Bounce, Bounce, Bounce
In times of turmoil, we fall back into nostalgia. Nigel told me that when we were chatting on the phone the other day. He had spent the day listening to prog rock and punk music trying to feel the seventies again.
The seventies are a little early for me, I’m not as old as him but I certainly am not nostalgic for the eighties. His novel is set in 1981, so his music choice was a little surprise. After we had finished chatting, I thought about what he had said. Not about the music, but the turmoil leading to nostalgia rang a dissonant chord.
My life is shambling through. It is difficult but I never expected any different. Yet I have found memories of my early marriage infiltrating through. The good times in the first few years, before the mediocre years set in. The more the latter leaked, the more I felt a yearning for even those times. Expecting my life to be different and experiencing it are walls and dams. Floating on the water on the nostalgia blow up I was thinking that I could patch it up with my husband.
Building a family does change your brain chemistry. Watching the man who created the life he holds in his arms with a look of glee on his face, that matches yours, does something to a woman. You can never forget that. This little life you carried, grew, gives a connection you want to share. There they are running, chasing, laughing with happiness. Along side that life the heat of delight flows right through every parental sinew.
After we told the children and coped with the shock and despair from the little one, the family settled into a new routine. He takes them every weekend to his new place. They become his alone. His problem to deal with. As lonely and empty as that gave me, I was fully aware I had from Friday till Sunday free, to find the new me.
Appropriately to keep with the nostalgia theme after my last post my cousin, Theresa -Terri, got in touch. Cousins are the relations placed in a cupboard only taken out for family celebration. You dust them down and animate them with promises of more regular contact. Good intentions and life have the habit of being on the wrong motorway, at every junction you think you should leave and meet but the bright lights of direct family keep you in the middle lane thinking ‘maybe the next exit’. She messaged offering condolences over the breakup and congratulations on the writing. We chatted on the phone, and I agreed to visit her last weekend.
On the outskirts of a town, that has no need for a name, in a small close, and sat behind a tall hedge, a detached house. The front garden set to park two cars. A new Jaguar and a BMW both gleamed in the late morning sun. The BMW with the personalized number plate THE ONE was obviously belonged to Terri. It made me smile. With close to a decade since her mother had slipped away from the coil and not one for engaging with social media, I was slightly surprised when the short blonde-haired lady opened the door to me. She flung her arms around me in a long hug before she invited me into her home. Her shoulders had gotten broader, and the squeeze of her arms spoke of strength. She was always a few inches shorter than me, yet I felt weakened by her presence. I always did. The dress, dark blue pulled in tight around her wide waist, balloon out making me a little ashamed of my chosen jeans and jumper combo.
She showed me around her delicately furnish home. A world of two brings sparse decoration, shining surfaces and clean clear lines. A show home feel yet full of personality. The house had an absence, outside of the pictures, of one husband. She told me, “I sent him for an early round of golf just so we can catch up. He jumped at the chance to spend time with his golf friend. Although he had to get up early to do the housework first.”
She did not say it directly, but the implication was there. My marriage broke down because I fell into the wife role too easily. I should have dominated my husband instead of the other way round. But that was her not me. When it came to men, she was a force of nature, a storm that blew past sweeping up the man of her choice into her wake. The men were not alone in her storm, as we chatted, I found myself caught within her personality. We told our stories again. She told more than I. I had no desire for secrets nor any ability to keep them from her. Most conversations were just lower slopes of mountains dedicated to her. Even the austere Bach cello music she played in the background had the effect of weakening me to her.
I met her husband when they got married and in the fashion of those sort of days, I could not say I knew him at all. Jerry Scott had kept his figure, slim and taller than I by a few inches, had a smile that disarmed with an endearing crookedness. He shook my hand, before pulling me in for a hug. “I do love your writing,” he said with a matter of fact that later would think false, but I believed instantly.
“Good round of golf,” Teri asked but without feeling.
He smiled broadly at her and kissed her cheek. “Marvelous, dear. I got five birdies.”
“Hmm, good,” her smile was curt, “I am sure Mia, and I would like some lunch now.”
Happily, he wandered out the room.
“It is best not to engage him with golf, his anecdotes go on a little too long. He is obsessed with the game.”
“Everyone needs a hobby,” I told her casually. “He looks after you though?”
She gave me the look. One she had developed a long time ago, pre-puberty, which said I am always in control. Followed by a broad smile, “He knows what is good for him.”
Over dinner the small talk ended. Jerry had made pasta with a delicious source, and some decided delectable meatballs. I asked for the recipe but a tap on the nose and a shake of his head told me he would leave wanting. Teri did not respond.
She started on me. “You are a divorcee now,” as I nodded, she went on, “I think it is time for you to find your bounce.”
“I am not ready for that yet,” I told her as firmly as I could muster while my mouth, brain and stomach were jigging to the food. “One of my closest friends says I should, how to put this, err, find happiness in physicality. Another says I should be a nun for a while.”
“While both are good stratagems for mental health, it is about what you want. There is a third way. The bounce.”
I looked across at Jerry. He looked like he was not listening, just enjoying his food. “Teri,” I said, “if you mean what I think you mean.”
“I do,” she told me cutting me off. “The intensity, the blindness, the feelings of that burn of love and desire. But knowing all the time that at it’s peak, you will turn and walk away. Taking all the pain, fresh and delectable as a substitute to be rid of the trauma of the slow decline of your marriage.”
“You are not selling it to me.”
“Control my darling.” She took a mouthful of food and slowly let the flavours devour her sense of taste. Looking at her husband she smiled and reached her hand over to him. “If I could package you, I would sell you and make millions.” Turning to me she went on, “He will not give me his recipe. I had to marry him, and he still would not share.”
“It is with the solicitor as part of my will. You know you will outlive me.”
Back to me, “Where was I?” She filled her fork, lifted it, replaced it on the plate. “Yes, I remember. Control. You know that is my thing. What the bounce does gives you back the control you have lost. Walking away when it is at the most powerful point, gives you the power. Knowing that you will allows you to really let go and fill your boots. Get those emotions pumping like they did when we were teenagers.” She winked at me. “I was thinking of setting you up for tonight. But do you know what, you do not need that. You will find the one.”
That was my weekend. We chatted, reconnected. By the time I left the next day, I felt refreshed with a new goal.
Sharing a snap of their lives, that couple without children made me appreciate what life could have been. Financially rich, their lives showed their spending power. They both earned excellent salaries and they spent with taste and discernment.
The hedonistic marriage they enjoyed, pleasing themselves alone, even to the extent to hinting that ‘opened the marital bed’ at times. Although, I have to say if it was an invite to me (see link) it was too subtle for me to consider. They had weekly date nights in sumptuous restaurants, copious amounts of weekend breaks in cities far and wide, with three luscious luxury holidays a year, they filled me with envy. All filling physical needs that can only be supplied with cash. Cold, hard cash never fills your soul or refreshes your spirit.
Driving home, I longed for my children. The frustration building that the empty home awaited me. The thoughts of my children in their spaces trickle filled my soul. As the house drew near my spirit refilled with images of first words, first steps, and the look of love they occasionally showed for each other.
No matter how I rebuilt my connection with my past self, my children were always my future. Terri knew the single me, her advice was valid to my search. My glorious new friends only knew Mia – wife and mother – so gave me how they survived break up. I would never be as hedonistic as I was in my youth, young Mia was rising.
My search for my bounce had to begin. My driveway beckoned, a man’s face popped into my head. I barely knew him, but already he had crossed my thoughts. Cold Mia said, “Target acquired.”
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I welcome any comments or ideas that you have about marriage, divorce and post divorce life. Have you experienced the bounce or been on the receiving end of the bounce. Falling in love is a dramatic and intense experience. One we all hope to go through. Sometimes that love does not last, coming out from one relationship into another can cause those emotions to be intensified. So when the end comes, it is always more painful.
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