionally? I can't afford not to.    

With my husband's generous consent (one of the many reasons I married him in the first place) at times I'm going to chronicle this next phase as I try to find happiness living apart from my marriage.

As a wise Chinese sage recently informed me...

You will make many changes before settling satisfactorily.

***************

READERS:  I am open to any and all comments, but for those of you who know us, I'd ask that you please refrain from using our real names.

Return To Sender

                                                SHIRLEY ANN SENDER TOUILLON

                                                                      JUNE 24, 1947 - OCTOBER 15, 2013

I don't remember when I first met Shirley Sender.  It might have been when I started work at Butterick Publishing and as a gesture of trying to fit in with the new workplace I volunteered to give blood during the blood drive that first week.  After my blood was drawn I walked across the main area, threw up, and fainted right there in front of everybody.  I think Shirley was the one who came to assist, pushed away my thoughts of awful embarrassment and became my friend.

Shirley was vintage.  Not just her last name which always reckoned the song               "RETURN TO SENDER!  Address unknown!   No such number, no such zone." 
but everything she searched out was a find.  

She was the Queen of Street Fair shopping.  This top (kind of a heavy quilted cotton thermal) was one I liked and was hesitant about buying (maybe it was $20?) but Shirl urged me to buy it and I'm still wearing it — 35 years later! [Recently, I did have to restitch a seam at the neckline but hey — small price to pay.] Still there were times when she had to push, push, push me to spend my money on something...

With Shirley, every encounter was an adventure.  She knew I loved vintage clothes and she took me to this place where the clothes were piled high in those huge canvas rolling carts used by commercial laundries and dry cleaners.  While everywhere else a dress might be $15 and up, here the dresses were $3 each but you sure had to plow and dig for them!  Shirl was an expert — she’d dive right in to the bottom (“The top stuff’s already picked through, but these YUPPIES don’t have the balls to work to the bottom.”) and with her keen eye pull out what turned out to be a spectacular garment.  

This is what that dress looked like...

My very, very favorite was a black crepe cocktail dress from the 50s with a nipped in waist, three-quarter tight sleeves, and a draped boat neckline that stayed in place with a metal weight that was sewn in to make it dip just so…I have a killer photograph of me in that dress in a sea of people at a party in the West Village (not far from where Shirley lived).  The photographer (maybe the hostess of this bash) is way above on a loft looking down into this throbbing mass of party-goers and there I am in the middle of the crowd, in the middle of a laugh with a lit cigarette poised mid-air.  I look SO happy and I wish I could find that photo.

Another great find of Shirl’s was when she heard I liked old china and took me to this small crevice of a store that sold old restaurant dishes from everywhere made by Syracuse, Shenango, and Sterling China.  The dusty shop was filled with old wooden barrels that held piles and piles of these heavy, indestructible plates, bowls, mugs and platters with logos from airports, railroads, university clubs, and restaurants you never heard of (see below) but loved their signature dishes!  The place was called Fishs Eddy which made no sense to me whatsoever but today they are alive and well and have a booming retail and internet business.  They got “yuppified" as Shirl might say….

Shirl was "Ukrainian from Pittsburgh" and took me from one little place to another to sample pierogies.  We loved this place in Tompkins Square Park — Orchidia — probably the only Italian-Ukrainian restaurant that ever was — "It's got raviolis and pierogies!" she'd cry out whenever she wanted us to trek over to Alphabet City to eat.  She introduced me to Spanish food at El Faro close to where she lived on Horatio Street.  On one of our jaunts through the East Village, she took me (and later my husband) to a favorite dive — what I think was called The Lime Rock Inn — a dark and hidden bar with barely enough light to find your chair but their crispy, batter-dipped soft-shell crabs — OH-OH-OH. Served with a homemade marinara sauce — they were unbelievably delicious.  My taste buds cried when that place closed down.

Street-fair shopping was a breeze with Shirley because she always knew exactly which table, which vendor, under which box to look for the most unusual, most exquisite knick-knack to own.  Take those red heart earrings.  She spotted them and convinced me I should buy them.  Even though hearts are no longer the fashion staple they were back then — the summer I wore only red, black, and white — even now decades later, I still wear them every Valentine’s Day.  Long after I’d moved away from Manhattan, over the years,  an envelope would arrive in the mail from Shirley and inside her funky card with a loving handwritten note would be a little red Chinese paper envelope or cloth pouch with a trinket she’d found especially for me —  a pin, a bracelet, a fabulous charm.  She was a generous soul like no other.

Shirley was always trying to expand my limited horizons.  One summer she called me up and said I had to come spend the day and night watching Live Aid.

“What’s that?”

“It’s a benefit concert to raise money for Ethiopia and there are going to be some incredible acts.  You can’t miss this," she said, sensing my hesitancy and knowing I was not one to just venture out, “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience.  Com'on it’ll be fun — we’ll be outside in Rigney’s backyard with food and drinks and everything — it’s a happenin'!” she teased me.

So I packed myself up and made the long subway trek from the Upper West Side down to Horatio Street in the Village and entered the backyard garden of Shirl’s best friend Nancy (actually one of two Nancys...the other Nancy the wife of Richie Havens who would be performing at Live Aid) who had run a 25-ft electrical cord out from her apartment to the plug in a TV that was set-up on a table outside.  Though the reception was intermittently fuzzy with static the sound was good and a group of their friends spent the next ten hours drinking and watching group after group perform at what was indeed a memorable and ground-breaking concert.  The stand-out for me was Sting performing with then new-to-the-scene Branford Marsalis.  Branford comes out on stage to play with him — Marsalis on soprano sax is accompanying Sting singing Roxanne and soon he's not just playing, his soprano sax becomes another voice — in exquisitely beautiful harmony — they perform a duet.  The performance made me cry then and still makes me cry every single time I hear it.  You owe it to yourself to listen to it on youtube.  Since that day I’ve wanted to ask Branford Marsalis about that performance — how did he feel? Did it feel as if it was the best performance of his life?

When I got married, Shirley gave us this sensational piece of art called, "In a Sentimental Mood" by Havlicek '86.  At first glance it was hard to tell what the image was, but close up, close up you could see the lovers kissing. This hangs in our living room and reminds me of her gift everyday.





                                                                                 


Shirley was a dear friend whose life was cut short by cancer.  There are so many more stories to tell and I know I've left out a lot but perhaps I've given you a glimpse at the gift she was to us all.  

I suppose now "Return to Sender" will mean our Shirley is from whence she came...

That's Shirley on the right in happier times with our friend Bob-o — who took the great shot of Shirley at top