The Fair-Weather Wife

Back in 2009, a newspaper reporter emailed me from London. She wanted to talk to me about a blog post I had written for my husband’s blog, Please Feed the Animals, which I’d plainly titled, Unemployment and Marriage. She was working on a piece about how the current state of unemployment was effecting relationships and marriages. She had stumbled on my post and wanted to discuss.

So we discussed. Among other things, she asked me if I had ever considered divorcing my husband due to the strain of unemployment. My reply was, no. I hadn’t. I explained that this was my second marriage, and that I took my vows very seriously. Better or worse, richer or poorer, right? Well, this was it. This was marriage. And if I was gonna flip out and leave now, then the whole ceremony and commitment thing becomes kind of a joke.

When I told Erik about the conversation I had had with the reporter, he asked, well, have you ever considered it? Considered what? I asked. Divorce, he said. Again, the truth I replied was, no. And after all was seriously said, we ended up joking about it – and I ended up recalling a Twilight Zone episode (something I often do when life becomes confusing) where a man wakes up one day and realizes he can read everyone’s mind. The scene I recalled, was at a bank. He sees an older kindly-looking employee, at the end of the day, slowly pushing a cart full of cash into the big bank vault. He reads the employee’s mind and discovers that he’s plotting to steal the cash. So the dude flips out. “He’s gonna steal your cash! He’s plotting to steel all of the money!” There’s a kerfuffle and lot’s of crazy-eyed ranting (your standard Twilight Zone stuff)….then when it all calms down, the employee’s like, “Duh, I think about stealing that money everyday, but I’m not gonna do it. I just think about it.”

At which point Erik and I confessed our make-believe divorce contingency plans. (which, I totally differentiate from actual divorce plans) In his plan, he would move out and I would keep the house. He would live in the new condos down by the train station, where all the young cool people live and commute into the city. (Boston at the time) He’d be close to the kids, and we’d get to move on with our lives. Him, going to bars on the weekends with scores and scores of cute young women – me home with the kids, baking cookies. Ironically, my fantasy was quite similar. Only, the cute young girls in my scene didn’t find the fact that he had an ex-wife and 2 kids all that attractive. And I didn’t just stay home and bake cookies….I also drank wine, and watched HGTV on Sunday afternoons.

So anyway,  it was such a provocative question she had asked. It really got me thinking. Maybe if she’d been a therapist probing into the trenches of my brain, or perhaps if it had been in complete confidence, (which would be the exact opposite of a public newspaper) then perhaps, I would have said that it had crossed the abyss of my brain, not the frontal lobe; and never something that would’ve moved me into executive action. Leaving was not an option.

There’s a big difference between playing things out in your mind and being in a place where you’re actually considering it.  And I felt I couldn’t explain that subtlety as I briefly talked the reporter.  All I could picture was telling my husband, “Hey, I got quoted in a paper!”  Then him reading it and saying, “Holy Crap! You want to divorce me?”

I was thinking about this today, because Erik and I had a casual talk about the “state of things.” Indeed, there’s been a lot of stuff that’s happened since then. Erik finished a documentary called, Lemonade. There’ve been plenty of freelance gigs to keep us in the clear. (and enough available credit) There’ve also been lots of possibilities: book, employment site, directing, interviews, blogging, presentations…some coming to fruition / some not. We’ve relocated to Texas, for a couple of reasons, but mostly because the cost of living is so much easier. But that’s the gig isn’t it? If you’re gonna try something new, you gotta make a lot of attempts and see what sticks. And what’s sticking right now is a film he’s working on called Lemonade Detroit. But as any documentary filmmaker knows, it isn’t easy. Funding, working, family, it’s all a lot to balance, if it can be balanced at all.

So, here we are again, in-between gigs. It stresses me out and yet at the same time, his film Lemonade Detroit is really coming together, and it’s beautiful. See, Erik’s high tolerance for risk is only out-matched by my high intolerance for risk. So instead of being a source of boundless support and energy, I turn inward. I worry. Just when Erik needs a cheerleader, I become a hand-wringer. I told him I didn’t want to be such a fair-weather wife. And he said, “you should write about it”. So, I am.

He also told me, “There’s a lot of good stuff happening right now. I know you’ll stop worrying once the money is sorted out and the pendulum swings back up; you’ll be positive and full of support, but when I need it – is right now.” Oh, shit. He’s right. And wow, that sure sucks of me. All my previous talk of for better or worse goes right out the window when you look at it that way. So for a reality check, I watched what some of the Lemonade Detroit Producers are saying. If they have faith, if they believe, and if they know it’s a story worth telling – maybe I could too.

But I’m on the other side of it, and this is what happens. I’m human, I’m a doubter and a worrier. And if all that doubt creeps back in, well, as Sharon Salzberg says about meditation, “Even if you have to restart a million times…that is the practice.”

In my post on Unemployment and Marriage I talked about how much talking about it all helped  -  an open dialogue. That’s what Erik and I had this morning. Fears, reality, consideration….hope, faith, trust.  I re-read that post today. I can hear the conviction in my tone, and the fear. It’s up and down. But the sense I remember as I wrote that post was…..I’m kinda scared, but I know this is gonna be ok.

Time to begin, again.

WOTY?

My husband got laid off about 2 years ago from a big ad agency.  When that happened, he started a blog called Please Feed the Animals. It helped him, and others in the ad community, work through the emotional maze of laid-offdom.  Awhile ago, I contributed some articles to the blog about being married to the person who got laid off.

It was a weird time.  What was happening?  What comes next?  Nothing was the same, nothing was certain.  The jobs just didn’t seem to be what they used to be, and certainly not as plentiful.  So we made a change.  We decided to exit the job (not-so-super) highway and go off-road…

What we discovered, was that there are a lot of other off-roaders out there.  All of us trying to make sense of it, and hopefully make a connection between working life and living life.   Erik was so compelled by some of the other off-roaders’ stories, that he made a documentary called Lemonade.

Thing was, at that point, the easy (sensible) thing for me to do would’ve been to say: “Stop blogging and get a job.  What?  Make a movie?  How?  With what?  Are you new here?  We have a mortgage and 2 kids!”  But for the life of me, I don’t know why I said, “Okay.”  And I just kept saying, “Okay.”  I’m not like that.  It was very very weird – but it just felt like the right thing to do.

It has been uncertain…But sometimes when I see things like the recent comment from PFTA below -  I just feel like this is the right direction:

“Erik: Lemonade and PFTA have had a huge impact on my life. The inspiration I found through both helped me to quit my ad agency in pursuit of something more fulfilling. There are several PFTA posts, The 2 AM Wake Up Call in particular, that forced me to evaluate my situation in a hard, realistic manner. Without reading it, I’m not sure where I’d be at.

My point is PFTA and Lemonade have changed lives. Yours included. And I’m very happy that you now identify as a Documentary Film Maker, evolving with your passion. I think in a way PFTA has always been a space “for all things reinvention”. Yes, of course it was focused on unemployed ad people, but PFTA provided a cathartic experience where many people realized the ad agency life was killing them. This realization generated reinvention and this reinvention changed perceptions and took down the walls that had previously deemed our passions unrealistic.

I would love to see PFTA carry on and continue to be a place of reinvention, because for me, PFTA has been more about inspiration than anything else.”

Fast forward to today, and we’re still off-roading, it’s a little bumpy, but kinda awesome.  We’re further away from advertising (I say we, ’cause if you’re in advertising, or married into advertising, it makes little difference.)  and Erik’s moving closer to other work.  Documentaries, story-telling, and maybe even a whole new career.  He’s working on Detroit Lemonade right now – and it looks awesome.

These last 2 years have been about figuring out what it means to love your work and take some risks.  Not easy.  This went against all of my previous methods of operation.  But now that we’re almost on the other side, people are telling me that I was very brave to take this risk with him.  There was even a tweet that referred to me as, Erik’s warrior wife.  Erik read it to me, and all I could think was:  Warrior?  Whoa, I dunno about warrior.  Worrier, definitely.

So, worrier or warrior?  I don’t know, maybe I’m a little of both…and I guess that’s not so bad.

Goin’ to the chapel

The other night my husband and I were watching tv. There was something on about brides or honeymoons or something matrimonial. My husband looked thoughtfully at the tv and said, “On our 10th anniversary we should get married again.” A little confused, I responded, “…To each other, right?”

Marriage – The Ultimate Endurance Sport

I told my husband the other day that I was going to write a post on marriage. More specifically I said, I am going to compare it to a marathon. He’s said, That’s cool, blog on. Then even more specifically I said, I was thinking about that documentary, Running the Sahara, and how it compares to a marriage. He said, That’s not cool.  I asked, Why? He continued, What you’re suggesting is that marriage is a grueling marathon, run everyday, across a hot bleak dessert, full of doubt, where nothing good ever happens, until you come to the finish line and you win nothing? To which I replied, I see your point…How about the Boston Marathon? Done.

My point with this metaphor is that marriage is indeed work. Weddings, those are fun. We spend a lot of time and money at the party. But when the cake has been consumed, the guests are gone, and it’s time to wake up from the honeymoon – That sound you just heard? It’s the starting gun, are you ready?

Are you ready for the challenges? For the weight gain and loss, sleepless nights, job loss, chronic and unbelievably smelly feet (mine), poor investments, mood swings, and ups and downs in the course? But as people who run marathons know, if you are prepared, then with great work comes great reward…you can get over those challenges. And for marathoners the reward is indescribable. True camaraderie, a sense of accomplishment, runner’s high, and a wordless sense of joy. That’s what marriage is for me. As I struggled to describe my feelings to my husband, I realized that I didn’t actually have the words. I was trying to describe the challenges and the joy. I couldn’t explain how or why marriage is amazing, it just is.

A couple of co-workers of mine ran the Boston Marathon and said it was one of the most amazing experiences of their lives. When they talked about it to a group at my office, you could see everyone tearing up. They explained that just when you hit a stretch like Heartbreak Hill – you think, I’m not gonna make it. But then there is an almost transcendent sense of lifting up – people (complete strangers) all along the course telling you, “You can do it! You look great….just a few more miles!” Then once you come over Heartbreak Hill you see the skyline of Boston. Then you just run on…

So if compare my current marriage to a marathon – My first marriage then, must have been a sprint. Lots of energy and over very quickly. But that sprint trained me. And more importantly brought me here to Boston. And as everyone knows, if you want to really experience a race – ya gotta go to Boston. ‘Cause everything before that? Just training. Not only did it prepare me for the challenge, but also prepared me for the joy. The partner, the person who shares the challenges and the rewards…well, I just can’t find the words.

He noticed…

My husband just called me from Costco. He said, “Honey, your list mapping skills are amazing.” I think I just fell in love all over again.

Domestic Damage Control

Uh oh. OK – Sometimes the laundry thing is funny. I can joke about the washed and unwashed piles…Well, lately more like rapids. The flow starts upstairs, then streams down onto the landing, where it eddies for a while, then makes its way to the cavern below to be washed.

But, it’s not funny when my poor husband has a screening of his new film Lemonade in Times Square tonight. I came up the stairs and I knew right away. Laundry stress. It’s all suds and games until someone needs to be a professional and meet and greet. Missing underwear and wrinkled shirts are no laughing matter.

Truth is – I actually double fumbled this one. Because I also needed to drop off some dry cleaning for him and I gleefully told them the pick-up was for Saturday, “Okie doke then, thanks bye!” But, my husband was leaving today(Friday morning), I’m so gonna get fired.

God Bless Blue Bell Cleaners. When I called yesterday and said I screwed up, they went through all their bags and found my husband’s shirts. Not only do they do great dry cleaning and laundering – they also save marriages. And, I also know for a fact that the owner can slam one right over a 2nd baseman’s glove into right field. Go purple!!

So, thank you to all of you who help me keep it together. I am a forever in your debt…Now, I should probably stop typing about laundry…and actually go do laundry. To quote Harry Hamlin as Perseus in Clash of the Titans….”It’s time for ACTION! Not words.” (close with dramatic hand gesture)

There’s a stain on my notebook, where my coffee cup was…

I’m a lucky woman. My husband brings me coffee in bed. Now, before y’all start to think I’m terribly spoiled let me explain why…

It began when we were first dating. Erik was obsessed with the perfect cup of coffee. I didn’t even own a coffee maker. I was content to buy a cup wherever was closest. So he educated me. I ended up with a Mr. Coffee, and soon was becoming addicted to a warm cup of coffee, pajama clad, in the morning. It was poetic. Just what couples do when they are still in the throws of trying to impress each other.

Then, it became routine. Erik would usually get up before me, so naturally the coffee task fell to him. He brought me my coffee, but I began to sense something was changing. There seemed to be a touch of bitterness, and I’m not talking about the coffee. Turned out he was feeling that the coffee routine was being taken for granted. He was right. I was taking it for granted. After that I realized that coffee in bed wasn’t just coffee in bed…It’s an act of kindness. It says, “I love you, you sleeping, snoring, drooling lump.” Everyone should be so lucky to have that in their life.

Now that we have kids and have been married for 8 years(whoa); we are pretty busy, stressed, and have different routines. But every once in a while a voice starts singing in the hall and wakes me up…”do-do-do-do do doo do-do do dooo…black coffee in bed, do, do, doo doo….

I can’t think of a better way to say Good Morning.

Thanks SB

The Yin and Yang of it

I just read an article in the Boston Globe Magazine by Kara Baskin about how nauseatingly happy everyone on Facebook is, or pretending to be. It’s one big “Look at how cute my puppy is! See how awesomely psyched we are!” The truth is, no one wants to put up the bad stuff. Who wants to put up a photo of yourself in the jeans that you can’t zip, a screaming child in a grocery cart, or a depressed face staring at the television?

Well, I’ll have a go. Yin and Yang or, in this case, Yang and Yin.

Yang: There is some amazing stuff happening for Erik and me. We are so close to something we can almost touch it. The blog is doing great, the movie is truly amazing, and the job site is coming together…The payoff for this will be a business that has been completely developed through self-financing, the generous time and work of friends, and the parents helping out twice. And I will never lose sight of those blessings.

Yin: This has been no all-day party in a bouncy castle. Erik is busting his ass. He works all day and night. The freelance to finance us means no breaks. None. But, did I mention no breaks? Weekends, holidays, 5 am, 2 am. And, if Erik has no breaks, then I have no breaks. I enjoy being a stay at home mom, but I am no Mother Teresa or Mary Poppins. I am neither a saint nor a work of fiction. I am real, I have bad days, I get upset.

Yang: We are lucky to have health insurance coverage.

Yin: Our health insurance cost is tragicomedy ridiculous. We get so little for what we pay. I filled an Rx the other day and the co-pay was $50.00, AND we already pay over a grand for our monthly premium. I almost cried at the pharmacy. I looked up at the check-out person and said “Really?” and he replied with a wince, “Yup.” And I mean really, If our society can’t figure out this healthcare thing…we are truly pathetic.

Yang: We are bootstrapping a business. There is a great deal of pride in knowing that we are actually doing this. When we look back, we will never have to say, “I wonder what would have happened if…”

Yin: There is the stress of no financial routine. I am a creature of habit and I love predictability. These days, it’s all sweating by the seat of our pants. No regular paycheck means the days tick off like a gruesome metronome until M-Day. Mortgage. Erik and I have this lip biting look we give each other – It’s a cross between I know we can do this, and holy shit.

Yang: There are actually humans out there who provide services and possess a soul. I believe Lenny our mechanic is the leading example. When we went to pay for our car brakes with plastic he said, “I don’t believe in credit cards, have run my business 30 years without ‘em. You can post date me a check if you need to.” And God Bless Lenny.

Yin: I had 3 credit cards that I had paid off years ago. They had a combined excellent available credit that I was saving for a rainy day. Now that it’s raining, the majority of our available credit limit has disappeared. After all of those years of responsible payment and good credit standing, and when I really needed it…poof.

I could keep going – But, I think that’s enough for now. Yin and Yang. Shadow and Light. We must have both – Neither can exist without the other. And, shadows and light are what truly make the picture interesting.

Unemployment and Marriage

I Googled Unemployment and Marriage.  The combination did not produce the results I wanted.  So, I typed Unemployment and Relationships.  Again, not quite what I was looking for.  It seems Google can’t read my mind…yet.

But I have been wondering about how the current state of unemployment is effecting couples.  For us, it’s a roller coaster at best.  There are days that I feel like we are blazing a trail for self reliance.  Then there are days of missing a regular agency paycheck.  With kids and a mortgage in the mix – the days of missing a regular paycheck can seem longer.

It’s impossible to be in a relationship and not have money on the mind lately.  People losing jobs, taking cuts and watching their portfolios dwindle.  I have friends and family who are making tough decisions about their futures as I type.  It seems the old model of work hard and save has been smashed to pieces.

So how does one keep from freaking out about money everyday and keep relationships together?

Talking to my spouse is better than brooding

I come from a long tradition of bottle-it-all-up-inside-and-release-at-the-most-inappropriate-moment.  In this current situation it’s the worst thing I can do.  Pacing and muttering tends to not go over well with Erik either.  It’s an open dialogue about fears that has kept me from freaking out completely.  Somehow just the act of talking can take the edge off.

Breathe, It will all be ok…I hope

I have been taking stock in what can’t be priced.  My family is healthy.  We have friends and family that can help. I can get movies and books from the library.  I can take the kids to the playground.  I can bake with my kids and watch them scream and jump over chocolate chip cookies.  I can arm my kids with squirt guns and let them entertain themselves.  In fact, my kids are 3 and 5, they get excited when I get out the vacuum cleaner.

Fighting about money is too easy

Somewhere I think everyone has heard that the number one thing couples fight about is money.  Yuck, who wants to be included in that statistic.  So I try to realistically and maturely relay my concerns.  I would hate to think that I was so spiritually deprived that I let the root of all evil infect my relationship.

Anyplace that has my family in it is a home

I think about what would happen if we lost our home.  I’d be lying if I said that it wouldn’t suck.  Because it would.  But, it would not be the end of the world.  It would be an evolution for survival.  Downsizing by Darwin.

We always get parking

In a previous post Erik pointed out how he always gets parking. He just says it out loud a couple of times, and I swear the cars actually part.  And every time I feel like shouting financial “UNCLE!”  – something amazing will happen.  It may not always happen as quickly as I like for my disposition.  But it does happen.

Any relationship is hard work.  One of the best thing I can give my marriage is a willingness to work at it.  Luckily, I have a partner who feels the same way.  The work may evolve over time but the effort given is always the same.  And that is crucial when the road starts to go uphill.  That’s all I can ask for and I am lucky.

Married to it

When I met Erik, I was a PBS junkie with a 13” TV and no cable. I didn’t know anything about advertising before then. Ads? Hrumph. My television was small and my superiority complex huge.

His most brazen act was ordering cable unilaterally. I married into the world of modern media and marketing, sports programming and plasma. Our life was now in dazzling HD. For better or for worse.

It’s been over a decade since he indoctrinated me to all things media. Now I’m an active participant of advertising in all its forms.  Erik’s career is a source of proud achievement and miserable frustration for both of us.  I, too, am part of  the countless, thankless hours.  I feel the admiration and competition for the holy grail awards.  I get crushed when all the hard work is scrapped in the eleventh hour.

In many ways, unemployment has been more manageable for us than employment.

Ads Are Not The Only Ideas
One of the hardest aspects about advertising that I have observed is the combination of creativity and business.  It’s a tough equation to please everyone, be proud of what you do and pay the mortgage.  But when I ask Erik what he loves about such a highly critical and demanding industry, his reply is simple: “Coming up with ideas.”

I can’t argue with that.

Coming up with ideas can take many forms.  Maybe forms that don’t require so much criticism, think-tanking and research.  Maybe something that doesn’t deliver such tactical blows to a creative’s self esteem.  I sure would love that.

Maybe the next form of advertising will be completely different.  Maybe it won’t be a tag line and a picture.  Maybe it will be wide-ranging, networked and evolved.  A shared consciousness on line (is my Star Trek showing?).  Who knows?

So now it seems there are things on the horizon in addition to advertising.  I am perfectly content with that but, my spouse may feel differently.

For now,  I am married to an unemployed ad guy turned blogger who is coming up with ideas.  The future is both cool and uncertain.  For better or for worse.