In case you are new here, let me bring you up to speed. I recently extricated myself from a 26 year marriage.  Recently.  Okay, it was like five years ago. But it was a Mormon marriage which are supposedly eternal so the math is a little different.  Something like 26 + 5, divided by forever = recently.  

After years of post extrication deliberation,  I think I know what I did wrong.   I also think I know what he did wrong. But that's not what I want to talk about.  What I want to talk about is what marriage itself did wrong.  The institution of marriage needs to carry some of the blame on this.

So what did marriage itself, as an institution do wrong?  Let's start with it's existence.  It exists.  It exists when technically it no longer needs to.   At least in America and other First World countries, there are no economic or reproductive reasons that humans must, above all else, contractually be bound to a mate. 

It seems that in today's world, two people in love should just be able to casually stay together without getting married.  So why are we still tying the knot? What's with the shackles?

The answer is: Fear, but I'll get to that later.  

Here's the thing.... I love the idea of being committed to a life-partner.  I want to go full-throttle with a fellow "ghost who is driving a meat covered skeleton".  I want to hurl through space on a rock together, sharing all the beauty and terror that that would bring. I want that! I just want to want it for the right reasons.    

So if I want it so bad, why does the idea of marriage terrify me?  Because the idea of marriage is terrifying.  It needs to be fixed.  We need to take a break from trying to fix the people in a marriage and  fix marriage itself.  We keep putting fixed people back into a broken vehicle.

Sometimes people don't break marriages.  Sometimes marriage breaks people.

That's a harsh thing to say.  I know.  It hurt me just typing it.  After all, I do want to get married again someday, but I think I just heard my love-life fly out the window, forever.  But I promise that if you keep reading you will be surprised to see that I am actually pro-marriage.

Let me explain. 

1.  The foundation of marriage: Fear.

You've found your person.  You are building your dreams together.  Quick!  Sign them before someone else does!  That's fear.  Fear that you'll lose them if you don't formalize something.  Like being together won't be enough.  I think there's better things to build a relationship on than fear.  Trust, possibilities, mutual admiration...love.

2.  Quality vs Quantity

That being said, commitment is important.  Commitment helps us reach goals and grow as individuals.  It protects us from our own flighty foibles.  But let's not get carried away.  Commitment should be meted out in quality not quantity.  It seems careless and reckless (and a little cowardly, in my opinion) to make such immense commitments as til death do we part, or in some cases for time and all eternity.  That feels like running to "base" during a game of childhood tag and claiming "I'm safe" as long as you were touching that "base".   It's like quitting, only covertly. 

3.  So here's how we change 1 and 2.  Marriages come with a time-frame, like eight years or ten years or whatever.  At the end of those years, both parties are free to walk away.  Guilt free, blame free, drama free.   It's just over, like you always knew it would be.  Of course, you are free to re-sign and extend for another eight years or whatever, if you'd like, but that's up to you.  It's not up to the expectations of society or your family or your church.  Just you.  

Here comes the good part:

4.  This will save the children.  After all, in this scenario they have grown up knowing all along what is going to happen on such and such a date.  The kids are free from guilt, blame and trauma, just like you.  They are raised with peaceful, rational expectations and conversations.  

5.  Knowing that on such and such a date, the privilege of living with your partner will come to an end, will you ever take them for granted?  Won't you cherish your time together even more and really make it count?  Love like you were dying, so to speak?

6. Even more importantly.  Won't you treat yourself better?  Knowing that in the end you will be responsible for your own happiness, for your own health, for your own hobbies, friendships and interests.  Won't you take better care of yourself ?  Often in marriage, one can let their individuality atrophy from lack of use.  They kind of drop it off at the alter and expect their partner to take care of it.  If you are going to wake up with just yourself one day, won't you make sure that version of yourself is really awesome to wake up to?

7.  Won't 5 and 6 teach your children how to love and respect others and themselves better than the dysfunctional lessons they learn from today's traditional marriage model?

I've run this idea past a few people.  Most of them react as if I am a "player". Like I have commitment issues. But they are wrong.  Because I truly believe that in this model of marriage, people will not only stay together longer (through re-upping) but that their level of marital happiness will be exponentially higher as well. This plan or idea does not demolish marriage, it improves it.  

I Play Pickleball

It took everything I had to walk into that huge gymnasium alone.  I clutched my stolen pickleball paddle and walked as confidently as I could across the room, towards the informational pickleball poster hanging on the cinderblock wall.  As I carefully digested the drop-in rules of that facility, a voice sounded behind me. 

 

"This isn't your game."  it said.

I turned around to see the owner of the voice. He was motioning with his paddle towards the group he was playing with.  The rule I had just read, Rule #4,  stated: Observe the games in progress to determine which group best matches your skill level. This player was making sure I clearly understood what that meant.  He was confident in his assessment of my skills, even though he had never before laid eyes on me.

I must have looked like a total newbie.  I was.  I'm guessing my Chuck Taylors were the giveaway. If you are new to pickleball, you should know....Chuck Taylors aren't exactly court shoes, especially if they are covered in glitter. 

Fortunately there were more voices in the gym that night.  Someone else a few courts away called out "Put your paddle down here!"  Whatever that meant.  I made my way across the room to a pile of paddles on the floor, trying to casually spin-toss-catch my paddle as I went.  Yes, my paddle was stolen, but only in the sense that it belonged to a former boyfriend.  I had never given it back after the break up.  

And that is how I met my pickleball family. 

In just a couple months, it will be four years since I walked into that gym all by myself.  Not only was "alone" a new thing for me at the time, being divorced for just a little while, but sports were new to me then as well. That's why it took everything I had to walk into that gymnasium.  

But what it took is nothing in comparison to what it has given back. It has given me play. And boy did I need play.  Sometimes you have to go back, before you can go forward. I needed to go back to that sandlot (which in my neighborhood was the street)  where I played ball until the street lights came on.  Then it was inside for some dinner before heading out again, this time for capture the flag. 

Photo credit: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/202028733255230469/

When we play we recreate.  We re-create.  Life continually puts us in situations that require us to do such.  Either re-create or break, baby. It's your choice.  I choose the former.  I choose to learn and laugh.  To push myself mentally and physically.  To adjust...and heal.  And I choose to do these things in good company.  In other words, I choose to play. 

If you choose that as well,  I hope you pick something like pickleball.  Something that is accessible to a vast participant group (One of my favorite rallies to date included a player 40 years younger than me and another one, 20 years older).  I hope you pick something social, where the time and space between players and plays just so happens to be the same amount of time and space needed to build comradery.  Simply put, it's like a support group, only with paddles. 

And just so you know: "this isn't your game" guy?  We are now good friends. 

 

Before I Broke Your Heart

 

Before I broke your heart

Our sentences 

Would gradually fade

Into gentle smiles and thoughtful gazes.

The words that we thought we'd say

Appeared instead as silent sighs of “oh...there you are. I've been looking for you."

No, we wouldn't finish speaking

But these moments,

The ones that felt like peanut butter whiskey

Said it all.

What was it we were going to say, any way?

These moments 

Before I broke your heart, 

I miss the most.