After a visit to my doctor rather early this morning, with the happy news that yes, my BP is lower every time tested, I needed to go grocery shopping. At Interspar I found myself mulling over the concept of clichés, perhaps because I seemed to be encountering so many of them in person: the harried young mother with a full shopping cart, two fractious children and a desperate look; the paunchy mid-50s man shopping with his rather dreary-looking wife, who looked --thoroughly -- only at the chests of each woman he passed; the old woman slowly and carefully counting out her coins at checkout.
I suppose clichés only get that status because there is enough truth in them, enough of the time, to create a resonance when we encounter the "type" the cliché represents. Putting aside ethnic and sexist clichés (all Russians are gangsters, all blond women are stupid), there are enough "types" in the human race, seeming to overreach most cultures and eras, to provide fodder for clichés in abundance.
I am a cliché myself. Though I may think my story is unique and "nobody knows the trouble I've seen" (glo-REEE hal-le-LUUUU-jaaah), I'm a classic case: a woman whose husband, after over 30 years of marriage and the children leaving home, fell for a woman young enough to be their daughter. Resultant divorce, (rather forced) new start, new (younger) husband.
My ex is even more of a cliché, of course. Someone who knows him very well told me early on: "Don't quote me, but it's as if he read a book detailing mid-life crisis and, taking it as a textbook, went and did everything in it!" P lost a respected position as a Christian missionary, minister and church planter to start again with someone new. He now lives with his girlfriend, started his own translation company and is fulfilling his new goals, which seem to be to make a lot of money while climbing a lot of mountains. As far as I can tell he is content, except that he seems to resent the inevitable loss of respect. But as I repeatedly told him during our process, you can't have your cake and eat it too. You can have what you want, but don't complain about the price of it-- especially to me.
My new husband is a rather odd twist on a cliché. He, too, left an old life to start a new one. In his case, it was his wife who ran off with a salsa dancer younger than she. After some consideration (it happened quite suddenly), A realized the only real reason he had a large house and a well-paying job was to keep a wife he longer had. Faced with unexpected freedom, what does one choose?
In his case, A left a guaranteed career path and the solitude divorce had afforded (which he quite enjoys) for community living and, as he puts it, "the King and his Kingdom", not yet knowing what that meant or where it would take him. Well, it eventually took him first to Austria and then to a course of study in theology. Somewhere along the way it also took him to marriage with me, another middle-aged cliché-- and I am even older than he is!
What?! Starting a second career after years in civil service and a mid-life divorce is not uncommon, but isn't it usually something like sky-diving or "finding oneself" in Tibet-- not something uncommonly dull?
A left behind HRM's job security and what would have been an excellent pension (the one he'll still eventually get is certainly not bad) for a foreign country and a cleaning job which barely covered his rent. It was not until some time after he had left his old life thoroughly behind that his "spirit took the mike" (as he puts it) and it became clear to him what he really wanted to do with his new life.
I'm leaving behind 30 years of foreign missionary service to (quite probably) settle down in England, help look after A's elderly parents, and get a part-time job in some shop to supplement our income for the next several years while A finishes his theology degree. After having become thoroughly bilingual and bicultural, having traveled the world as a conference speaker and trainer in various Christian subjects, one might consider this rather a comedown, a waste, a shame that "my ministry" is-- for all practical purposes-- over.
But somehow I get the feeling it's just beginning.
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