Living Happily Ever After

test123

Blog Articles

A P.S. To The News

Lesson from the unexpected life:  ”Never floss with a stranger.” (Joan Rivers) Or even friend them!

The first time I did a media interview regarding my unexpected life and what I had learned, I was overwhelmed by the (mostly) positive response to what I shared. Many kind people, most of them strangers to me, even a few of my former husband’s Ponzi scheme victims that I’d never known, contacted me with kind comments.

The following day I received many Facebook friend requests–from men I didn’t know.

I admit, I was a little clueless. I looked at the pictures that accompanied their requests and wracked my brain for their connection to me. I couldn’t figure out how my mind was so blank regarding people I knew. (I had to know them, I mean, they knew a lot of personal stuff about me!) I kept thinking, “The shock of my unexpected life has caused a brain freeze! How do I not recognize people I know?” I was embarrassed to admit I couldn’t remember them, but finally told one man, “I’m so sorry. You’re going to think I’m crazy, but I can’t remember how we know each other. Will you remind me?”

“Oh, we don’t know each other,” he explained. “I just saw your story on the news and I’m divorced…”

OH.

I never expected that.

I learned a lot from that first interview. So much, that I knew what to expect from the NBC affiliate KSL Channel 5 interview last week. The day following the story, true to form, I received several friend requests from men I didn’t recognize. This time, I was prepared. I knew I didn’t know them, so I didn’t respond. However, one of the men looked like the camera man who filmed our interview with Jennifer Stagg (at least, that’s who I thought he was!) so I accepted his request–and got a very nice follow-up message from him praising my appearance and…some other things. OOPS. It wasn’t the camera man after all! Just another unexpected experience in the unexpected life.

“It’s no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.” (Mark Twain)

Isn’t that the truth?

“Oh, How Nice!”

“The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year.” (Mark Twain)

Actually, it was the first of March…but it showed me pretty much the same thing April was bound to.

Our first Sunday back at church after our honeymoon, our pastor asked #5 and I to address our congregation the following week. The Sunday of our assigned talks, I gave mine and sat down. I was followed by #5, who gave an excellent and heartfelt talk and ended it by expressing his love and gratitude for his wife; thanking her for her good example and for all she had taught him.

I sat there watching #5 conclude his talk, listening to him express his love and gratitude for his wife, and never thinking a thing of it–other than to think to myself in a very detached way (like I did the entire time I was single), “Oh, how nice. That man is married and that man loves his wife.”

He finished, turned to sit down and then suddenly it hit me:  Wait! He was talking about ME! I was HIS wife!

Married two weeks, and I’d already forgotten who my husband was! I’d found adjusting to being single after 20 years of marriage very difficult. I never imagined that the fulfillment of my dream–to find an amazing man, fall in love and remarry–would be an adjustment, too! But apparently it was going to be, since I experienced a total brain freeze about being married again just two weeks into it!

Second marriage moment #3.

“If it’s hard to remember, it’ll be difficult to forget.” (Arnold Schwarzenegger)

Thank goodness my forgetfulness only lasted a moment.:)