I Married Myself
—by Maria Leonard Olsen
Two summers ago, I married myself. There were tears of love and joy.
That same weekend, my ex-husband whom I had been with for 25 years married a tall blonde fitness instructor with a fabulous figure. Everything I am not. While my adult children traveled from other cities to attend their father’s wedding, I gathered my three best friends to be with me while I recited vows to myself halfway across the country.
Two friends traveled from the west, and two of us came from the east. We met on a mountain in Colorado. I had sent them email invitations cordially inviting them to my wedding…to myself. There was some initial confusion, but they were game.
I wanted to surround myself with those who helped me be the best version of myself that I could be. These women do that. We have been friends for 35 years. We met in law school, and accompanied each other through weddings, births, deaths, job changes and life’s crises of most varieties. Our families vacationed together from time to time. Now two of us are divorced. We fit the national average on that score.
When my ex-husband announced his engagement, I mourned the loss of the Norman Rockwellian family life fantasy I had constructed in my mind. My ex-husband often had accused me of trying to live a Hallmark card life. He was right. I thought I could provide my children the childhood I had longed for, free of domestic abuse, secrets and alcoholic rampages, and full of travel and material accoutrements. I had not realized that the seemingly perfect families around me were an illusion. Every family has problems. While the magnitude of familial disharmony and ability to mask dysfunction and pain may differ, no family is immune because we are all human. We are all perfectly imperfect.
I tried so hard to overcome the perceived shortcomings of my childhood that I lost sight of my true compass and what was really important to me. I joined clubs and organized endless events and projects. I became a human doing more than a human being. At one point, I entered a severe depression under the weight of the facade I was struggling to keep in place. My deep self-loathing refused to be stuffed down until I sought help by working on the issues I long ignored. Unaddressed trauma weighed on my consciousness like rocks I would hurl far away, only to have them roll back and unexpectedly slam into me. The painful secrets of abuse and having been raped kept me mired in low-simmering shame that sometimes found a way of boiling over and spilling sideways into my life when not vigilantly kept at bay. I could not pretend anymore. My alcoholism flared out of control.
I did much work on myself after the divorce. I sought a spiritual cure. I opened the Pandora’s box of my life’s secrets and dealt with them head on. I went to five rehabs, one of which specializes in trauma. I allowed other women to bear witness to my pain and shame. We all did, and it was immensely healing. I came to believe that I am, in fact, enough, and that no one is responsible for my happiness but me. I lamented over the years I had spent silently begging via achievements and doing things for others. I realized that much of my motivation for my actions was the hope that my efforts would yield outside affirmations of my self-worth.
Now I believe all that happened was necessary to bring me to where I am, emotionally and spiritually. Every person and situation can be a source of learning for me. Rather than fight it, I am learning how to discern the message. I do what I can to mend my character defects and live a life in accord with my values.
I woke up feeling melancholy the day of my ex-husband’s wedding. I grieved the loss of our marriage and irretrievable fracturing of our family unit. As my friends awoke that morning and joined me around the fire pit for coffee, I let their good cheer and unflagging support buoy me. We enjoyed the day, reveling in the natural beauty around us and the comfortable companionship the years had bestowed upon us. We took a long hike and, as we sat on a rock jutting out above a lush valley, I was struck by the thought that these women help me turn my gaze forward, not back, time and time again.
That night, we gathered in a little stone pavilion near our cabin. There was a warm fire blazing and a new moon visible above. My “bridesmaids” had given me the traditional something old (a beautiful vintage necklace in my favorite pink color), new (a handmade crown of flowers with a bit of tulle serving as a veil), borrowed (a small handmade purse I had gifted to one of them years ago, and blue (lovely earrings). The “bouquets” I supplied them with were small canvases with a photograph of me with each of them in the center, surrounded by carefully calligraphed sentiments of what I admired and respected about each one of them. I read the words on each canvas during the wedding ceremony. A young woman on the property who heard what I was doing embraced me afterwards with tears in her eyes and said I had helped her with my self-marriage ritual in ways I could not imagine.
I said vows to myself: I would love myself. I would cultivate self-compassion. I would be responsible for my own happiness. I would have confidence in my ability to tolerate pain and move on. I would respect myself enough to be intentional about how I spent my time, the most precious commodity that not one of us can get back. I am enough and do not need anyone else to make me feel whole.
The wedding reception followed. In the hot tub. Under stars that began to glimmer.
–Maria Leonard Olsen is the author of 50 After 50: Reframing the Next Chapter of Your Life (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018). For more information, see www.MariaLeonardOlsen.com.
https://influencersofmidlife.com/i-married-myself/