Hold On, Hold Out

Mary Fox

“Do you remember what you were like at 26?”

Since I have just turned 57 and often can’t remember why I entered a room, the question posed at the birthday party for a woman just that age made me laugh. And I do remember what I was like at 26.

Coincidentally, I had also just been paging through Huffpost and had been stopped by an intriguing post by Melanie Notkin: The Childless Life. The post is a prelude to her forthcoming book, Otherhood, where the subject is something she calls “circumstantial infertility.”

What Notkin’s book promises to be is a compilation of the stories of dozens of women and men who want so much to be in love, married (or at the very least, in a committed relationship) before becoming parents. Her post sheds light on the heartache over childlessness due to being without a partner, exacerbated by the inexhaustible myth that women and men have chosen not to be mothers -- and fathers.

At 26, I had my dreams for prospective mates. I had the names of my children picked out: Luke, Grace, David, Claire. I remember when I heard that the man I had been madly I love with had gotten his (obviously not so) former girlfriend pregnant. I was 29. After I picked the shards of my heart from the floor, I remember thinking: “Well, I could have done that.” But that wasn’t all that I wanted. I wanted something deeper: love, marriage, and children. In that order. I don’t know why those relationships I had such hopes for didn’t “take.” When I sit down to have my cup of coffee with God at the end of it all, that is one of the questions I’m going to ask.

Compounding the disappointment of those unfulfilled relationships was a Newsweek article in June 1986, “The Marriage Crunch.” Two months before I turned 30. To wit: white, college-educated women who failed to marry in their 20s faced abysmal odds of ever tying the knot. According to the research, a woman who remained single at 30 had only a 20 percent chance of ever marrying. By 35, the probability dropped to 5 percent. In the story's most infamous line, Newsweek reported that a 40-year-old single woman was "more likely to be killed by a terrorist" than to ever marry.

It took me four years and a move to another state to recover from that one.

So I took my broken heart for a geographical cure to the Jersey Shore and channeled my disappointments into a passable business. I never totally abandoned the hope for marriage and family, even gave that relationship stuff a few more laudable efforts. I have to admit, though, this time, my heart was just not in them. When my biological clock finally did stop ticking, while I felt an incredible sadness, I also felt just a little relief.

My affirmation from the cosmos came in the form of a letter I received a couple of years ago, left at my door, from one of the men I had loved and wanted to marry. After more than two decades, in which he was married to another woman and father to two children, he decided to confess to me that he should have married me after all. How dare you? was my first response and my final one. After spending a few dizzy days in an emotional time warp. I closed that door forever.

Now, Notkin’s blog has given me solace.

I am humbly grateful that I never needed to make a confession like the one I received. I admit I entertain backstories of what life might have been like if any of those lost loves had blossomed into a lifelong partnership. I admit I envy my sisters and friends their families. But those moments pass. Today I believe I am right where I am supposed to be.

I hope Notkin’s forthcoming book provides support and comfort for those still waiting for true love to come along. I posted a comment on her blog encouraging those still looking to remain true to their dreams.

Oh yes, I remember what I was like when I was 26. And then some. And I wouldn’t change a thing.

Who Else is a Type A?

 

When it comes to being Type A, I have perfected the genre. In fact, A isn’t really what I shoot for. I am more an A to the 2nd degree, more a Type A + (++?).

I’ve know this about myself for years. Jim and I still laugh about the time when I was thirty-something and received my grades for a couple of Temple University courses. On the back, there was a chart that read, A = Excellent, B = Very Good, C = Average.

I read it. I read it again and stopped dead in my tracks, gaping at Jim. 

Me, “C is average?”

Jim, “Yes  .  .  .”

Me, (clearly mystified) “I thought A was AVERAGE!”

To be clear, I’m not saying I thought A stood for the A in Average. I’m saying, I thought everyone got A’s, and that’s what made it average!

Tell me I’m not the only one.

Being Type A+ often serves me well. And then, there are those other times.

Times when my perfectionism is not satisfied hitting the target—it demands a perfect bull’s-eye. Those times, I start believing there is only one, absolutely dead-on answer and I get sucked into a whirlpool of over-analyzing self-doubt because I have to get it right!

Prepping my Cape Maybe cover turned into one of those times.

With the help of several friends, we staged a photo shoot at Cape May Cove with Cape May Point and the lighthouse in the distance. A couple of dozen pictures later, my perfectionism kicked in.

Jim and I studied each image Ad nauseam looking for that one perfect shot—the one with the young couple, or should the girl be showcased alone? If alone, should she be sitting or standing? Blue sky or gray—ocean calm or slightly turbulent?

Panic rising, I descended into over-analytic-mode, sending the pictures to a half-dozen friends, scrutinizing the covers of all my favorite novels, and dissecting page after page of beach read covers online. After a few days of hand-wringing, I had six different opinions from the friends I poled and a pair of computer-strained eyes.

In the midst of my self-doubting swirl, I remembered advice my longtime friend Susan gave me years ago.

Now would be a good time to breathe.

So, I took a deep breath and another and another. Still uncertain, I decided to go with my gut and sent my five favorites off the publisher’s design team.

 Maybe I couldn’t narrow it down to one, but I’m still deep breathing and reminding myself I made progress by letting go and putting the choice in the design team’s perfectly capable hands—and that sometimes the perfect solution is progress not perfection.  

Missed Flight Makes for Sweet Memory

Happy travelers at Big Basin State park.

I’m the December partner in a May-December marriage (he's 82 to my 60) so I do most of the planning and arrangements in our lives, because my brain is firing on more cylinders than his. 

A lapse of consciousness occurred on our vacation that put me in my place.  I had booked our flights many months in advance because I was using frequent flyer miles. I filed the e-ticket away and started making my plans so that each day had a destination and purpose. We were flying to California, leaving on a Friday and coming home on a Friday -- or that’s what I told myself and others as I regaled them with my plans.

The vacation was great. We had a nice weekend with my cousin in Pacific Grove, spent time in Big Sur, visited redwood forests, Sausalito, San Francisco and then back to San Jose for the flight home.  Being a savvy traveler, I went to the hotel lobby the night before our flight home to print boarding passes. Turns out that my flight home had been that very day; I had never re-checked the itinerary to confirm the flight. (And I apparently ignored the email reminder that pinged on my smart phone the day before the flight.)

$1400 later, I had new flights booked. I dragged myself back to the hotel room for a dose of humble pie as I told my husband the bad news. Bernie took it really well, far better than me. No blame, no recrimination, just an acknowledgment that stuff happens. He wouldn’t let it spoil our great vacation and he has never mentioned it again. 

I still don’t know how it happened… why I didn’t check the tickets as I normally do. Why I booked the flight home earlier than my well-laid plans. I continue to beat myself up on the screw up. 

When I think back on this vacation, I'll recall lunch at Nepenthe on Big Sur, the sea lions in Monterey Bay, the redwoods at Big Basin, and the big bus tour in San Francisco, but my worst experience may turn out to be the best memory.  Being forgiven – no strings attached – really is divine.

Have you been forgiven for something you can't forget?  Or were you the one who turned the other cheek?  Share your stories of forgiveness.