Happily Ever After Divorce: Notes of a Joyful Journey

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Overview

While more than half of all marriages end in divorce, joy and happiness does not have to die with it. Happily Ever After Divorce: Notes of a Joyful Journey gives a seldom touched-on view of divorce – a positive view of life on the other side. A uniquely upbeat approach to "going it alone," Happily Ever After Divorce shows readers how author Jessica Bram, an award-winning radio commentator and essayist, maintained a sense of self and humor during a most difficult time, and ...

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Happily Ever After Divorce: Notes of a Joyful Journey

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More About This Book

Overview

While more than half of all marriages end in divorce, joy and happiness does not have to die with it. Happily Ever After Divorce: Notes of a Joyful Journey gives a seldom touched-on view of divorce – a positive view of life on the other side. A uniquely upbeat approach to "going it alone," Happily Ever After Divorce shows readers how author Jessica Bram, an award-winning radio commentator and essayist, maintained a sense of self and humor during a most difficult time, and emerged triumphant.

While being true to divorce's pain and challenges, Bram's personal stories reveal the exhilaration, joy, growth, and triumphs of moving through difficult times and emerging stronger and happier at the other end. In this candid, intimately written book, you will discover:

  • How the author rebuilt her self-esteem through handling everything from everyday tasks to earning a living with newly discovered talents
  • How children can thrive when parents approach custodial issues with respect
  • The delightful aspects of spending time alone, single parenting, and unexpected friendships
  • How Bram approached dating with humor and an upbeat attitude
  • How, after rebuilding her life, the author opened her heart and found love again.
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Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

In her first book, essayist Bram convincingly disputes the common belief that there's no life after divorce. At age 41, the mother of three young children, Bram was in a loveless marriage. But she was surrounded by people who insisted it would be hell on her and her children; even the marriage counselor she and her husband saw presented her with studies about the irrevocable trauma divorce inflicts on children. But Bram was out to prove them wrong, and in her memoir, she recounts the steps she built to create a new life and take joy in finding her own true self. Whether slogging through legal paperwork, arranging custodial visits or re-entering the world of romance, Bram put her sons first, and they all came through intact. For anyone facing divorce, Bram's frank and optimistic tale shows that one can not only survive divorce but thrive in the new possibilities life will offer. (Apr.)

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780757307584
  • Publisher: Health Communications, Incorporated
  • Publication date: 2/20/2009
  • Pages: 254
  • Sales rank: 783,010
  • Product dimensions: 5.50 (w) x 8.40 (h) x 0.80 (d)

Meet the Author

Jessica Bram is an award-winning commentator and essayist. Her radio commentaries which are heard on the Fairfield, Connecticut, NPR station, twice (in 2006 and 2008) earned her first prize in the radio commentary category of the Society of Professional Journalists, Connecticut Chapter's 'Excellence in Journalism' contest. Her work, which includes the widely syndicated essay 'Beauty Calls,' published in the New York Times Magazine's HERS column, has appeared in many national and regional magazines and newspapers.

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Read an Excerpt

The Light Bulb Problem

Maybe I was imagining it. But damned if every bulb in my house didn't start blowing the week my husband moved out. The problem was so persistent that for a while I even suspected some kind of sabotage on my husband's part. But my friend Eve assured me otherwise. 'Bulbs blow out all the time. That's what they do,' she said.

Well, of course I knew that bulbs blew out. But my perception after nineteen years of marriage was that soon after they always somehow became replaced. My husband prided himself on his skills in home repair, and I had long been secure in the knowledge that just say the word, and rooms that were temporarily dark would soon once again be light. Just as dripping faucets would eventually stop leaking and overflowing roof gutters made clear. There never seemed to be any question that these tasks, which my husband performed with cheerful vigor, were his preordained responsibility, separate and mysterious.

Certainly changing a light bulb—or any home maintenance task, for that matter—is hardly a question of gender. I know a multitude of men without the slightest interest in home repair. 'You have to understand,' replied the former owner of our house, when we questioned him about the wiring, 'I called an electrician when a light bulb burned out.' And my mother, who raised three children alone back in the fifties when everyone else, it seemed, had a father mowing the lawn and replacing storm windows, handled a lot more than light bulbs. I remember my mother in her long swishy dress, dreamily moving back and forth to the sound of Mantovani strings on the hi-fi, measuring, marking pencil spots on the wall, wielding a heavy electric drill to mount bookshelves. And today I know more than a few women like my younger sister, more adept at carpentry, electric wiring, and telephone installation than many nonprofessionals, my former husband included.
But my sister lived seven hours away and wasn't there to advise me when all my bulbs began going dark. My house required a staggering variety of bulbs. Beside conventional bulbs in all wattages, my light fixtures called for broad-faced recessed floods, spots, and reflectors, both direct and indirect; skinny undercounter fluorescents in varying lengths; round vanity bulbs, frosted and clear; bulbs that hid above semiopaque ceiling panels; microwave bulbs and refrigerator bulbs and even night-light bulbs the size of a thumb. (It never occurred to me one could actually replace a night-light bulb—night-lights always just seemed to be there, eternal and trustworthy.) Most daunting of all were two large ornamental wrought iron and glass lanterns residing on either side of the front door, each containing within its narrow interior a cluster of small flame-shaped bulbs. When these giant fixtures began to dim, I would stand beneath them, night after night, contemplating how one could possibly squeeze one's hand into slim crevices at the bottom to replace the tiny glass flames.

The gradual darkening of my home went on for weeks, during which time I left the dead bulbs alone. I suppose I was imagining, against all reason, that my husband would simply reappear in jeans one Saturday morning with his aluminum ladder to fix the problem as he always had. I was tempted to call him and say, 'Look, everything else aside, could you please come and change the bulbs?' But of course this was impossible.

Why, I wondered, was the sight of these dark bulbs so full of ill portent? Whenever I received no response to an overhead switch or found a dark shadow across my kitchen counter where there should have been a strong fluorescent beam, I shuddered. I had always hated dim light in general, but now more than ever these dead bulbs seemed to remind me of desolate places like musty hotel rooms and nighttime bus stations.

Eventually each dark corner or black closet interior in my house would confront me like a reproach: what are you going to do about this? Finally one late evening, as I carried my towel-wrapped two-year-old son from the bath, I reached for the switch in his room and encountered that awful pop and brief, loud spark, followed by darkness. Standing in the dark with my child in my arms, I faced the dismal truth: No one is going to fix this but you. He's not around to do this any more.

As luck would have it, there was a spare bulb behind the vacuum cleaner bags in the broom closet. And of course, it did not take long to figure out that replacing the rest of the bulbs in the house was no big deal. I soon learned that there was always someone at the hardware or lighting store who could identify and procure a required bulb. Back home, using a step stool or more often a kitchen chair, I'd screw the new one in. Problem solved: light where there was dark. I realized that in a house with leaking pipes and an aging septic system, the satisfaction derived from replacing a bulb was instantaneous. An easy high.

But what most came to mind as I brought my house back to light was the memory of my mother with her electric drill. I knew back then that this was not what most mothers did. I never saw any of my friends' mothers, or Donna Reed or Lucy Ricardo for that matter, sinking anchors into sheetrock for bookshelves. But watching my mother, after a long afternoon of drilling, slip each metal bracket into its slot with a satisfied expression, hearing those definite metallic clicks as she locked each one into place, I was proud. Maybe we didn't have a father in the house to protect us from ceiling leaks or from harm. But if my mother could build a wall of shelves, I knew she could do anything. We would be all right.

And finally, as I reached high from a chair in my son's room and gave the smooth new bulb in my hand that final twist that brings it back to life, instantly turning it from cold to warm, from gray to white, I realized it comes down to this: Each dark spot extinguished quenches a worry, each dark room illuminated quells a doubt. If I alone could bring this house back to light, perhaps I, too, could banish my sons' middle-of-the-night fears as well as their father once did when he carried them back to their beds with strong arms. Perhaps I would banish my own.

And when, for the rest of that long winter, I drove to my front door late at night to see every flame bulb in our lanterns, every last one of them, glowing brightly—when late at night, I would flip the switch in my dark kitchen to be greeted by an unwavering line of undercabinet light—I knew that in this house, in this home, all was well.

©2009. Jessica Bram. All rights reserved. Reprinted from Happily Ever After Divorce. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the written permission of the publisher. Publisher: Health Communications, Inc., 3201 SW 15th Street, Deerfield Beach, FL 33442

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction: Into the Sunlight xiii

The Light Bulb Problem 1

The Journey 6

Banish the Naysayers 15

No Messages 21

Good-Bye Loneliness 27

Coffee with the Enemy 33

Losing It 43

"You Are Your Future" 50

Something About Guilt 62

Anger Management 72

Brave New Divorce 78

Trashing Dad 86

Divorce in the Age of E-mail 94

Eating and Drinking 101

Kitchens I 112

A Sense of Direction 127

Intimacy in Many Forms and Unexpected Places 136

The Mother-in-Law Bond 147

L'Eclipse 157

Twice the Work, Four Times the Fun 174

Service Contract 194

My Lost Romance.com 199

First Dates . . . and Other Comedies 205

Friends with My Ex-Husband 214

Where Is It Written? 218

Opening My Heart 223

Then Comes Love 236

Kitchens II 245

Epilogue: A New Lexicon 249

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Sort by: Showing all of 6 Customer Reviews

  • Anonymous

    Posted September 12, 2009

    inspiring and uplifting

    A wonderful gift to any woman going through, or contemplating a divorce.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Posted June 15, 2009

    Enjoyable

    These are stories that can stand alone. Anyone who has gone through a divorce and come out whole can relate to this book.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Posted May 26, 2009

    Not Just For Women; Not Just About Divorce

    Jessica Bram's book is invaluable for all women who are divorced, contemplating divorce, or even happily married. And perhaps as importantly, for those comtemplating marriage with a healthy measure of reasonable concern for the "what if" aspects of such an all-encompassing decision. For all these, I heartily recommend this delightful collection of inspiring essays straight from the heart of one who honestly lived the experience. The book is the author.

    But an easily-overlooked truth about this collection of "Notes of a Joyful Journey" is that divorce may be seen as a metaphor for any life-changing event or any change in life, whether planned or entirely unanticipated. What Jessica went through, and the growth opportunities offered (and accepted}, by her divorce, can be applied just as well to the death of a spouse. Either circumstance leaves the survivor alone and on her own. Or maybe it could be a serious illness that alters the relationship of two people built up over ten or fifty years. Or, to stretch the point a bit further, a change in career, loss of a job, forced removal from a home or community - any of the many alterations in the status quo that people face every day and to which they must adapt for better or worse.

    And the author did adapt, wonderfully, putting her in a position to write this collection of life lessons for the rest of us to benefit by. The book is about surviving and thriving, and having a happy and productive life in the process. What an inspiration!

    Inspiration not only to women, by the way. The life lessons Jessica imparts, using the best teaching technique - story-telling - are as applicable to men as women. For everything from the dilemma of suddenly being a single parent, to the realization that someone else led all the decisions, made all the arrangements, and was responsible for thousands of things that the spouse was not even aware of, divorced or widowed men can face the same problems as women do. And, of course, when taken in the larger context, the many messages transcending the divorce aspect of this story are not in any way gender-specific.

    All of us can benefit from sharing in Jessica's journey. We owe her thanks for sharing it with us.

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    Posted July 4, 2011

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    Posted September 29, 2010

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    Posted March 23, 2012

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