2003-09-05 - 10:13 a.m.
Originally poseted: 2002-11-14 - 9:43 a.m.
I found this on a message board a frequent and wanted to place it here so I would not lose it. Even though I did not write this, it reflects how I felt 2 years ago while going through my divorce...
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The Newspaper
It's funny the things that can bring you undone.
I was happily single, enjoying my new life, free to do what I wanted when I wished. But every Saturday morning I fell down, slumped myself into a pit of despair and it was all because of The Newspaper. For the first time in a long time when I bought it I got to keep the whole thing, it was mine mine mine, I could read it cover to cover without having to sacrifice any part or beg for the crossword section first. And that's what was hard.
Every Saturday I sat on the grass and watched couples around me silently divide the newspaper then take their respective sections for reading. I knew the ritual off by heart. With us, he always did the dividing. I got the Metro, the pull outs and the Good Weekend, he always got the Sport, the Business and the It section. Cars and employment automatically got the heave and we routinely argued over who got the front section first. Like a comfortable blanket or an old shoe this was our Saturday Morning Newspaper Ritual.
Then there were the other sort of rituals I missed. The compulsory fighting over who got the bathroom mirror 10 seconds before leaving and running out the door. The Spanish Inquisition before going out "Have you got your keys, wallet, phone?" The way he'd question whether I knew the way when driving just so I could get huffy then realise that no, I didn't. When you break up all you feel are the spaces, the bits that aren't there anymore. The kisses goodnight, the cuddles, the way he holds you when you are feeling small and vulnerable, alone and sad. The newspaper on a Saturday...
It's the rituals that bring you down. The rituals that used to hold your life together, the tapestry of comfort and security, the things that made you feel loved and part of a duo. It's the relationship rituals that you used to do and do no longer that break you, the rituals that every couple embark on when two become One and then no longer exist when One becomes two again.
And once you've walked that rite of passage, there is no turning back. It's only when you break up that you realise how much these couple rituals have become a part of your life and how desperately it breaks your heart to live without them.
And so, there walks an entire population of broken hearted people, recently bereaved of coupledom and desperately wanting to get the relationship rituals back in their lives. People who know what it's like to have a whole unspoken language with another about who does what and how and when. People who now walk around with a huge gaping hole in their heart and watch enviously as laughing couples silently divide the newspaper.
It's the missing rituals that make a couple a couple. It's the rituals that provide the glue to keep you together in a world of unspoken communication, of just knowing what the other wants like how many sugars and how much milk you like in your tea, or whether you don't like tea at all. It's the memory of those rituals when you are single that bring you undone and let you feel lonely.
I don't buy the newspaper anymore.
I'm waiting for the day that I can fight for the front section first and argue over who gets the pen for the cross word.
Rituals are the silent language of togetherness and also the deafening silence of lonliness. Rituals of intimacy, of love.
Rituals. Could anything be more sacred?
What I'm reading:
accusations and recriminations
What I'm listening to:
Roy Hargrove - Habana
Movie recommendation of the day:
Fight Club- watched it last night for the first time, why did I wait so long? :p
