Pancakes Taste Like Poverty: And Other Post-Divorce Revelations

by Jessica Vivian

  As exhilarating as it should be to spend a few precious hours alone, it typically fills me with anxiety. I’m not anxious that my kids will be unsafe. I’m not anxious that I will be unsafe. I am anxious because one or more of my girlfriends will say “Girl, you finally got some time away. It’s time for you to do YOU”…and I don’t know what the hell that means.

  The pressure of doing my alone time right, of using the time properly, is overwhelming and disheartening. As the countdown to Alone Time begins, I feel – no, I know– that I’m going to do it wrong. I’m not going to treat Alone Time with enough respect.

  I’ve seen and known women who can stand and pound their chests and say “I'mma do ME!” with a kind of candor and confidence that I do not have.

  I literally do not know how. I’m not trying to paint myself a martyr here. This isn’t whining. It’s my own tomboyish, one-of-the-guys, easygoing nature punching me directly in the face. It’s my heroic flaw. I’ve never given weight to getting my hair and nails done. I haven’t walked into a salon in well over seven years. When I feign girlie, I feel like I am not myself. Typically, I am left feeling inadequate and awkward. I have no disposable income. I am not going to shop, or see a movie, or grab a beer without feeling the financial impact of it for several days or even a week later. So what do I do?

  Usually, I just lay around in the silence, or sleep, or clean. But no matter what I do, I feel like I am wasting that precious Alone Time.

  Deep down, I know that laying in silence is me “doing me.” But I also feel like Oprah is gonna burst through the door and make me sit down and she’ll say “this is how you let yourself go” and I’ll cry and cry because she would be right. It is eerily sneaky the way “low maintenance” becomes “no maintenance.” Shaving your legs less becomes not. Skipping one night of deep conditioning becomes all.

  I’m so utterly, completely over “doing” that I don’t even eat during Alone Time because getting up and preparing food is too much “doing something.” It’s a damn shame, but I don’t know how to change it. It’s how I’ve always been! Before kids and the complete emotional mauling of divorce it was kind of refreshing to have alone time. I was skinny and ballsy. My low-key ways were considered “down to earth.”

  Now I’m a few years away from cat sweaters and mom jeans. It’s almost that bad. I just never learned self-care. I can’t help but feel like I’m failing at something. It’s oppressive.

  Palate Cleanser

  Reminisce with me.

  There is a type of sexual partner I think is beneficial to the newly divorced. I briefly mentioned my palate cleanser from Paraguay before but, really, the importance of this sort of thing cannot be overstated.

  Let me sidebar for a second, though, and apologize for the highly sexual writing right now. It's as if there are unique stages of grief or stages of recovery or something and now I am in the “undersexed and horny-crazed stage.”

  It was really important to me not to allow myself to hop into another relationship until I was good and emotionally healed. I think I'm halfway there. I feel stronger, but still committed to just courting myself.

  The sex part, however, is not so easily brushed aside. It seems to have affected all of us in my single parent co-op. Sex, or lack thereof, is all we talk about. But, for the newly divorced, it's all so complex. The last time I went on a date there was no such thing as Facebook or texting or Tweeting or sexting. There's a whole new realm of flirting and interacting that I don't know anything about and taking your clothes off with someone new is really scary...

  ...but that's exactly why you need to have sex with a "Palate Cleanser."

  Let's start with the definition of "palate cleanser" for those who do not think about food as much as I do. When you go to a fancy restaurant you might be offered a palate cleanser between courses. This is supposed to cleanse the taste of the last course and ready you for the next.

  In sex, and in our discussion now, it's that person you sleep with and want nothing more from than to help you forget your last relationship. My ex-husband actually started as a palate cleanser but I'm ridiculously fertile and was unbelievably irresponsible. I'm lucky all I got was pregnant, y'know?

  But anyway, I'm a firm believer that everything is everything. As in, the way you perform your duties, the way you eat, how you regard sex and sleep and booze and relationships and everything is just a mirror for all the emotional gobbledy-goop that you're carrying around inside.

  Typically, if you are a divorced person, you've experienced a few years worth of crappy sex because it's a common symptom of all the other junk happening in the relationship. Maybe the sex is mundane, or a little violent, or you've detached completely, or the lights always have to be off, or you won't go down on him.

  All of it is a tiny version of the big problem. Your apathy, your resentment, your boredom, your insecurity, your hatred, your lack of respect is all evident in the way you have sex - or don't. So it's safe to assume that we, people-who-are-divorced, had some dysfunctional sex in those final months or years. That's why it is my recommendation that you sleep with someone new who has no desire to be a part of your life to help you remember how to actually enjoy sex again!

  My palate cleanser was a chef from Paraguay. We worked together and I could tell he was interested in me. He got on the elevator with me just to talk, taking a 22-floor detour from his destination. I invited him to see a movie with me, just to see where things went.

  And things went to my car in the parking lot.

  It was that exciting, frenzied, frantic, desperately-panting sex that is so elusive once you are in a settled committed relationship – especially a failing, miserable one.

  He was quiet and reserved but when he spoke he was very, very succinct. I was a divorced parent. He was a divorced parent. We both knew what was going on. We skipped all the fluff. Often, rather than wasting money on drinks and flirting and the dating ritual, we spent that same money on a hotel room a few blocks from the one where we worked.

  And the sex was ah-mazing.

  I was freer and more uninhibited with him than I ever was in my marriage. We did all kinds of stuff I would never have done with my ex-husband. And why?

  The chef hadn't had an opportunity to completely lose my trust.

  Sex is intimate. Sex is vulnerable. You're completely exposed.

  And once someone has hacked away at you, emotionally, you are hesitant to give very much of yourself no matter how horny you are.

  Not in every marriage, but in some, sex becomes a duty. It something you have to do to shut your partner up. Or it is a weapon. Or it is a manipulation strategy. There is little to no enjoyment left.

  While I think it's noble and romantic to just be celibate until the next Mr. Right comes along, I think it's good to just find a willing, enthusiastic sex partner to help you erase all the sexual baggage you are probably carrying around with you. But only for a little while or your lonely, broken self will start to confuse things and get attached. No one deserves to be a human band-aid.

  It's been seven months since Chef from Paraguay and six months since any other sexual contact. I feel like a crazy person and have developed a really dependent relationship on my battery-operated-boyfriend.

  As one of my single friends said, this post-divorce, battery-dependent sex drought is like being a starving person eating Cheetos to get full. Sure, you won't die, but you're not even close to being satisfied, and day after day of a dull unfulfilled hunger is enough to drive you mad.

  The fear is a little paralyzing though. And the lack of access. It was only when Chris and his boyfriend were in my house a few weeks ago that I realized I live in an almost all-female environment. Their male height and deep male voices were alien in my living room.

  There are few men in my everyday life. Just one, actually. I mostly see women and babies. All the time. I know nothing of flirting and sexual tension. But I do know that sex can be honest and fulfilling and
hilarious and athletic and adventurous and educational and tender and absolutely nothing like the tired sex of Broken Marriage that clouded the last 5 or 6 years of my existence.

  I wonder what the sex equivalent of an amuse-bouche would be?

  Cautiously pleased

  So for a few weeks, my ex said he was going to plan a small beach trip so he could see the kids. To my surprise, it actually happened.

  We drove to Destin and met him at a hotel. He'd rented two rooms. We spent the weekend swimming and boarding and eating.

  I was nervous the kids would be angry or that he would be high-maintenance but none of that happened. We had a great weekend. It felt like we were co-parents. He didn't try to hold hands or get intimate like he usually does, but we definitely felt like teammates.

  If it stays like this everything will be excellent. He definitely made up for not calling all those months.

  He still definitely has not made up for not paying child support but...baby steps...

  Adulthood – October 2012

  This is short. It's just a random thought.

  So, I'm thirty but people often think I am somewhere between nineteen and twenty-four.

  I haven't decided if that's flattering or insulting yet.

  But, at any rate, when am I supposed to feel like an adult?

  I do adult things. I pay bills. I care for three children 24 hours a day. And I care for them well with, like, playdates, balanced meals, limited electronic entertainment and all that jazz.

  But I still feel really small and insecure and young and goofy and unfit to wear heels and all that...

  ...just wondering when that is supposed to wear off.

  Things Jordis Says

  "I've been jumping around too much and my philophogus hurts. My ugulus does, too. And also my donbulus,” so says the youngest child.

  I think she goes to the Ron Burgundy School of Science and Medicine.

  Stages of Loneliness

  Being alone is hard.

  Most people who get divorced aren't alone for long, gleefully flinging themselves into one anesthetizing tryst or soon-to-fail relationship after another.

  But those of us who lean toward masochism choose to hunker down and run headfirst into "dealing with our issues.” After evaluating with my single parent co-op I have decided that the ebbs, flows and pains of the “hunker down method” have clear and defined stages.

  I present to you The Stages of Loneliness.

  Let me start by saying that the stages of Loneliness and the stages of Grieving are not the same. I remember the "holy shit, I'm really going to get a divorce. Where's my Ben and Jerry's?" grief period well. And I believe, deeply, that experiencing all the Stages of Grief will help you get through a divorce with minimal thoughts of suicide and/or murder. But my personal experience and unscientific observation has led me to believe there are several distinct stages of Loneliness, the first of which being...

  Nostalgia

  Shortly after moving into my own apartment, and long before my divorce was even filed, I began reminiscing, fantasizing and torturing myself over every ex I let go and every crush I never pursued. Facebook became my worst enemy. I stalked like a madwoman. I pictured alternate storylines where I dated alternate men and had alternate babies or no babies at all. I blindly ignored all the reasons I broke up with these exes and never-pursued crushes. It's masochism at it's finest.

  Torture yourself. Feel like an idiot. Feel ungrateful for the life and children you have. Deny all reason. That's the post divorce nostalgia.

  It was around this time that I began sleeping next to a five-foot0long teddy bear I named "Joe" because it was a good default name. I'd never collected stuffed animals, not even when I was a child, but the vastness of my empty bed was unbearable (punny, no?) and I needed something to fill up all that space.

  So here's my repentance. Sorry for stalking you Jason F, Joe B, Patrick H, Dan C, Jimmy H, Danny M, Clay G, Ryan H, John R, DD, Russ G, Trey C (I know, weird), Will J., Chad N., Jordan B. (two biggest middle school crushes - yup, went back that far) Rich W and Bill H.

  My psycho nostalgia phase wouldn't have been complete without you.

  A complete disregard for reality, statistics, experience, evidence and logic is what keeps the Nostalgia phase active and also helps with the next crucial stage of Loneliness:

  The Rom-Com Stage

  I have never been a romantic comedy girl. In 9th grade, Natural Born Killers was my favorite movie. I can still recite it. After that, indie character studies and documentaries became my go-to types. I refused to watch the Notebook. It took years and a handful of guys telling me "no for real, this one's good" for me to finally watch.

  Yet during the Rom-Com stage, I devoured every Meg Ryan, Sandra Bullock, Julia Roberts, Katherine Heigl, Jennifer Lopez-starring nonsense I could get my hands on.

  Falling in love in three days?

  Yup, totally possible.

  Last minute chases where hot guys steal mopeds or run through airports to boldly declare their love in sappy monologues in front of hushed onlookers so the heroine, taken completely by surprise, can swoon with dewy tear-filled eyes?

  Sign. Me. Up.

  I even found the unintentionally romantic movies exceptionally romantic.

  Anyone else cry at the end of Zack and Miri Make a Porno?

  Anyone?

  No, just me in my Rom-Com Stage.

  I still can't get through the first 15 minutes of Up. I have no idea what that movie is about. I started watching The Bachelor and The Bachelorette during this time.

  But as I said before, one would have to suspend disbelief for a long time for the Rom-Com stage to last. Eventually, reality, statistics, evidence, experience and logic come crashing down in your lap and you realize that men don't typically run through airports to recite monologues to you. And you realize that every Rom-Com is about how the couple meets, but no Rom-Com dares show you what happens seven years later because you know what happens seven years later and it sucks and that's when the next stage hits.

  Repulsion

  I became repulsed - completely repulsed - by the idea of sharing my space, my life, my bed, my words, my ideas, my opinions with another man ever, ever, ever. Everything every man ever did annoyed the living shit out of me. I was not the girl to vent to.

  If you said, "Ugh, my boyfriend is always leaving dishes in the sink," I would answer with "You know what? He doesn't have any respect and let me tell you something, it gets worse. First, it's dishes. Then the sorry motherfucker starts leaving his socks everywhere. Then the next thing you know you're married and he's telling you a woman's place is in the kitchen. Then he'll try to beat you and then you gotta run away. Dump his sorry ass now before it's too late!"

  cricket, cricket, cricket

  I frowned upon all your marriages despite my well-wishing. The statistics were constantly in my mind. Half of all first marriages and two-thirds of all second marriages fail. Why date? Why bother? What's the point? It won't work. It's just going to fail. I'll just raise my kids and then just be alone. Maybe I'll get a dog. But dogs die. Nah, alone is better.

  But alone is not better and I couldn't completely hate men because of one nagging problem.

  The Sex Brain Stage

  In the last two months, I've watched the movie 300 at least twenty times and it ain't for the plot.

  It's for Fassbender and Butler in loincloths growling and shirtless and sweaty for a full two hours.

  Sex.

  Is on the brain.

  All the time.

  I don't want to give away all my dirty thoughts, but I have a constant running list of exactly where and how I'd want to have sex with every man on my “hot guys” themed Pinterest board circulating in my mind as soon as my brain has an idle minute.

  But, month after month of near-constant parenting and cleaning and disciplining and looking frumpy has led me to my current stage of loneli
ness

  Paralysis

  There is this strange dueling that goes on when you reach this stage of simultaneously feeling ready to date again, but also complete terror of even speaking to the opposite sex ever again.

  Maybe that's a little melodramatic. My landlord is a dude and I can speak to him just fine.

  No, but seriously, it's really scary. Especially if you take the time to do a bunch of emotional archeology and detect your flaws and examine them and change them or accept them. You start to feel like a big ball o'flaws. And you're so out of practice. And there are so many better options out there. Why would anyone choose you?

  And then you have those well-meaning friends who say that their cousin's mother-in-law is married to a guy who married her even though she had seven kids and he treats her like a princess so I shouldn't give up.

  And then you have those other well-meaning friends who say that the only men who would want to date woman with three kids are clearly either pedophiles or gay men trying to appease their conservative parents, so I'd better invest in a good vibrator and a Costco pack of AA batteries because it's the long dirt nap for my love life.

  And then I think men my age who have never had kids or been married must be either a) perpetually frat-boying b) a reclusive gamer or c) not interested in having a wife and kids anyway. So I guess the pool is dry.

  But this is where my unscientific study ends.

  I do not know what is beyond Paralysis because I am, in fact, paralyzed.

  I'd like to project that some sort of "Acceptance" is beyond this and I'll be one of those people who just don't care either way. Let's all meditate on that because I could use an extra dose of peace of mind.

  Things Not to Say to Your Ex Wife

  If you abandon your wife and kids by neglecting to take any financial or emotional responsibility, your parenting opinions no longer matter to the now single, exhausted, mother of said kids.