Reconciling Saints

Ten years ago I started this blog as The Bride. I started it because, despite it being my second marriage, I was going to have a wedding. Like... get-a-dress-and-book-the-reception-hall wedding. Never thought I'd do that. In fact, I never thought I'd be a bride in that sense, or a bride at all again after the first marriage. So the blog was to sort of chart my way through it.

Well, guess what? That marriage didn't last. Ten years together (funny, that), 2 of them married, and it didn't last. As the couples therapist put it, we all change every 5-7 years (give or take) and sometimes we don't change in the same ways. So that's what happened, the ex and I could no longer communicate; our boy and girl Legos no longer fit. The therapist pointed out that we had had a good run - 10 years was a good run, really. We just had to look at it as a new phase that we can't move forward to together. That actually made sense to me and still makes sense. We evolve and hopefully for the better. 5-7 years is forever for the person that you were at that time. So that's what happened to The Bride.


A little less than a year after I started The Bride (but before the end of the second marriage), I changed the name to its current one. I believe it was during the Exile that the blog changed... because times had changed. I was traveling a lot, I had gotten myself into a very sticky situation (that is quite the understatement), and I was moving from Long Beach, California to Portland, Oregon. Life was... everything. This was also pre-diagnosis so things were quite amped.

I wrote about dark times, wonderous wandering, new adventures, and interesting/exciting things.

Then... there was a long darkness. Then a mad shake up during the dissolution of my second marriage and moving across the country to Lexington, Kentucky.

Then... then... well, I guess I just didn't know what to do with this blog.

Now it's sort of where I post about Bipolar Disorder and other mental health stuff. Some of it has to do with the novel I'm writing and some of it has to do with writing about my own struggles in order to be honest and open with it. I try to advocate for the... destigmatization of mental illness. I mean... as I've often said, it shouldn't be any different than anything else that affects a person; heart condition, diabetes, etc. There are things in our bodies that don't always work like they should so we have to do things to make it right... or at least make it something that doesn't impede our living. You know?


I think it's necessary to write about my ups and downs with Bipolar Disorder. However, I really miss the adventurous, funny, and surreal life. Perhaps I need to get back to that because this... what's going on here in my head and having to put myself back into the Bipolar mode to write the main character in the book... it's not helping. I have to remember the words of Saul Bellow:

When I was 9, I was going to marry Jack.
... or John Taylor from Duran Duran, but mostly, Jack.

You know, Jack from the movie Legend.

Mind you, Jack is not Tom Cruise. Yes, Tom Cruise played Jack. Tom Cruise as anyone else was Tom Cruise, but Jack was Jack.

Now that we've cleared that up...

So, at the age of 9, marriage was something you did when you were older and you found the love of your life. Okay, if you found the love of your life... OR you married the person that you thought you could deal with. That notion, I got from my parents because it's basically what they did. I didn't buy it, though. I didn't think you should spend your life married to someone that you weren't absolutely in love with. Like... can't-live-without kind of love.

Oh, 9-year-old Ceci, that's so cute! *pat pat*

Maybe I'm jaded. I mean... that could be it, right? Married and divorced twice... there's an excellent chance that I'm jaded.

Right now, I run the gamut of wanting to believe in that fairy tale kind of love... and knowing that the best you can hope for is someone that is very in love with you to begin with, who will settle into that been-through-the-shit-and-grown-with-you kind of love that old married couples seem to have.
...

I'm not really sure what my point is, here, except maybe to post a picture of Jack for me to stare at (Hi, Jack!) and to spread a little of the jaded around.

Kidding.
I'm tired.

I think... I think maybe this topic has come up what with Stephen finally meeting my family after being with me for about 4 years now, having gone through our own shit, and with my parents being so big on marriage.

Does everyone else expect it, too? Is that the way it always goes? Does "long relationship" always equal marriage and if so, is it doomed because the stakes are higher, because there is less of that new love by the time you get married to make you really battle for what's on the line? What do you do when there are two divorcees in the relationship, both bringing with them that fear that this could end in divorce like the last one?

"Divorce is the psychological equivalent of a triple coronary by-pass. After such a monumental assault on the heart, it takes years to amend all the habits and attitudes that led up to it."
Mary Kay Blakely


Then there's my other favorite:

“A divorce is like an amputation: you survive it, but there's less of you”
Margaret Atwood

I have 2 friends who... for better or for worse... are getting a divorce.

Strike that... I have more than that, but the other ones are for a lot of good reasons and they have tried and been through their own trials and tribulations.

...

Then again, maybe I'm too close to the current problem to know that maybe it IS for all the right reasons. The only thing I can say about this one and what went wrong is that there was a communication breakdown. They never learned to communicate and through it solve their problems/ express to each other what was needed. So after about a year+ of this problem, it's all gone to shit.

There are 2 BIG reasons that this one particular parting of ways bothers me:
- They ADORE each other. Never had I heard anyone go on so fully about how happy they never thought they'd be in a marriage and how awed they were by how much they had found in this new life. For him, a reason to live (there are those of us who never thought we'd see 30 or beyond) and for her, a match that compliments her.
- I've been through this almost exact situation with the boyo and not only survived it, but learned lessons about us and myself. Mistakes happen and if it means enough and you're both strong enough, you can survive it.

I've resigned myself to the fact that they have both fucked this up enough that there is a 1% chance that their marriage can survive it. This is one of the heartbreak stories, in my opinion, but I do firmly believe that if they learn their lessons from this ordeal, they can be better and stronger for it as individuals. I don't believe that there's just ONE person for everyone like I used to when I was a kid. I do believe that there are certain people that come into our lives that are worth holding on to. If we can't then it's sad, but like I said, hopefully we can learn that lesson. Down the road we might be able to apply what we've learned from that and be happier for it.

Today, however, I mourn the death of this marriage... which, I must say, is odd for me to do since I do understand that life is change.