A Friend is like a Good Bra…

Hard to find

Supportive

Comfortable

Always lifts you up

Never lets you down

Or leaves you hanging

And is always close to your heart!

I also received this as an email from my friend Jackie, but neither had the author, so if anyone knows who wrote this, please email me in the comments or at: menupause2006@yahoo.com.

Friendship is always important, and especially during the rough and tough times of divorce and its aftermath.

(All the photos are from the second half of our vacation, visiting family. These were taken in Venice, California, so names because of the canals we walked around and took pictures of the lovely gardens and homes.)

When going through a divorce, happiness seems fleeting. Eventually, when the dust settles and you can focus on where next, happiness will pop up at unexpected times. These Ten Keys by one of my favorite authors, Deepak Chopra, M.D., may help you reach a level of happiness that has eluded you.
The information is from Quantum Publications, © 1992. (I shortened some of the keys.)

1) Listen to your body’s wisdom, which expresses itself through the signals of discomfort. If the body sends a signal of physical or emotional strength, watch out! If the body responds with joy and comfort—go for it!

2) Live in the moment. The present is the only moment you have. Have psychological acceptance totally and completely that this present moment is as it should be.  Don’t struggle against the Universe.

3) Take time to be silent, to quieten the inner dialogue, to be guided by your intuition, rather than externally impose interpretations of what is or is not good.

4) Relinquish your need for approval.  There is great freedom in that choice.

5) When you find yourself reacting with anger or violence to any person. situation, or circumstance–recognize that you struggle only against yourself. Don’t be so hard on yourself.

6) Know that those you react to strongly, whether you love them or hate them, are reflections of yourself. Use the mirror of relationship to guide your own spiritual evolution.

7) Shed the burden of judgment—you will feel much lighter.

8)  Don’t contaminate your body with toxins—through food, drink, or toxic emotions.

9) Replace fear-motivated behavior with love-motivated behavior.

10) Understand that the physical world mirrors the process in your own consciousness.  Cleaning up the environment is worthwhile, but even more important is the flushing of toxic ideas that contaminate the human mind.

Yesterday I did a posting on Friendship under Profiles on my other site. After I posted it, I realized that friends are always important, and especially during hard times, like divorce.

So I invite you to go to www.menupause.info and click on Profiles and then on Feedback, since four  of my friends in the posting wrote me and I posted their comments.

Have a lovely week-end. The posting may give you a boost!

A few months ago I cam across a blurb about a book called Split: A Memoir of Divorce by novelist Suzanne Finnamore. As it turns out, this was the third book in a trilogy, the first two being Otherwise Engaged and The Zygote Chronicles. I read the books out of order, but I will review them in order. Otherwise Engaged was published in 1999 by Knopf, The Zygote Chronicles was published in 2002 by Grove Press, and Split was published in 2008 by Dutton.

While the books are considered to be novels, they seem autobiographical, because the first book says that the author lives in northern California with her husband and son, while the third book notes that she lives in northern California with her son. No mention of a husband. So, my conclusion is that this trilogy, which spans nine years, is actually her life as an engaged, married, and divorced woman. (In the last book, the writer is clearly writing about herself.)

Finnamore has a sharp wit and an edgy way of writing about these three important events in her life: getting engaged and marrying, struggling to get pregnant, and then dealing with a divorce she did not initiate.  Perhaps the best way to show you her writing style is to list some quotes as well as a comment or two from the book flaps.

In about 210 pages of Otherwise Engaged, the author leads us through the angst of planning a wedding, which the inside cover calls “the excruciating ritual otherwise known as modern marriage.” Here are three excerpts that I hope display her quirky humor:

“We went to look at rings together, at Shreve’s……I found it last week, when I cased the place alone….It’s a carat, in a simple four-prong solitaire setting. That’s a lie. It’s .81 carat. I round up.” (p. 13)

“A warm night, the scent of wet leaves sidling in the open window. We are in bed with our laptop computers.  It’s the new sex.” (p. 127)

After putting on socks to walk around in her wedding shoes, Finnamore writes, ” I hobble around the house. Michael sees the shoes, but I don’t care. We won’t have any good luck anyway. I think about backing out. But shoes don’t seem enough of a reason.” (p. 204).

Otherwise Engaged, which Mademoiselle Magazine called “bitchy, bold, and brilliant,” is available on line at Amazon.com. Just click on the icon below.

The Zygotes Chronicles is the second book in Finnamore’s trilogy and deals with her efforts to become pregnant in her mid-thirties. On the inside flap the book is described as the author’s “singular version of the next leg of her journey (after marriage) —a riotous and poignant novel in journal form that takes us from conception to delivery room.”

In her now familiar sassy, smart alecky style, Finnamore writes about her efforts to conceive and all that happens in between, including her ups and downs at work, until she finally finds herself birthing a son named Pablo.  Here are a couple of quotes from this 125-page book:

“I’m going to tell you about us, so you won’t feel uniformed later. Ignorance is the backbone of oppression.” (p. 5- talking to her unborn baby.)

“Now that I’ve come out as a breeding woman, I feel concern…I may have to compensate in some way. I may have to start going to meetings.” (p. 15)

“I worry that I will become nothing at all…..I resolve to remain a  person, and not to be sucked into a place from which I am unable to return. The place where so many women go and are never seen again…” (p. 27).

The book ends with Finnamore telling the reader that her baby’s name is Pablo, but his Jewish name is a secret in case someone tries to come and take him back. But she tells her baby, and of course, we read it as well. She says, “Your Jewish name is Chaim. This means life.” (p. 124)

The second book ends with a poem by Rumi, a perfect ending. The Zygote Chronicles is available from Amazon. Click on the icon below. (Note: My photo of this book is an earlier version and not the same cover as the picture above, but the same book.

The third book, Split, the longest of the three by Suzanne Finnamore (253 pages) is the one most of you will probably find relevant, since it is all about the author’s divorce. The book flap describes it well: “At once funny, achingly sad, and unflinchingly fierce, this story will resonate with anyone who has endured the end of a relationship and come out the other side changed.”

The Contents reads like the list that Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross used to describe the phases we go through when  a loved one dies: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Grief, and Acceptance. The comparison is right on, at least for me, because my divorce did feel like a death—the death of my marriage.

On page 15, Suzanne writes in italics: “I didn’t think this would happen to me, I didn’t think it could happen to me, I don’t want it to happen to me.” (I felt the same way, walking around muttering to myself, I can’t be getting a divorce! It can’t be me going through this.)

On p. 29, she writes: “I travel back in time, falling back into what I know for certain, the historical data I cling to in order not to go mad, not assume I made a suicidal and well-informed error in marrying this man.”

In the chapter called Anger, the author writes, “From a distance it looked like a good marriage. I had almost convinced myself it was like that up close.” (p. 70) Here, Finnamore is starting to own up to her true feelings.

The author starts to make lists, like How to Tell a Liar and Techniques to relieve grief (ex. naps and keeping a journal) from what she calls “Bereavement Overload.” (I wrote poems to cope with my grief.)

In Bargaining (Chapter III) Finnamore opens the chapter explaining that she and her estranged husband are reviewing the first draft of their divorce settlement. She writes, “Next to me N (the name for her husband) floats in  parachute of his own design: He wants the divorce, I don’t. He pushed me, I fell. I plummet; he pulls the ripcord and feels a refreshing lack of weight or gravity.” (p. 135)  (The night before my husband left he was very nice to me and I asked him why he was so nice, now. His answer was that now he didn’t have to be responsible for me. He was relieved.)

In the last chapter, Acceptance, we read how Suzanne Finnamore copes with the finality of divorce with these words: “I deserve happiness. And N will always be part of my life, because of A (their son): Nothing is perfect and nothing is wrong.” (p. 242). (I was not as accepting as the author and I admire her for her ability to move into the next part of her life, unencumbered by anger and grief.)

The book ends using the metaphor of the Hale- Bopp comet that appears only every 78 years, so you have to go up the hill to see it. “Because you have to see the comet, and because it is rare and precious, even if it ends.” (p. 253).

Split is available from Amazon by clicking on the icon bellow:

I loved all three of these books, because of Suzanne Finnamore’s honesty,feminism, irreverence, ability to express her feelings, her sense of humor, and her ability to spill her guts without making us feel sorry for her. Rather, I admire her ability to put all her feelings, good and bad, in a chronology that helps us understand her life, identifying with much of what she writes and being proud of the way she handled her divorce. Hats off to Finnamore for a  marvelous, if sometimes difficult, story of life and how to roll with the punches.

Note: Each book is less than $25.

Financial Tips in Moving Forward After Divorce by Cory Aidenman* (Be sure to go to the bottom for Cory’s FREE Divorce Kit link.

With your new position in life, as a divorcee, you are going to find out that financial matters are now in your hands. Perhaps you’ll find yourself needing to wheel and deal as your ex once did with his or her income, and when he or she was in charge of paying the bills and not you, resolving financial issues and perhaps, making financial investment decisions to benefit the future. Taking control of your financial future  is a critical aspect of your new life path.

Being single does not necessarily mean that you have to be down on your luck with the finances. This should be another goal to put into place: to become financially secure in the future. Having a job doesn’t not mean that you are financially secure, but saving a little something for yourself from the income is security. Make a financial budget plan and stick with it, putting a little money aside for safe keeping and the future. I was always amazed at how independent, strong women of yesterday, back in the earlier part of the 20th Century, how they went about stuffing their extra money into cookie jars, or 20 dollar bills hidden in obscure places that they had saved up, and no one knew of this financial secret except she herself. She was making sure she wasn’t broke if and when an emergency came about, or if her husband suddenly left her. She was prepared.

This is the attitude you should have when it comes to you and your money. After all, if you have children, they are always needing and wanting something that only money can buy. But again, since you are the head of the family finances, you will have to realize that you will have to spend wisely if you don’t want to be single and broke. I remember my uncle telling me a long time ago, right after high school and when I had got my first real job, he said, “You worked hard all week for that money, now pay yourself.” He wanted me to pay myself out of my own paycheck, with the leftovers going into savings.

Surprisingly, over a period of time, those little paychecks way back then, created a little something, allowing me to purchase my first car with the money I was saving. That was good advice, and now I pass it along to you. Always save for a rainy day, because you never know what is going to happen in life. Just Tom Hanks said in the Forrest Gump, “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get.” Always be prepared. No one can take care of your future but you. No one can attain your goals but you.

*About the Author

Cory Aidenman has been married three times and divorced twice.  After a disastrous first divorce, she discovered many divorce tactics that led to a ‘Successful Divorce’.  Click on the link for a free $97 Divorce Survival Kit:
http://DivorcingSurvival.com/ -  Survive Divorce Free Report. I just did!

Here are more tidbits or health flashes that I have gathered in the last few months. Some were sent by friends and some i found on the ‘Net, while others are from magazines. When I have a source, I add it at the beginning or the end of the flash.

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