Divorce is a strange critter

I have been divorced twice and left a committed relationship once, and I can tell you that divorce is a strange critter. My first husband became drug dealer and addict and quit coming home. Mississippi has no-fault divorce, and in 30 days or 90 days or something like that, we were free to go. That was after I told him to come and get all his stuff. He didn't come when he was supposed to; so I put all his clothes and other belongings in paper bags outside the door of my (formerly our) apartment. Eventually, he showed up, after the apartment manager contacted his boss, in his semi and stuffed all the sacks into the side compartment. Later he claimed that the side compartment came open, and his stuff left a popcorn trail along the highway somewhere in Oklahoma. At least, he thought that was what happened.

My second husband and I went through some rigorous pre-marital counseling sessions wherein he agreed that someday we would make the decision about whether or not my mother would live with us, and we examined the likelihood that I would continue to gain weight. After six months he threatened to leave me. I asked him where he was going - no good answer; so he stayed. This happened on a regular basis: he would decide to leave, I'd ask where he was going, he'd decide to stay. In between we had lots of fun together and went lots of places that neither of us would have gone alone. Finally, he stated firmly that he was leaving. I told him he couldn't leave without me (we were living with my mother and that was not good). So, we took off together to find a place where we could get jobs. We settled in North Carolina, and things went well for six months.

Mother was seriously ill, and I'm an only child with a severe guilt complex. So, I galloped down to Mississippi to stay with her. She didn't get better, and the decision about her living with us was a reality. He said okay. I found a house. We all moved in. I had part-time work; he was a teacher in high school. Then, I wrecked the car; he bought a clunker. He began spending late afternoons and Saturdays doing school things. He fell in love with the teacher across the hall. Finally, he said he wanted a divorce. I cried on his shoulder; I had no one else. Shortly, thereafter, I was fixing a problem with his computer and found his love letters to this teacher. We divorced. He paid no alimony, none of his tiny pension fund, but we divided the debts evenly. And, I paid for the lawyer in the settlement. I refused to pay for the divorce, and he finally filed a year or so later. So, we were divorced.

Then, he told me that he had married me because he thought he couldn't find anything better. That's a real confidence builder! No wonder his family hated me.

Okay, so far, everyone relationship I've had ended with the person leaving me. I've never left anyone. Over the years of relationships, I've lost two cars, many friends, a lot of money, and been left hanging out to dry. So, then I'm in a relationship with a wonderful woman. I love her, but living together becomes more and more hazardous to our health. Feelings of aloneness and desperation at not being able to enjoy similar things make us feel as if we are walking on eggs all the time. Something precious was underfoot - those wonderful blown eggs that have been decorated in intricate designs - that's what we walking on - and they're being destroyed. We have counseling for two years. Improvement - regression. Both of us got tired.

Someone came along who loved me long ago and who claimed to still love me. I seized the feeling to give me impetus to leave. Here was the love, the caring, the white knight who would save me. And, I felt swept up in the feelings of long ago mixed with the need to love and be loved in the now. So, I called it quits, packed up and left. The haggling over property began, and, with each step I took in the new relationship, the haggling became worse. I hastened the process. I came with nothing to the old relationship, and I took away a small sum of money, in relative terms to possessions held jointly. I had been supported and indulged for 11 years.

Being the one to leave was not easy. Love dies a hard death, even when new love is springing forth. My desire for a natural death (one of the legal papers to change) wavered towards self-destruction several times. A sense of meaninglessness overwhelmed me. Separating and packing took much longer than I had thought possible - how intertwined and interdependent we had become. I left a lot of "stuff"; I tried to leave the  house without much obvious change except my presence and my empty studio. My energy failed and someone was hired to haul my stuff to storage.

Holidays came. My best friend and my former partner were now big buddies and spent Thanksgiving together. My best friend no longer answers my phone calls or emails. Online buddies "defriended" me as they heard how awful I had been and misconstrued some comments. Why I even took my partner's old Christmas stockings! NOT. What on earth would I do with them?

I have come to the conclusion that being left by a partner and leaving a partner bring the same pain, grieving and loss. I'm looking forward to some sunshine, and I pray, if this relationship ends, that I die first.

Getting Rid of Junk

(photo borrowed from USPS-my preferred method of shipping using Click n Ship)

In cleaning out my boxes of junk from the garage, I seem to have made many people happy. My cousin called with questions about some of the items - like "What's this black and white fuzzy long thing?" Answer: A scarf I knit for your wife. "Who's in this framed picture?" What picture, describe it to me. A man in a white shirt and a woman. Answer: That's you're grandmother and grandfather when they were younger 1944. "There's a coin purse here with stuff in it?" Coin purse was grandmother's. Necklace inside was great grandmother's. Piece of paper is grandfather's driver's license when they first began issuing them in Mississippi.

A friend: "What's this long black thing with a star shape on the bottom?" Answer: a handy-dandy meat masher to use in non-stick skillets from Pampered Chef. "You sent soap; do you think I'm dirty?" No, it made the box smell good.

Another friend: "Um, why are you sending me bottles?" Answer: so you can smash them up and use them in your glassworks. Where did you get these glass door knobs? Answer: From my great grandparents house in Mississippi before it was torn down.

And, the universal question "Why aren't you keeping all of this stuff?" Answer: I have way too much stuff and no children or grandchildren who might appreciate it.

So look out, buddies. You may be next on the list for a mystery box.

I read the whole book

If you read one of my previous posts, you know that I started "The Help", a novel from the perspective of maids in the 1960s in Mississippi. I was pained by the story and had a very difficult time getting through the beginning of it.

The Help is one of the best books I had read - particularly since I lived in Mississippi during that era.

The pain and fear continued throughout the book. I don't think maids in our little town ever wore uniforms, but they certainly were subjected to segregation. I went to an all-white school - Marks High School. The black school was called Marks Attendance Center. The King Store was a grocery on the other side of the tracks. Blacks did not shop at Piggly Wiggly, but a few ventured into the Kroger store. The only pharmacies were on the white side, but I never remember seeing a black person there.

I remember wondering why I couldn't play with "Ole Joe's" kids when they lived just down the road from us, but none of the segregation fight meant much to me.

Although I spent many early mornings in one of our clinics, I don't remember who was there. Mom could not take off from work to sit with me at the doctor's office; so she would drop me off as she went to work. When I was finished, I would walk the block to the Ben Franklin store where she worked. Sometimes she had to take off an hour to take me home - we lived 4.5 miles out of town - and would be docked for that time. Sometimes I simply slept in the back seat of the car until she got off work.

I was very familiar with the black side of town because my Dad was an alcoholic, the town drunk. He loved to sit in a garage over there and drink. None of us ever worried about my walking through that black-owned garage to the back to get Daddy. They sat on upturned Coca-Cola cases, smoked cigarettes and drank. Sometimes I was with him when he went to the bootlegger to buy more whiskey - that was in the black section of town. Sometimes the black women would give him vegetables from their gardens. He would stop to chat with them. I knew most of their names then.

The book was interesting and sad - so much fear, so much violence that is still present in Mississippi. In 2001 I went shopping for my sister-in-law at the cheap grocery store in town. My new car and my clothing were not the only things that set me apart from most of the people - I was white. They stared at me. A few of them spoke to me. I was uncomfortable wondering what they thought about me.

I was in the rioting crowds at Ole Miss when James Meredith entered there. The following summer, I actually had a class with him; we both struggled with World History, but I never spoke to him. I was too interested in drinking and having a good time.

I worked in Memphis when Martin Luther King Jr. was killed about 10 blocks away. Only then did I really become aware of what was happening...and took an integrationist point of view - one that my kin in Mississippi oppose today.

Back to the book: The Junior League was and still is out of my realm of being, but I've heard stories. I suspect this book is accurate in detail and in pain and fear but also in the loyal and loving relationships. I rejoiced in the freedom of people in the 1960s and in the book. It is well written, and the diaglogue is consistent with what I heard and some of what I still speak when I'm tired. Read it!

The Help

You can't look inside the book from here because the image came from Amazon.com where you can not only look inside but also buy the book.

I was born and grew up in northern Mississippi, about a hundred miles from Jackson where this novel is set. We did not have a maid, but we did have a black woman who came in to help Mom with the laundry occasionally - and I think to do my diapers because Mom was not well when I was a baby in the mid to late 1940s. She was much loved by our family. As we went past her house on the way into town, I would often ask if we could stop and visit her. We only stopped once.

No one that I knew had a regular maid though they did exist in my little town. I don't remember that they wore uniforms, but by the 1960s I don't believe anyone except the wealthiest people had maids in our part of the country. Mom's boss had a maid until she died in the late 1990s - a wonderful woman who cooked and served a brunch before my wedding (the boss' gift to me).

I was blessed with Caroline, a black woman whose husband farmed a small acreage down the turn row from us. I visited her often in the summer. She cooked turtle soup and the best biscuits in the world. She never let me eat at the table with her and her husband. I had to eat on a white cloth over the sewing machine in the living room. I always begged to be at her table because I loved her dearly. Perhaps it was Caroline who taught me how to make tiny stitches for mending or how to season food by smelling what was needed or how to get that foot motion just right on the treadle sewing machine.

I am a white woman now in my mid 60s. I was a white child in a poor family. I cannot imagine the conversations of the white women in this book. They are painful to me. Although I've read only the first 100 pages and the last few pages, I can see the plot developing. The same hoity-toity talk continues throughout even if some honesty and devotion does develop.

I'm not sure I can handle the pain of those conversations and the duplicity of both white and black women. Race, money and position were powerful then and now. Empowerment is situational. Mae Mo, the child in the book, may be told over and over that she is good and kind and such, but she will discover that power can make you feel hated and worthless at times - no matter how much you tell yourself differently. Race, money and position still rule the world.

As my previous post mentions: sometimes I'd rather live in blissful ignorance and forgetfulness.