Don’t think twice – it’s alright

Over the last ten days, I’ve drunk too much, stayed up too late, and reconnected with old friends. Saturday night, I drank and dined with three friends – the most recent of whom I’ve been friends with since I was 14. By which time I’d been friends with the other two for seven years already. Sunday, I drank with a new friend, of just a few months. Thursday, lunch with another friend since I was seven, and drinks with L (whom I first met seven years ago). Tonight, drinks with another friend of similar vintage. Tomorrow, I’ll see dozens of old friends at a birthday party for a friend of thirty years.

Topics, lately, include aging, death, sex, divorce, marriage. Pretty much in that order.

Marriage is complicated, for most people, it seems. Not for me. I’m lucky that way. Though I’ve been through (taken my marriage through) the wars, today, my marriage is pretty easy. I can’t say enough about it, and, in spite of that, I rarely say anything about it.

Here’s the thing: as I sat, tonight, listening to a friend tell me about the dissolving mess that is her marriage, and as I sat the other night, listening to L tell me about hers, and on those other days with those other friends – all of whose marriages are, by all outward appearance, successes – I couldn’t help thinking: I won.

And I did.

2 comments

  1. Distasteful framing N.
    Gratitude, and recognizing your wealth is good- putting it into win/loss terms is unkind. Since when is marriage/ life something you win? The win/loss dichotomy is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

    1. I apologize. I see why you responded as you did, though I didn’t mean what you thought I did. I’m not saying anyone else is losing. In fact, quite the opposite. In a way, I think we all win, almost by definition: we seek the configurations we crave. I’m not saying mine is better. I’m saying it’s the best one for me. But I see why you read what I wrote as you did. My bad. I’m sorry.

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