My Divorce Car
When my parents’ marriage dissolved and my mother found a rental, she immediately began to pursue having all the things my father had always protested, the first of which was a puppy. Among the unpacked boxes and mysteries of how we would live in this new way, my sister and I staring out strange windows at new and confusing views of the valley we’d lived in for a decade, Bodie the Sheepdog did all those silly puppy things that weave their way into permanence between your heartstrings. Though he continually peed on the rug and his wiry thick fur was a terrible choice for the abundance of fleas and ticks on our country property, he was simple, protective and trusting, and we adored him. My mom had an extreme connection to him, and when it was time for him to go to that great dogrun in the sky many years later, she held on tight and for too long, and was completely devastated by the loss of him.
My wife’s mother had the same exact experience. Discussing it one day, we realized that part of the superglue bond must have had something to do with these dogs being the *one* all attention went to, once our dominant moms were out of their miserable marriages and done for good. We asked around among our friends for supporting evidence and consistently found the same situation: a newly divorced parent with a supreme and undying devotion to a new pet. We call them “divorce dogs”.
This weekend, I traded my old, terminally ill Volvo in for something new. It was my idea and I was feeling great, until it was time to clean it out and put the stroller into the new trunk. I got weepy and actually thought the car I was leaving looked physically sad all alone in that parking lot. Her frame suddenly seemed slumped and I felt like I was turning a child out into the cold night. How could I leave her after all we’d been through together?
“I love this car. This is a great car”, I affirmed to the family over and over, as we drove one last stretch from the test lot to the office for paperwork, as though sole repetition of the phrase would calm my anxiety and take the sadness away, or jolt my consciousness into remembering that change is good, cars are made of metal and molded plastic and there is no such thing as an emotional connection between a person and a Volvo, no matter how cute it is. But it didn’t.
My wife went upstairs to start signing papers while I swept through the compartments, gathering up my daughter’s stray hairclips, stashed parking tickets and pen caps. I felt overwhelmed, as though the car held some place in my life that I didn’t have permission to give away. It was then I realized- it was my divorce car.
Long ago, in what now seems like a different lifetime, I worked for a family for many years as their Personal Assistant. After a few years my employers decided to reward my hard work on all their remodels, events and goings-on with a car, and leased me a gorgeous car. It was LOVELY and came with all bells and whistles: leather, navigation, sexy hard-to-find dusky blue, beautiful detailing and even 6 JBL speakers to blast while doing my job running their lives. This car, which became known as Joan for the alert system voice’s uncanny resemblance to that of Joan Cusack, took us on fun roadtrips all over the West Coast, and we highlighted its expensive glamour to finally convince friends that my career in private homes, though strange sounding, was legitimate. I had never had a brand new (or free!) car in my life and was overjoyed to hop into it each day.
Sadly, what had begun as a support role for a totally amazing, overachieving couple turned sour. My principals, fully able to commit to their careers due to my long term presence, no longer were required to participate in their home lives. I was the one answering the door. Managing the nanny. Talking to the orthopedic specialist about grandma’s prognosis. One of my employers had not been in a primary role at home for years and thought this was fabulous development. Though I worked hard to ensure the decisions I made on their behalf were true to their family culture and priorities, the abdication of that responsibility proposed a real dilemma for the other: it enabled the kind of work time and concentration necessary to build a career but created an empty space at home where participation was once vital. Success and money-making can still leave you feeling unhappy and lonely. If your wardrobe management is staffed, your mealtimes are staffed and your dog is staffed, do you even need to show up? Between you and me, I sensed that they kind of didn’t want to show up.
Our interactions became strained. Our tepid and courteous conversations, once familial and chatty, became less frequent until they were nonexistent. I tried to redefine my role and be less obtrusive, but they were nowhere to be found and the decisions I had been hired to make still needed to be made. Dinner parties for 100 don’t plan themselves! Easter dresses for the twins don’t magically appear in your closet! My office was suddenly and awkwardly remodeled and I tried working from the kitchen table. My tasklist grew thin and those lingering obligations were impossible to achieve with an absent party on the other end of the phone. The tone of my incoming emails became more threatening and manic, voicemails panicked and aggressive, though I continually responded with evenness and compassion. I stuck to my workload and focused on successes, but nervously scanned the sidewalk for headlights at night, worried that any interaction was going to be traumatic. I cried. I got migraines.
Driving around in this amazing car, trying so hard to manage an impossible situation, my eyes would well up every time my blackberry light went off. I was devastated after years of prioritizing their family’s needs over my own, to have it all fail. I had done so much. I worked though every vacation and weekend; I worked daily for six years. I would respond to emails at 3am, rebook itineraries for changed minds in the middle of the night before travel. Respond with enthusiasm to impossible and ridiculous requests, like making extra welcome baskets for Bar Mitzvah guests in the middle of the hotel parking lot at 1am for relatives invited at the last minute. Or fishing a dead rat out of the basement toilet because the nanny was having trouble breathing, just knowing it was in there. I had truly once believed in the family and wanted to see it succeed but things had become unbearable. Leaving my job meant real complications, as the industry was changing and opportunities for positions like mine were growing thin. Eventually even the fact that my wife was newly pregnant didn’t matter. I had to leave.
I gave ample notice, and a good exit plan, and on my last day I handed over the car. I think I left respectfully and honorably, considering the situation. At home and unemployed, I slowly nursed my ego back to health. I packed my corporate clothes up in boxes, cut my hair and re-imagined the next phase of my life. When I landed a fabulous new job, I took over my wife’s Volvo, made it my work car, and started over from scratch, getting to know the intricacies, priorities and needs of an entirely new family (with, thankfully, much better communication skills). And with night falling all around me in the car lot last weekend, so many years later, all that came rushing back. It was not the car itself, but what the transition represented. I was in agony like nothing I’ve ever known, and I figured a way out. I was lost but now I’m found. The car and I survived, and we’ll never have to do that again. Goodbye, sweet divorce car.