I came home earlier today from a funeral at church for a dear lady. About the time I walked in the door I learned that my former husband had received final divorce decree via email today and had expressed his feelings on Facebook, in part perhaps to share a song with me, as part of his expression indicated.
So I feel I want to express my sadness as well.
Most know that my former husband and I are very different people in the way we live and express ourselves. One of the things I loved most about my former husband and enjoyed during our relationship/marriage was his love for music and extensive knowledge of many genres. Music was a mutual interest we both shared and those who know him know that he expresses his deepest feelings through music and it is a great comfort to him. I do that as well, although I am also more of a creative writer. I find it pretty easy to express what is inside me in composition form.
Among other things, my former husband opened my world to even more musical artists and genres. We loved watching music documentaries together and once he found one on Nina Simone, an artist I had never heard of. I enjoyed her life story and music so much and it opened the door to her songs and other similar artists.
Another of my favorite memories is my former husband taking me to see Joan Baez in Atlanta, it was actually the first time I had ever gone to a “big name” concert and Joan Baez is one of my heroes on many levels. We were up in the balcony and he and others were taking videos. Toward the end of the concert she began the song “Jerusalem” which is one of my favorites….I pulled out my cell for the first time wanting to take a video but unknown to me my settings made the flash come on!
I quickly put the camera down trying to figure out how to turn the flash off. I never got my video made. But, as my former husband jokingly put it, “I was ‘called out’ by Joan Baez” who stopped a moment and said to this effect: “It really distracts me when I’m playing on stage and see flashes…it’s a whole different world these days…why don’t we all just put our phones away and enjoy the music….that means you, LADY UP THERE IN THE BALCONY.”
I was mortified! I have no idea what she saw from that stage…but apparently…she saw at least “one lady in the balcony” trying to video her with a flash.
As I contemplate all that has culminated in 2019 with the death of our marriage and death of dreams I held dear and sacred when I married my former husband and relocated to Alabama, perhaps the metaphor of my woman hero Joan Baez will be a starting place to express the sadness felt.
Many people know of Joan Baez’ infamous romance with Bob Dylan, and they each have recorded/performed the song “Diamonds and Rust” over and over. Many others covered this including “Nine Inch Nails.” My former husband really likes that version.
However, many do not know some of the rest of her story. After her romance with Bob Dylan ended she was married for a time…. she married writer and activist David Harris in 1968. According to noteablebiographies.com, “She was pregnant with their son, Gabriel, in April 1969, and three months later she saw her husband arrested for refusing induction into the military forces. He spent the next twenty months in a federal prison in Texas.”
She bore a son with Harris, her only child, and later that marriage ended. Then, during the 80’s, she was in a relationship with a very unlikely person, Steve Jobs. I bet y’all didn’t see this coming! According to a PBS article (8 Things You Didn’t Know About Joan Baez), she was 41 and he was 27. I remember interviews and other writings hearing her say that for a variety of reasons including the age difference which not allow them to have children….that relationship also ended.
Awhile back I saw an interview with Joan Baez where she said something like she felt that maybe she was not intended to be a married person, and she is very fulfilled and content being single. I am sure that Joan Baez, like me, and like most women, is a complicated person. What life experiences/personal changes led her to say this in an interview in her 70’s, we do not fully know. I just found that interesting. (In this interview – which I actually enjoyed watching with my former husband as was our custom – I also learned that she is an excellent painter, too, as is Joni Mitchell!).
Many who truly know me know how difficult it was when my first marriage of 20 years ended. Any divorce is difficult. Any divorce is the death of dreams, promises and many, many things. At one point this summer I remember saying to a friend, “On the other side of anger is a love story.” Because, it is not a secret that (both) people who divorce usually have something they are angry over. You the reader may have gone through a divorce, so you will understand how difficult this has been for both myself and for my former husband.
I will always hold a dear place for my first husband (among other things, he is the father of my dear children) in my heart – and also hold a place of love and caring for my recently former husband, as well. My first husband and I shared things together – our life stories and years intersected – that only the two of us will ever fully know of. That was a complicated relationship – as all endings to “one flesh” (a biblical term) relationships are. He and I remain friends especially since we have children together.
I remember around the time of that first divorce writing a short little story after listening to the song “Old Friends/Bookends” that was a bittersweet expression of my love for him and difficult/sad feelings over the ending. I had married him wanting/believing we would grow old together. I believe in the covenant of marriage, that God’s ideal is lifelong partnership with one person. That is the ideal. However, I also believe God gives grace and does not want us to be alone and gives us the choice of new covenants.
Sadly now, I have gone through yet a second ending to a marriage covenant I desired/intended to be lifelong. I do want my family and friends to know that I do not take this lightly.
In my little short story I jotted in 2005 following my first divorce, there was a part where I expressed: “…but it is a sort of fantasy feeling, an idea…an idea that it is for the best that we’ve gone our separate ways…but what would it be like one day when we are eighty, maybe we pass each other on the street and stop and say “I knew you, I loved you, I remember you.” Would I want to hold him one more time before I die?”
I mention this because I feel the same complicated feelings now following this divorce. At the end of this writing I will put in the lyrics to that Simon and Garfunkel song that inspired my writing in 2005.
But back – at least in part – to my metaphorical springboard of Joan Baez to try to express my feelings at the moment. Like her, I did want to give love a second chance, and in 2010 my recently former husband and I had a whirlwind reconnection – we went from 1st to 12th grade together – that errupted via social media. But – unlike her – I was desiring a 2nd lifelong partnership/marriage covenant and to give myself to building a life together and cultivating a beautiful blended family. The loss I feel on many levels is immense and is all part of this awful thing we call divorce.
I recognize also that our family and friends have been processing and sharing in this loss and what I call immense emotional “disorientation.” As one high school friend told me this summer, “this is hard to watch….we all saw it evolve on FB and now we are seeing it devolve…”
In 2019 I find myself a somewhat different person than I was in 2012 – a stronger more self-contented/focused woman than I was back then – even though I was already on track for that during the five years following my first divorce, during which time I did not date, although I wanted to. I guess I’m trying to say I’m not a totally different person now – I am the same person I’ve always been even going back to high school – in my life journey. I’m just further on that continuum of changes/growth from life experiences. And I believe this continuum with both its joys and difficulties has led me to the personal lifeplace/lifespace in which I now reside.
How I feel now about my life going forward could only been have borne in me through this heart-breaking unfolding of a second failed remarriage. Having gone through a second divorce, it gives me great pause to even consider another marriage. I am sure that anyone coming out of a divorce entertains these types of questions about the remainder of their life.
I am now 56 years old. I, like the 70something Joan Baez, feel pretty content with who I am and my life’s purpose now. And as expressed, there have been things re-tuned in me and my life story during these past ten years that have led me to this space going forward. I really do not have desire or see myself ever re-marrying or dividing my attention away from what I want the focus of my life to now be. This feeling is strong a differs from similar feelings at other points in my life.
The woman I am today has become even more independent, confident in who I am and filled with purpose and new goals. I want my life to be about my family and friends, church, art, writing , volunteering, activism, gardens – oh the list goes on and on! – and of course, the spiritual thread I desire woven through all these things is my faith and relationship with God.
Maybe it’s the only child in me….or my endless passions, enthusiasm and boundless energy for all that is creative and my tireless work ethic, drive, ambition as an entrepreneur…I don’t know. But for the most part I don’t mind living alone and I am never bored. I enjoy both solitude and social interaction. Being an introvert and INFP on the Myers-Briggs personality type, I am very self-contained in many of my deeper needs. And when I’m not self-contained and need interaction, I reach out in various ways.
We (both myself and my former husband) have both survived this, and we are both expressing hope and relief that we can each now move forward in the life we want for ourselves. I am happy for him that he expresses the same thoughts and wishes me well in his social media post. I wish the same for him.
I recognize that many online friends – some high school friends we both interact with that I literally have not seen since our graduation date in 1981 – and others, were blindsided when divorce was filed in May. I had not shared any difficulties publicly, but my closest friends are ever-present and I am certain the same is true for my former husband. I mention this because we all know that social media such as Facebook tells only half the story. This personal experience I have undergone should illustrate this truth in bold relief. We were not alone in posting beautiful photos of us together which made others believe (though it was not our intention) that this was some sort of fairy tale 2nd marriage when it increasingly was changing. Our society’s current connection (now worldwide) and dependence on social media has many pros and cons. One thing I’ve learned through all this is to better balance my online connections with those in my life who are physically present. This is an ongoing challenge I believe all of us now struggle with.
Along this line of thinking, when I went through my first divorce in 2005, social media was not part of our lives. Whether this made it better or worse, simpler or more complicated, can be viewed and weighed from different vantae points. You probably know the James Taylor song about it “used to be his town/her town” which talks about how when a relationship ends, naturally mutual friends draw their internal/external allegiances whether consciously or not, and these allegiances I speculate are based on factors such as which person they are related to, have known longest, like better, share similar beliefs/values with more, etc. This song was penned long before social media, and the truth of it remains.
This has been one of the most difficult aspects of this heart-breaking ending since I have attempted to not publicly share any specific details why our marriage broke down, but, since I like many including my former husband am in need of multiple support outlets, I do share sometimes when I need prayers – or bits and pieces of my own struggles.
I am creative and like to write. Sometimes I share something expressive I feel empowers me to get through an hour, or day. Recently a client said to me that “going through a divorce is like being in a bad car accident every day…” How well put. I hope that all who have witnessed this situation since May can give some grace to both of us and can also have the grace not to make presumptions about anything. My own feelings and thoughts are very complicated and I will need to continue processing and moving forward into whatever God has for me. My faith, soul and spirit have been grown, challenged, stretched in so many ways through this I cannot begin to even share but my closest circle of friends have been the ever-presence of Jesus to me through this. I am grateful for all past, present and future prayers.
At one point over the summer I told one of my very closest friends that this was more difficult than anything I’ve ever faced. Those who truly know me know the inside story – not the Cliff Notes Version – of all I’ve overcome in my lifetime. I told her that I was starting to believe it was more difficult than my father’s death when I was 16. She told me that “no, his death was greater.” I understood, but it was apples and oranges.
When my father died, things were uncomplicated, in a sense. I was 16. Pretty straight forward in how people should respond. The loss of my father was certainly a life-long and life-defining (maybe life-altering is the best term) experience. I had the uncomplicated, undivided physical/emotional/spiritual support of my “teenage village” which were my family – who though living in another state, embraced me unconditionally going forward and stood in the gap as I was left as an only child to deal with my mother’s illness (which my closer friends know of). I had the support of school friends/teachers, etc. It was hard but I didn’t have to concern myself with some of the kinds of issues of divided support – confused impressions and understanding – that came as yet another layer of difficulty in these recent times. This layer of difficulty also knocked me off my metaphorical feet, so to speak, like an uninvited guest at the table of the already difficult situation.
I am not the first one to go through a divorce and certainly won’t be the last. It is my hope that going forward I can share pieces of my story which will in turn help others who are going through various struggles. Even as I write this and express some very personal thoughts, it is my hope that whomever is reading will take away something that they can build on in the future when they next encounter a family member, friend or acquaintence who is having a hard time.
At this point in my writing I return to my starting point of reading an expression that my former husband shared/expressed on this date of receiving divorce finalization notification. It was a message and a song on his social media wall today (“Birds,” by Neil Young) and he indicates in his preface he may hope I see it somehow. I did see it from a friend. And it prompted me as well to try to form and express my thoughts.
I have now come to the end of my expression today….and I have decided what song I want to share in response to “Birds.” I have been searching my mind and heart to make a selection. Both my former husband and I each chose several musical pieces to have played at our church wedding in April 2012. The song/video I choose to share now is the one I requested be played as we took communion together with our family and friends. I have always loved this song, it is quite beautiful.
I pray that all who have read to this point will pause a moment to watch/listen and be encouraged in their own faith and spiritual journey. Thank you for your continued prayers for each of us and our children, our family, our friends and our church communities.
Old Friends/Bookends
(Simon and Garfunkel)
Old friends, old friends,
Sat on their park bench like bookends
A newspaper blown through the grass
Falls on the round toes
of the high shoes of the old friends
Old friends, winter companions, the old men
Lost in their overcoats, waiting for the sunset
The sounds of the city sifting through trees
Settle like dust on the shoulders of the old friends
Can you imagine us years from today,
Sharing a park bench quietly
How terribly strange to be seventy
Old friends, memory brushes the same years,
Silently sharing the same fears
Time it was, and what a time it was, it was
A time of innocence, a time of confidences
Long ago, it must be, I have a photograph
Preserve your memories, they’re all that’s left you
Thank You For Reading
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