Everyone around me seems to be talking about weddings…or showing me their huge sparklers, or talking about wedding dresses, or even getting married, including the two weddings of friends this Saturday just past.
(Although at the one I attended, one of the groom’s friends took his underwear off at the table half way through the meal – yes he was wearing a kilt – and threw it at the top table to the delight of the bride. Oh and one of the groomsmen’s girlfriends was so drunk she could be audibly heard swearing throughout the elderly bride’s father’s speech. Now that is a Scottish wedding with class)
Anyways, people panic when they realised I’ve just got divorced. This is despite the fact that most of them know that I’m about to move in with The Boy (1 month to go!) and that my marriage ended 8 years ago. It seems I am not allowed back on the list of people who should be leaping for the bouquet list just yet. That as a recent divorcee I don’t deserve the chance to get married again (or even the romance of getting engaged), that I have to wait out a suitable period of mourning before I can get back on the waiting for a ring train. That if I was lucky enough to get married once, I shouldn’t consider a 2nd.
(Or maybe it’s actually because I’ve decided that as a divorcee I am allowed to consider wearing a black ‘rock chic style’ wedding dress especially as The Boy wants to wear a black 21st Century style kilt. Look, we’d look hot, not like Goths at all. Honest, stop looking at me like that)
To be honest, I didn’t think id ever be at this point where I was thinking that a 2nd marriage would be a good thing. I’d spent so long hating the fact that once I got divorced I could get proposed to that I didn’t do it the whole time I was with the LTE. (…and then I moan when he proposed to someone else as soon as we broke up, yes, I know how stupid I sound). But I am. I think finally i’ve grown up and accepted that instead of my marriage failure being my fault, that my first foray into the wedded world was doomed from the start.
Many people marry for the wrong reasons, among them 1) to overcome loneliness, 2) to escape an unhappy parental home, 3) because they think that everyone is expected to marry, 4) because only “losers” who can’t find someone to marry stay single, 5) out of a need to parent, or be parented by another person, 6) because they got pregnant, 7) because “we fell in love,”…
Or like us, decided to get hitched after drinking shots 4 hours, 3 weeks after we got together. Ahem. Look I felt like a celebrity, looking back it was more white trash than being divorced at 30. Anyways, I’ve come to believe in this, more than anything recently
A good marriage is at least 80 percent good luck in finding the right person at the right time. The rest is trust.
…and the first step is trusting the fact that you will find someone.
My d.i.v.o.r.c.e came through on Friday. I’ve found this a little hard to talk about as despite the fact it’s been a very long time coming, I’ve found out it is rather taboo. If someone is happy with their situation, then surely this is all that matters? Disapproving faces are not needed. Thankyouverymuch.
Anyway, that said, I guess the emotion I’m feeling isn’t really a celebratory type of happiness exactly, it’s more relief (especially as his goodbye message consisted of “cheerio then…”)…going to a wedding the day after I received my decree wasn’t exactly the best timing tho, but it was lovely. Despite everything I’m not a cynic, i still believe that love can endure. It just needs work, work that i wasn’t willing at 22 to put in.
Scarily I also received a letter from the NHS letting me know my little ‘problem’ has come back. Or not gone away. Whatever, I have another 6 months to wait to find out if I have to go back to have more removed. Yes, this is also a little taboo to talk about, but thousands of other girls are going through the same thing as me right now, I’m nothing special, but thank god for the NHS for keeping on top of this for me. Screening is there to prevent cervical cancer. Don’t ignore it.
So, today i am really trying to not let things get on top of me. The boy and I are planning doing up my wee flat to make it ‘ours’, choosing paint colours and sideboards and rugs and armchairs is relaxing me and giving me hope for a good future for me. The last 10 years of my life are over; It’s time to start afresh.
“it was that you can’t ascribe great cosmic significance to a simple earthly event. Coincidence. That’s all anything ever is. Nothing more than coincidence”
I asked the first if i could buy him a drink, drank him under the table, took him home, sent him to his home, disappeared for 6 weeks, came back, found his number on a card through the door and went ‘out’ with him for 18 months. 10 years later i got over him (after getting under him regularly over the years).
I asked the second his name as i was guarding the guest list at a club. 3 weeks later we were engaged and toured the clubs blagging free champagne, a year later we were married, bought a house, hated each other, broke up. 10 years later we are about to be divorced.
The third i met at my first day on a new job, i teased him about missing a club night – one of his and my favourite hip hop djs. We became friends. About a year later someone pushed us towards each other pointing out that we regularly shared a bed, why not more. There was more. 4 years later we had fallen out of love, out of bed, out of time. A year after that we finally plucked up the courage to leave.
The fourth i never even noticed at a party at my house as i was too busy drinking tequila. He texted me whilst i was on a family holiday alone and in the worst place possible. I agreed to a date despite not really remembering what he looked like. We went camping and rode on the back of his motorcycle. 9 months later i realised i would never love him the way he wanted me to and i left.
The fifth i remember everything about our meeting. I told him he had beautiful eyes. He thought i was stealing his tequila. We kissed 30 minutes later. My best mate gave him a lift home the next day. He came back 4 hours later. We have been through ups and downs, but 2 years later i still think about that night.
So, what if I’d gone to the movies? What if I had gone somewhere else for lunch? What if I’d gotten there 10 minutes later? It was – it was meant to be. And… I just kept thinking…
We both turned around at the same time.
(quotes from (500) Days of Summer)
I have spent most of this week in a nippy mood. You know the kind, nippy enough to have a glass of wine and chocolate but too nippy for this to cure it. The nippiness has upped the stomping around, shouting at the poor cats for excessive cat hair and the swear box now has enough money to buy a Louboutin. Just the one, which is kinda pointless.
On top of the nippiness I have found myself annoyed immensely by little things. I’ve been avoiding writing all the things that have made me annoyed this week as, to be honest, writing them is making me even more annoyed. However, the thought of an Orwellian end to the following is slowly putting a smile back on my face…
I won tickets to a party last night through Twitter (free pink prosecco – win) but on turning up at said party, I was dismayed to be met at the door by a greater who asked “are you here for the Facebook party?”
I wanted to scream, scream and scream some more.
No I was not there for the Facebook party. I was there for the Missoni Hotel ‘Modern Italia lets get people into our hotel party’ which had been advertised (cleverly I must add) through Twitter and Facebook.
But what the marketing company didn’t seem to have grasped that this clever use of social networking had been ruined by the assumption that people who use Twitter and Facebook are going to the event because of the networking site, not the party itself. I might be a snob, but I would not go to something advertised as a ‘Facebook party’, nor would a lot of people I know. The sites are not the party; it is the party itself that is the party (if you get what I mean)
So, sort it out marketing people.
This however, does not include Twestivals, which I fully support. The Edinburgh Twestival is tonight – you can buy your tickets here.
P.S this is not a critism of the Missoni Hotel, as an aside, I really liked the hotel, the ‘on tap’ Prosecco was lovely and if i liked cauliflower soup i am sure that i would have said the same about the food. I will be going back, so the point of the party actually worked – unless they ban me after this blog post!