With all the conversations about how sheltering in place has led to binge-eating, binge-drinking, and increasing mental health challenges, one topic I have latched onto is divorce in the time of Coronavirus. Of course, forced proximity for long periods of time can breed contempt, but crises like these also cause us to suddenly come to terms with our pending mortality.
“Do I really want to spend the rest of my life with this person?” Just like a big fat midlife crisis, the fear of sudden death can lead to positive life changes.
From my perspective, this sudden forced increase in intimacy is like instant retirement. As I think back, one of the most important reasons for my divorce at age 45 was the realization that this marriage would not survive either a sudden, serious illness in myself or long periods of unrelenting time together. Our love was not that strong and my “wasband” at that time was a total blamer and shamer. These days he reminds me of our esteemed President Donny dumb dumb. The man never heard of the concept of taking responsibility for his choices or actions, EVER!
I eventually came to call my first marriage ‘criticism central.’ That is when I knew I had to get out!
But then on the other hand, it is good to know that our recent enforced togetherness has in some cases led to resolution rather than dissolution. Some couples in the process of getting a divorce now say that being stuck together caused them to resolve their differences and decide to stay together. They dismissed their case.
Like I said, sudden intimacy, much like retirement, either improves your opinion of your partner or makes you want to yell, “Get me out of here!”
I am happy to report Mike and I still don’t hate each other….
I just watched a marvelous story on CBS Saturday Morning, where a young woman lost both of her parents at age 18. The thought floored me. I do not know how I would have survived such an overwhelming blow to my own spirit. And then she said,
“Their spirit is in me.”
I lost my father one month ago, right before this terrible virus started ravishing the entire human race. But thankfully, I see everyday how his spirit is in me. My Dad was a born teacher. He taught others his whole life. We are now learning how many of his past students saw him as a powerful life mentor. The part of his spirit that only spoke to me in the second part of my life was his love of native plants. I have kept a native plants garden since my 40s, learning more each summer about why certain plants thrive in Colorado’s higher, drier elevations. Since moving to a semi-arid Pinon Juniper woodland in 2014, I continue to learn how to plant and nurture the plants that my Dad loved and the ones that love this arid climate. Now that spring has arrived…
I go out to tend my “sky garden” everyday, with its unobstructed view of the Sangre de Cristo mountains, knowing full well that I never would have chosen to live in such a quiet, natural place if my Dad hadn’t taken us out camping as children and taught us to appreciate everything about nature. Mike has developed a love of the local birds, which he feeds and provides water for everyday. We have learned to recycle our inedible leftovers by leaving them down the hill for every variety of animals, including ravens and vultures.
We feed the earth as it feeds us...
And speaking of eating, my Mom taught me to produce healthy, nutritious meals for my family by her excellent example. She was not taught to cook by her mother and only began learning when she married my Dad in 1951. Then she turned that skill into an amazing art. By junior high school, when my Mom started working full-time, I began making our family dinners, great training for life!
Mom also followed her grandmother and mother’s tradition by taking up sewing and turning herself into a top-notch seamstress. She first made really pretty dresses for us as kids, and then graduated to beautiful quilts and other meaningful gifts for her friends and family:
Mom-made from Grandma Carter’s bedspread
All of these wonderful pastimes and useful skills dim beside the myriad of intangible lessons learned from my parents like respect for others, intelligence, science, solid research, good communications and a lifelong desire to learn more everyday.
I saw a very powerful program on PBS this week about the Windermere children. This is the story of some Jewish kids who lost every member of their families in the German death camps in World War II. They were generously given a new lease on life at the Windermere Estates in England after the war. This is a story of AMAZING strength and resilience, and fascinating in terms of early child psychology research and the use of art therapy. Please check it out sometime. This story strongly reinforces my gratitude that I was able to know my parents and grandparents for as long as I did.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this idea lately. My Dad’s recent death reminded me of how rational and intellectual my upbringing was. My therapist in my thirties, who only worked with women, noted early in our work together that she had never seen a woman who lived so exclusively “in her head.” It’s called over intellectualizing in psychology, defined as:
“ignoring the emotional or psychological significance of (an action, feeling, dream, etc.) by an excessively intellectual or abstract explanation.”
This creates great distance from feeling a person or situation. It’s a lot safer that way 🙂 but I didn’t even know I was doing it until I began therapy in my thirties. I felt like I was somehow personally responsible for everything that happened around me, and even partially for what was happening in the world, but I also kept it at a distance by seeing it only intellectually.
My counseling training in my forties reinforced this awareness and yet distancing behavior. I could be highly aware of my client’s pain, and yet see myself as above them, understanding everything only on an intellectual level. This was my upbringing and training at work. I remember one time when this method completely back fired on me. I was working with an leg amputee at a rehab hospital. I found I could intellectually distance myself from the patient, but still felt his pain in my own leg.
Only recently I realized I did the same with my father as he was dying. I felt emotionally distant from the situation, just as my Dad had taught me to be. He always said, “We are only protoplasm floating through time and space.” And “It is biologically required that we die so others may live.” Pretty good distancing concepts, huh? But when I looked at his recent photo I burst into tears. This was my Dad and he is no more.
Being so aware and conscious all the time is not good for us! It has taken me quite a while to see this. We all need to relax sometimes and NOT FEEL THE BURDEN OF THE ENTIRE WORLD ON OUR SHOULDERS!!! My Dad and Mom used alcohol for that task, but I found that was not my drug of choice. Mike and our friend Rad have helped me stop being so conscious of everything all the time with a little bit of THC chocolate.
Being too aware or feeling responsible for everything all the time can be dangerous or at least very unhealthy!
So turn off the TV sometimes, stop monitoring the death count on this incredibly terrible pandemic, and find a way to relax and enjoy life! Remember, none of us gets out of this alive, but if you give up everything you like, you don’t live longer, it just seems like it!
Because of doctor and Medicare ordered tests, I have been to the only local health clinic in our Colorado county twice in the past two days. Since I’m presently in the process of switching my insurance to Medicare, they ordered an oxygen test to prove I really need oxygen. After two years on O2, good thinking huh?
Medicare: ARE YOU TRYING TO GET RID OF ME SO SOON?
But my point here is that our local rural health care system is doing a tremendous job of keeping our hospital and clinic safe from “the virus.” The health clinic here is doing almost all of their appointments by phone or video conference now. Their screening as you walk into either the clinic or the hospital included an immediate temperature check, plus they ask all the right questions before you can walk in. They then have you put on some Purell hand sanitizer. I wear a mask now because of my pre-existing conditions, but I was impressed for a county where we have only one known case so far.
Of course we’ve been very late in receiving test kits here, but they have already set up a small isolation tent in front of the hospital for pre-testing now. So happy to see how serious they are here about preventing any unnecessary infections. And, as the nice young woman who registered me for my catscan said, “This is good for us in that it’s teaching everyone about how to keep sanitary for others’ sake.” Unfortunately, she also said all this added anxiety is making her Mom smoke more!
Wouldn’t you know I have to switch to Medicare in the midst of the worst pandemic in recent history… Oh well. stay safe out there. There are so many new ways to entertain ourselves compared to 1918!
Do you need a great cheer leader right about now to pick up the old spirits? Go listen to this song….NOW! This is one of my personal favorites, the album TubThumper by Chumbawamba. I first heard about this album via our old friend Tarryne who told Mike about it ages ago. Then he played it for me when we first met, and it soon became one our favorite rebellion records. I find it perfect for the Baby Boomer generation. Of course it came out in the USA in 1997.
Chumbawamba was a British rock band that formed in 1982 and ended in 2012. The band constantly shifted in musical style, drawing on genres such as punk rock, pop, and folk. They even shift musical style in the middle of songs, but their lyrics are the BEST! Very catchy to me.
Do you suffer from long-term memory loss? I don’t remember…
See what I mean? I can relate! And the words in the song “One by One” seem especially appropriate to what we are facing today:
If any ask us why we died, tell them that our leaders lied. Sold us out down the riverside. Whose side are you on?
Did I mention this album is about revolution? Even more appropriate in these times when we witness supreme idiocy at the top, tell me, who do these lyrics make you think of?
Believe every half-whispered half-remembered lie, where truth is a luxury they can’t afford to buy. Scapegoat. Looking for a Scapegoat.
There’s always someone else for you to blame…
Reminds me of my ex, and especially Donny dumb dumb, you know who I mean!
“All great changes are preceded by chaos.” – Deepak Chopra
These are certainly trying times for most of us. Many have never faced such strong feelings of fear and uncertainty before. I believe the point though is not to run away and hide your head in easy distractions, but stop and spend some time seeing what you might learn from your fears at this moment in time. Perhaps you have been considering some major life changes up until this point. This is the crisis that might help you decide that this is time to move forward with those changes.
Is this a CRISIS or OPPORTUNITY?
The fact is, most of us will not begin to change anything until we become uncomfortable enough to admit defeat. Most of us need to be absolutely convinced that the “plan” we’ve had for life up until now is simply not working. The way this usually comes about is through a crisis that demands our complete attention. Divorce, serious illness, the death of a loved one, and long-term unemployment seem to be the most common events that lead to the end of our naïve belief that we have control over everything that happens in our lives. These unforeseen and often unforeseeable occurrences can inform us in no uncertain terms that changes in our plan are now in order.
We may first try to defend against the onset of pain and confusion by denying or ignoring this sudden lack of certainty or security in our lives. We may seek to escape into any number of easy distractions, as we defend against our need to feel more secure.
Eventually we may discover that, even though it seems completely counter-intuitive at this tough spot, accepting and embracing the chaos and uncertainty we feel surrounded by is our first, best step towards peace. Stop, sit down and be quiet for a while. Begin to feel the enormity of this crisis of fear and uncertainty. But this may also be one of your most important opportunities to trust in the power of your own psyche to survive and thrive in the future.
Know that this is the beginning of your own personal rite of passage into full adulthood. This is the natural, normal stage of human development studied by psychologists since Carl Jung, when he experienced it himself. Recognize that you are not the first to feel chaos and uncertainty in your middle years. You are in a well-documented transition period of personal change, growth, and human evolution. And the best way to move through this life stage smoothly is to embrace the new information and knowledge you will be given.
By allowing this in, you have the ability to access the unique instruction this moment has for you. Instead of attempting to run from it, embrace the uncertainty.
Begin to believe this moment is giving you access to your own unique brand of power, one you may have never known or acknowledged before. Begin to see: You alone know, somewhere inside, what needs to happen next.
Spend the time necessary to listen to the small, still voice within, the one you may have been ignoring for decades. Recognize this voice—perhaps for the first time—as your inner guide, brimming with accumulated information and wisdom. This source knows where you need to go next. It will instruct you in how you must change, grow, and evolve into your best self in this moment. The sooner you begin to believe in its power and trust this valuable inner resource, the sooner you will follow its instructions and find more structure, certainty, and peace in your life.
This is a short excerpt from my book: Find Your Reason To Be Here: The Search For Meaning in Midlife. Please contact me if you would like to purchase your own copy: MidlifeCrisisQueen@Gmail.com
Adventures of the NEW??? Old Farts 