First Steps / Second Time: The cereal incident

Saturday, April 18, 2009

The cereal incident

In September of last year, I had the privilege of emptying the "marital home" of all of my belongings. When I arrived at the house (which I hadn't seen in 1 year and which was currently being occupied by my almost-ex husband), I was greeted by a number of post-it notes. The notes were attached to a bunch of things he was claiming.

The first was located on the outdoor welcome mat. As my good, good friend reminded me as she held my hand and my eyes rolled into the back of my head, getting upset over this was just not worth it. Then she changed her tune. We entered the house to find half of our household items and furniture tagged with such notes. Each one -- with the heading of 'remember this' -- clearly stated "mine." Not yours. Mine.

He wanted the TV set I owned before I knew him. Not. He wanted the dresser I had before I knew him. Nope. He wanted gifts we had gotten from my friends. No way. But the kicker ... the BIG fat kicker was the cereal. He was not letting go of his half-eaten box of cereal. No deal.

Now I could go into how this so obviously made me see very clearly how right I was in wanting to end my marriage - how ridiculously immature, childish and stubborn this man is, but I won't. I think the cereal speaks for itself. When I took this photo, I was so irritated I couldn't see the humor in it. But when my friend and I saw it again that night over a bottle of wine at a nice hotel down the street, we couldn't stop laughing. We emailed it to everyone we knew with the subject line, "This is not a joke." Maybe attaching post-it notes is a common procedure in the divorce process, but I don't think so.

And I decided at that moment that I simply must write a book. Whatever that book is about doesn't really matter. What matters is that I have a perfect shot for the cover. No ifs about it.

1 comment:

stacey marie garciaJune 7, 2009 at 9:27 PM
This would be the most excellent book cover...I still crack up seeing this photo! You are hilarious and you most definitely need to pursue writing this book.
ReplyDelete
Replies

Add comment

Beginning Again

This blog is for those of you, the many of you, who find yourselves dating -- again.

You used to date when you were younger. It was fun sometimes. Other times it sucked. You laughed a lot. You cried a bit. But eventually you found "the one" and you decided to take the plunge. Most likely, an expensive white dress was involved, rings were exchanged, tears were aplenty and you were finally husband and wife -- a "we." You said to yourself (and probably your spouse) that the absolute BEST part of being married is that you never have to date ever again!

Fast forward a few years (or maybe more if you're lucky) and now you're the opposite of "we." You used to be a "we." Most of your friends are part of a "we," but you have have recently been handed the 21st century version of the Scarlet Letter: "D." You are now the friend that's divorced.

So, what do you do? You get bored. You try a new hobby or sport. Or both. You run a marathon. You build a house for Habitat for Humanity. You watch a ridiculous number of 'Sex and the City' reruns. If you're childless, you babysit your friends' kids. And then you realize that sooner or later you are going to have to get out there again. For many, it's no big deal. For others, it's rough. And I don't think the difficulty one finds in dating after divorce is necessarily relative to the number of years you were married. I think that if it sucked before you got married, it's probably going to suck now.

You're older, more set in your ways, not willing to deal with the crap you used to be and let's face it, you've put on a few extra pounds. Perhaps you've even grown a little cynical (thanks, Blue's Traveler), but ... as everyone reminds you ... you've got to start somewhere. So you go on that blind date, join the internet dating site or call the girl in high school you never had the guts to ask out because you just found out SHE's getting divorced.

Again, you take the plunge - just a slightly different one this time. You venture out into the world of first dates in your 30s, 40s or 50s. As you have probably guessed by now, I am in this very situation and I've found it both extremely funny and extremely irritating. I'm sure there are a number of self help books to guide me through this, but a wise and wonderful friend of mine suggested I start a blog. And I listened.

I'm hoping everyone out there who has been in this situation will share their stories with me, especially the funny ones. Because if we're going to get through this, god knows we need to laugh.