Occupation: Divorced

My daughter watched a video in school some time this past year on what democracy meant to people in China.  (Spoiler:  The people they interviewed had never head of it.)  One of the women who was interviewed had her occupation listed as "Divorced."

"How can that be an occupation?" asked The Big E.  "You don't make any money.  And how can it take up time unless you sit around thinking about it all day?"

How true.  I guess later in the video the woman talked about being a lawyer who worked for the government.  So, did the people making the video make an honest mistake, or do they believe that for a woman to be divorced is a larger marker than what she might do for a living?

My writing teacher Theo wrote about her divorce.  She said the hardest thing was being "fired" from her job as a stay-at-home-mom.  When she got divorced, she had to find work.  Her old occupation of taking care of the kids--while important--did not pay for rent, food and the electric bill.

Back in the olden days, divorce was frowned upon.  Women were shamed and made to feel inadequate because they had failed as wives.  Yet, sometimes divorce is a good solution to a bad problem.  Some women need to be empowered to leave fruitless situations.  They might be abused, neglected or in a situation where the person they are married to has toxic behaviors and won't change.  The same holds true for men, too.  Some men might stay in hopeless marriages because they don't want to abandon their kids, or they might feel guilty for leaving an unemployed spouse in a precarious position.

My friend Jane wrote to me today and mentioned how difficult all of this back and forth, "should I stay or should I go" would be.  It is hard, and I am not sure the outcome.  Until I see meaningful and sustained changes, I am keeping the nuclear option of divorce on the table.   I really don't have a choice.

But what has changed in the past few weeks?  I would say that our lives have settled in a little bit more like a regular tide after the tsunami has passed.  The shore is still raw, scraped by the force of the water, and we are still assessing the damage.  Do we stay, or find another place on higher ground to live?  Life isn't as emotionally turbulent as it was even a few weeks ago, though it still has its moments of anguish, like last week when I was getting checked out for cancer.

Perhaps a better metaphor is the dam on the river has broken.  The water used to flow, but then the dam came and stopped the river.  One day, the dam broke and water flooded the plains.  The water used to be there once, but in the meantime, plants, animals and people settled in and around the dry parts. The water coming back was not expected, and it came back in a fury.