And while you’re pressing forward in your unexpected life and striving to create and live your “happily ever after,” remember you’re not alone. (Despite the fact it may feel that way sometimes.)
It’s your story, of course, but you’ve got help writing it. I think the master storyteller, Hans Christian Andersen, expressed it best: “Every man’s life is a fairy tale written by God’s fingers.”
“At a formal dinner party, the person nearest death should always be seated closest to the bathroom.” (George Carlin)
Or the person who got dumped. Just in case she needs to throw up.
While everyone dished food onto their plates and sat down to eat dinner, I discreetly went up to my bathroom and threw up! I did not want to go down to dinner, but I also didn’t want anyone to know anything was amiss. So I returned to the table, put a small amount of food on my plate, took one bite, tried to swallow and was quickly back upstairs for a second time.
As I lay on my bathroom floor, willing myself to feel better so I could rejoin the group and pretend everything was normal, I only had one thought: How am I going to live without him?
I couldn’t remember ever thinking that about a man before.
When I got engaged for the first time (in 1989) my aunt called to congratulate me and asked, “Tell me, can you live without him?” and my arrogant, youthful pride led me to respond, “Absolutely. I survived my dad dying. I can live without anyone.” And I thought I could. I married, and was happily married, for 20 years until Shawn Merriman revealed his Ponzi scheme, crimes and other betrayals which resulted in our divorce. But honestly, looking back at the time my life was collapsing in 2009, I remember being appalled at what my former husband had done, being terrified of government agents and prison for him and wondering how my children and I would live, but I don’t remember wondering how I would live without HIM. (Maybe His misdeeds, betrayals, and the selfishness, pride and greed that led to such overwhelming destruction took care of any feelings like that? Or maybe it’s because I feel differently about #5 than any other man I’ve ever known?)
Regardless, I lay on my bathroom floor crying, wondering how I was going to live without #5, knowing I’d come to the realization of how I truly felt about him WAY TOO LATE. He had dumped me. And I couldn’t even bear to think about what it was going to do to my kids, especially my youngest, who had just lost another “daddy” before he even started kindergarten.
“In kindergarten that used to be my job, to tell them fairytales. I liked Hans Christian Andersen, and the Grimm fairy tales, all the classic fairy tales.” (Francis Ford Coppola)
“Fortune knocks at every man’s door once in a life, but in a good many cases the man is in a neighboring saloon and does not hear her.” (Mark Twain)
Living an unexpected life, I can’t help but sometimes compare the “then” to the now.
Here’s one: fortune cookies.
When I was married, my former spouse had a hostility toward certain things. (And of course, criminal tendencies that have now been revealed or not, as with all people, it’s never what you expect.) Shawn Merriman felt anger toward fortune cookies. The sight of them on the tray at the end of an Asian meal upset him. To have someone read their fortune out loud from the scrap of paper they removed from the crisp cookie shell made him mad. I believe his venom toward the end-of-meal treat stemmed from his mother’s propensity to consult real fortune tellers for prophecies about her life, and that she made plans and lived according to the information they divined–something he completely disagreed with.
Whatever the reason for his hostility, and for the sake of peace and harmony in our relationship, home and family, I gave them up. I didn’t look at or read a fortune from a fortune cookie, for most of the 20 years I was married. Then I got divorced.
A year ago my sister came to town and took my daughter and me to a Chinese restaurant for lunch. When the meal was over, the fortune cookies came. My sister grabbed one, opened hers and read it. My daughter and I did the same. That small event was so huge to me, I recorded it in my journal–not as a defiance of my former spouse and the old life I had lived, as evidence of things from the life of Andrea Christensen I was embracing again–and the crazy single woman I had become. I hadn’t read a fortune cookie in decades.
My fortune cookie revealed, “Someone from your past will happily enter your life.”
So I saved it.
I even put it in my wallet!
I knew I was crazy, and my behavior toward the fortune cookie’s prediction proved it.
Things changed, again, with Bachelor #5. He gave me an entirely new perspective, even with fortune cookies. He not only reads cookie fortunes, he adds certain phrases to the end of them as he reads them out loud, and laughs! His fortunes have opened up whole new realms of possibilities for me. Lol.
Speaking of fortunes, here are some helpful ones for the unexpected, single life. Wisdom I offer to all from a knowledgeable and trusted source: the fortune cookie.
“Every man is a volume if you know how to read him.” (The problem is knowing the language they speak, as evidenced by the international set of bachelors AND by the love language every bachelor speaks–but that is another blog post in itself!)
“Your secret admirer will soon appear.” (Just watch out for stalkers!)
“You are surrounded by fortune hunters.” (That is true for women AND men. I’ll never forget the man who told me he didn’t mind that I had four kids, “As long as they’re provided for by someone else.”)
“Behind an able man, there are always other able men.” (Helpful to remember as you’re looking for your Mr. Awesome and haven’t found him yet. Don’t give up. If he was out there for me, he is out there for you!)
And last but not least: “Answer just what your heart prompts you.” (Useful for you-know-when; THE moment; THE PROPOSAL.)
In fairy tales and real life.
“Life itself is the most wonderful fairy tale of all.” (Hans Christian Andersen)
