LJ Idol, Week 18: It's not what you think
Jan. 30th, 2009 02:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
threeplusfireI didn't know how much I had invested in the idea of being married until I wasn't married anymore.
Marriage was not something I imagined was likely for me. I am difficult, full of capricious passions, and I don't want to bear children. When I was a child, I imagined the apartment I would live in one day - the pale wooden floors, the high ceilings, bookshelves, my collections. I didn't plan weddings or daydream of a perfect partner. I mostly thought about how I would be able to keep my own hours, drive to the store in the middle of the night and collect pornography without having to hide it.
There's a certain degree of privilege in being a married woman instead of an unmarried one, even in this futuristic world. It saves you money on your income taxes. You don't have to suffer the uncertainty of dating any longer. The ring sets you apart in the grocery line from tired women with bare fingers. On the family vacation you get your own room instead of sharing or sleeping on the sofa. It's a peculiar demarcation between youth and adulthood.
I never thought about these things very seriously until I found myself sleeping in my mother's house again at twenty five. I slept in my old bedroom for four months where I banged my head on the metal frame of the tiny twin bed and everything I had was piled into stacks by the window. During the long months it took to secure my relatively quick divorce I felt like a wraith. My life was suddenly insubstantial. I floated between feeling dead and feeling on fire. Suddenly an unmarried woman again, but now a divorced one. I was ashamed of my failure to be a perfect wife, of my failure to save him from himself, of having to give up my position and step backwards into my teenage bedroom while some other woman took my place in our bed.
It was a blow to my pride to realize how much my self esteem was wrapped up in my marriage. I felt foolish in my grief over it. At twenty five I was divorced and realizing I had not actually grown up at all. Inside I was still as immature as I was as a teenager, still carrying the same bad habits and the same scars. So I had to change.
At twenty eight I married again. I wear a different ring. When I married the first time, I didn't think so hard about the future. Making the decision to marry again was harder, carrying memories as well as dreams. Marriage does not define me or mystically render me more competent or mature. It isn't static, frozen like a cake tier and pushed to the back of the ice box. It is something else entirely, a vocation and a creation together.
-Mike and I wearing our warm Russian hats on our wedding day.
Marriage was not something I imagined was likely for me. I am difficult, full of capricious passions, and I don't want to bear children. When I was a child, I imagined the apartment I would live in one day - the pale wooden floors, the high ceilings, bookshelves, my collections. I didn't plan weddings or daydream of a perfect partner. I mostly thought about how I would be able to keep my own hours, drive to the store in the middle of the night and collect pornography without having to hide it.
There's a certain degree of privilege in being a married woman instead of an unmarried one, even in this futuristic world. It saves you money on your income taxes. You don't have to suffer the uncertainty of dating any longer. The ring sets you apart in the grocery line from tired women with bare fingers. On the family vacation you get your own room instead of sharing or sleeping on the sofa. It's a peculiar demarcation between youth and adulthood.
I never thought about these things very seriously until I found myself sleeping in my mother's house again at twenty five. I slept in my old bedroom for four months where I banged my head on the metal frame of the tiny twin bed and everything I had was piled into stacks by the window. During the long months it took to secure my relatively quick divorce I felt like a wraith. My life was suddenly insubstantial. I floated between feeling dead and feeling on fire. Suddenly an unmarried woman again, but now a divorced one. I was ashamed of my failure to be a perfect wife, of my failure to save him from himself, of having to give up my position and step backwards into my teenage bedroom while some other woman took my place in our bed.
It was a blow to my pride to realize how much my self esteem was wrapped up in my marriage. I felt foolish in my grief over it. At twenty five I was divorced and realizing I had not actually grown up at all. Inside I was still as immature as I was as a teenager, still carrying the same bad habits and the same scars. So I had to change.
At twenty eight I married again. I wear a different ring. When I married the first time, I didn't think so hard about the future. Making the decision to marry again was harder, carrying memories as well as dreams. Marriage does not define me or mystically render me more competent or mature. It isn't static, frozen like a cake tier and pushed to the back of the ice box. It is something else entirely, a vocation and a creation together.
 |
-Mike and I wearing our warm Russian hats on our wedding day.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 09:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 06:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 10:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 06:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 10:46 am (UTC)OTOH, the hats? Kind of awesome...
no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 06:57 pm (UTC)It was our tribute to our fondness for Soviet gangsters. Whee!
no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 01:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 06:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 02:18 pm (UTC)Beautiful entry, and I am glad you can still find your independence even as a married woman.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 06:59 pm (UTC)The grocery store thing is so fascinating to me, and I'm glad I am not the only person who notices this. Buying groceries alone would make me so depressed during the divorce.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 03:03 pm (UTC)Making the decision to marry again was harder, carrying memories as well as dreams.
That was a beautiful line.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 07:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 04:00 pm (UTC)Nice entry and cute photo!
~*~
no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 07:03 pm (UTC)Thanks for reading, and the compliments.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 04:52 pm (UTC)Great job! : )
no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 07:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 05:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 07:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 05:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 07:07 pm (UTC)A vocation and a creation together.
Re: A vocation and a creation together.
Date: 2009-01-30 07:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-31 04:06 pm (UTC)I haven't gotten a chance to say so before, but I love reading these topics you've done, really.
I always hope you go on so I can read more!
*Hugs and Lovin's*
no subject
Date: 2009-01-31 07:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-31 11:48 pm (UTC)Love that photo of the two of you and not just for the hats. The smiles are beautiful too :o)
no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 07:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-01 07:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 07:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 12:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 07:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 03:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 07:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 07:23 pm (UTC)It is a weird thing - I think it has a lot to do with the expectations of your peer group, your family - I certainly don't often feel very adult.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 07:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 07:22 pm (UTC)