When it comes to the turmoil of peoples lives, I try to listen more than talk. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Everyone’s life has innumerable nuances, countless surprises sitting like little booby-traps waiting to blow up anyone’s smug, solipsistic assumptions about the lives of others. I’ve made great sport out of impaling the drooling cretins of the lefty alt-media on some of the untold pitfalls of my own life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I try not to judge people in whose shoes I’ve not walked. I’m a person of perhaps excessive empathy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But I read this woman’s story, and I just have to ask…:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nI didn\u2019t have a\u00a0secret life. But I had a secret dream life\u2014which might have been worse. I loved my husband; it\u2019s not that I didn\u2019t. But I felt that he was standing between me and the world, between me and\u00a0myself<\/em>. Everything I experienced\u2014relationships, reality, my understanding of my own identity and desires\u2014were filtered through him before I could access them. The worst part was that it wasn\u2019t remotely his fault; this is probably exactly what I asked him to do when we were 21 and first in love, even if I never said it out loud. To shelter me from the elements; to be caring and broad-shouldered. But now it was like I was always on my tiptoes, trying to see around him. I couldn\u2019t see, but I could imagine. I started imagining other lives. Other homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What is it with divorced women and real estate? After the terrible conversation when I told my husband how I felt, and that I didn\u2019t think I could change how I felt, I read Dana Spiotta\u2019s new book,\u00a0Wayward<\/em><\/a>, about a woman who realizes she wants to leave her marriage only after she impulsively buys a fixer-upper. I read Deborah Levy\u2019s\u00a0Real Estate<\/em><\/a>, about imagining into existence a home of her own after her children are grown and gone. Meanwhile, I called the real-estate agent who\u2019d sold us our house to tell her that we probably needed to put it back on the market, and she told me all about her own divorce\u2014how long she\u2019d stayed, how hard it was to go, and how she still, decades later, sometimes wondered whether it was the right thing to do. Don\u2019t worry about the house, she said; it\u2019ll sell. This happens all the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I wanted to be thinking about art and sex and politics and the patriarchy. How much of my life\u2014I mean the architecture of my life, but also its essence, my soul, my mind\u2014had I built around my husband? Who could I be if I wasn\u2019t his wife? Maybe I would microdose. Maybe I would have sex with women. Maybe I would write a book. Not a book about real estate!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
…am I the only one just absolutely consumed with hatred for this vapid, trite, entitled, upper-middle-class dilettante-ette?<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When it comes to the turmoil of peoples lives, I try to listen more than talk. Everyone’s life has innumerable nuances, countless surprises sitting like little booby-traps waiting to blow up anyone’s smug, solipsistic assumptions about the lives of others. I’ve made great sport out of impaling the drooling cretins of the lefty alt-media on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-men-and-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=86879"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86881,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86879\/revisions\/86881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=86879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=86879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=86879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}