suburban beauty
Last night we turned the news on and heard the very disturbing news that a very casual friend of ours was arrested. This friend had a sweet family and a cat and for all purposes seemed happy and well-adjusted. On the news we learned, the casual friend had an affair with a minor. And although the minor was very close to no longer being a minor, using the word affair doesn’t seem quite right, as really that makes it seem very grown up. There are other words that people will use about both parties involved. And there certainly are words that come to mind when I think about the situation. And more than anything it bothers me. I have children now, and it just seems that the world really should turn into a nice place because my babies are in it.
When I think of our lives here, it really is very idyllic. Our neighborhood is full of trees and parks and stores and restaurants. The roads are packed with colonials and capes and bungalows painted inside and out with every shade of beige imaginable, a flower-pot on the doorstep and a friendly golden retriever looking out the window at you just to let you know you are safe. Our homes are overflowing with the best food on the planet. And despite the climate when in a building or in the car it is always the perfect temperature. We are perfectly entertained, at any hour of the day. It is a given that we are all going to be okay. It is a given that our biggest stresses will be over the emotional and not survival. And everything really is so beautiful.
Yet deep within the beauty and the comfort, deep down, I come across something ugly every so often and I wonder how perfect everything really is. Who else am I going to find out ruined their life and career for a few weeks of feeling young and crazy? What is really going on inside all that beige?
I recently read the divorce rate in the USA is up to 75%. I found it hard to believe, but several people have confirmed that they heard the same thing. How can it be possible that so many people are unhappy when we have so much? We are less repressed and our roles are equal, yet man and wife for the most part are just not happy together. Maybe all that luxury and beauty has made us forgotten how to work. As that is the thing that everyone tells you when you get married: “marriage is work” Before I got married I went on a self-help kick to end my streak of finding unavailable jerks for boyfriends. And I remember that all sides of the argument for what makes marriage work agree that you must both dedicated to making it work. And when people say you have to work to make a marriage successful, I have always thought that implied that along with working to be kind, to communicate, to make the other person a priority, you might have to work to not be a cheater, as well.
Of course, it is easy to judge. I am lucky to be married to an incredibly devoted husband and father, and someone who more than anything I trust and know more than I have known anything else in my life will never break his promises to me. The psychology that goes into me discovering how important that is is very long and complicated, but I know he is rare, and I will never stop being thankful for him.
And in the meantime, I think I will go pet my pug in my yellow diningroom.
