A Novel Idea

Writing a novel seems like such a demanding and complex undertaking, I've never seriously considered doing it. Where does a novelist start? How do you get from A to Z in an artful, or even interesting, way? How can you sustain interest in something for so long for both the reader and the writer? How can you make the daily commitment of breathing life into your novel without eventually getting bored and just shoving it in a drawer, never to see the light of day again? I have anxiety even making the commitment to watch a new tv show every week, much less taking on the daunting task of creating a novel.

I've come to believe that making a marriage or any long-term relationship work is as difficult as writing a novel. Admittedly, I haven't been successful at either one, which, I realize, makes me sound like I'm full of shit. And maybe I am. (As if *that's* ever stopped me from talking out of my ass.) If I *had* known marriage would be as hard and as complicated as writing a novel, I don't know if I would have actually gotten married. At the very least, I would have given the idea of marriage much more thought than the brief consideration that I did. Truth be told, my marriage was as ill-considered as the plot to a movie about high school cheerleaders trying to raise money by having a carwash.

If marriage is similar to writing a novel, then divorce is stopping in the middle and giving up on it. Or, as in my case, throwing the 400-page unfinished manuscript in the fireplace and burning the only copy of a story featuring two main characters I no longer liked. One of the most difficult aspects of writing a novel is going back and ruthlessly revising a story that isn't quite working. As my novelist friends have shared, it's brutal having to revise your work, because it's often the most cherished stuff you've written that needs to be cut. I think any long-term marriage needs that brutal, but necessary, revision in order to survive. Even then, the revision isn't always enough to make it worthwhile.  

I've heard that one of the big psychological "tricks" to successfully tackling a gigantic project like a novel, is to have a general idea of what you want to accomplish, but to be okay with not knowing exactly how you'll do it, and believing that you can get there by writing one page at a time. Serial double-digit novelist Orson Scott Card once said, "You can't write a novel all at once, any more than you can swallow a whale in one gulp. You do have to break it up into smaller chunks."

And that's how I'm trying to reframe my approach to long-term relationships. Instead of being hung up on whether I'm in a relationship that has the stuff to survive the next 30 years, I'm breaking it down into bite-sized pieces by looking at what I want and need in a relationship over the next year and the next five years. I'm banking on the idea that by paying close attention to the now and the soon, I will be in the best position to nurture a satisfying relationship that can survive merciless revision, as well as my own skittishness about marriage.

I don't know if that will work, but I do know that I will write a novel before I get married again. I can also state with equal certainty, I will be appointed the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan before I get married again. That's not to say I won't write a novel. I may, in fact, write one. I just won't be married when I do it.

How I Finally Made Peace With My Big Ass

I have a long-term relationship that has haunted me ever since I was a teenager. It's a love-hate relationship that has cast a long shadow over my dating history and has affected other parts of my life too. I am referring to my formerly ambivalent, often negative relationship with my body.

Since one of my longtime hobbies seems to be torturing myself, I would often compare my body to women who were born with a classic model physique: tall and statuesque, with long slender legs. With a short and stocky natural build, I *always* came up short in my impossible comparison with the classic tall, thin woman. Even though I liked certain things about my body -- my strong arms, for example -- I almost always felt ashamed of my curves, which I thought were too "excessive."  Too much ass and thigh, not enough leg.

My ass, in particular, was a near-constant source of embarrassment to me. It's always been "too much," sticking out and making a spectacle of itself like a well meaning, but mortifying aunt, who can't stop flirting with anyone and everyone, even when she's at church. I was so neurotic about it, I sometimes felt the urge to back out of a room, because I didn't want my ass -- exasperating in its excessive size and emphatically round shape -- to be the last thing people would see as I left the room.

As I got older, I became frustrated that no restrictive diet or amount of exercise could "sculpt" me into the body I thought I wanted, the body I assumed was automatically attractive to all men. I would occasionally hear that men were physically attracted to lots of different female body types, even though popular culture rarely reflects that idea. While intellectually I accepted that idea as fact, deep down emotionally, I never really believed it. I thought that any man would have his own specific body-type preferences, but in the event that a tall, thin model showed up in his life (because, you know, *that* happens all the time), he would automatically choose her, no matter what his "real-life" preference might be.

A few years ago, I had a realization that galloped into my head and finally put to rest my neurotic thoughts about my body (well, *most* of my neurotic thoughts). It was prompted by my lifelong love of horses, an obsession of mine for as long as I can remember. As a typical horse-crazy girl, I read everything I could about horses, drew them all the time, and rode whenever I had the chance. Even though I developed a great love for Thoroughbred race horses in particular, I have many favorite breeds of horse, not just Thoroughbreds. I love Clydesdales, those big draft horses strong enough to pull a plow through rock-hard ground, as well as the Icelandic horse, a small, but sturdy breed that thrives in the harsh climate of Iceland. I would not want the Clydesdale or the Icelandic horse to look more like the tall, statuesque Thoroughbred with skinny legs. I love the way they look just as they are.

And that's when I realized if *I* were a horse, I would be an Icelandic horse. I come from small, sturdy Scandinavian stock, who survived long cold winters, avalanches, wild moose, and bland food. I am not a Thoroughbred, but I am a small, beautiful Icelandic horse. With a big ass. And that's ok.

The Awkweirdness of DAD

"If anything ever happened to [my husband], I would have to date the UPS man--someone who came to my door," said my childhood friend thinking about the "unthinkable" prospect of trying to date again in the middle of middle age. I laughed, recognizing my own similar reaction right after my marriage imploded. The idea of going out into the world to actively look for someone to date who might turn out to be "for keeps," seemed as unlikely and overwhelming a prospect as the idea that any of those Kardashian princesses would be able to remain married to the same guy for any significant length of time. My house plants have lasted longer than their relationships.

Dating again after the Rumpelstiltskin nap of a long marriage is "awkweird," both awkward and weird at the same time. Humbling as well. After decades of believing my dating days were over and behind me, it's been surreal to jump in again. I am struck by the similarity of my experience to the blind man who, after years of living without the use of his eyes, miraculously gets his sight back. While the benefits of regaining one's sight are obvious to those of us who see, the transition to using your eyes to help navigate the world is almost always not smooth. Apparently, you have to retrain your brain to incorporate the data you receive from your eyes with the data from your other senses. It takes time and patience to readjust to your new reality.

And so it is with DAD (dating after divorce). As you learn to navigate the world of dating again, the real trick is not understanding the external changes in the dating scene. It's recognizing how *you've* changed, how your marriage changed you. Like the once-blind person struggling to make sense of the visual static in his brain, I work at recognizing my emotional static and deciphering what it really means.