Funny Girl

Okay, okay.

I hear ya.

I’ve been a bit of a Debbie Downer lately.

I mean, I try to always offer posts with an uplifting message, even if they’re serious, but it seems you like me best when I am full-on sassy, sunny and snarky.  Which makes sense, because I’m Girl on a Wire, not Girl on Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors.  Right?

Here’s the thing: divorce fucking sucks.

It fucking sucks, and I’ve been up to my eyeballs in it for too long.  The worst part?  My soon-to-be-ex hubby isn’t an asshole.  Nope.  Sorry.  Would love to demonize him but I can’t.  I mean, damn…if he was an asshole, I could be Funny Girl - at his expense - all day long.  Give me a caricature and I’ll run with it.  But a genuine, flawed-like-all-of-us human being?  One who’s having a tough time, too?  If I pick on him, that’s just sad.  Mean.  Then I’m the asshole.

So what’s a girl to do?

Lately I’ve been trying to take a more well-rounded and positive look at my failed marriage, particularly at the moments that made me laugh.  Because, truthfully, there was no shortage of those moments.  The soon-to-be-ex and I were a case of opposites attracting, but he won me over with his sense of humor and irreverent fun.

So here are a few tidbits I hope he won’t mind me sharing (otherwise my lawyer’s about to make more money…):

Remember the scene in my novel Fifty Ways to Leave Your Husbandwhere Finn tells Eve his story of accidentally peeing on a midget?  Yup.  Inspired by true events.  Somewhere in Honduras there is a little person who was - unintentionally - urinated on by my hubby.  And yes, the man wooed me with this tale.  First or second date material.  Draw your own conclusions.

Hurricane Irene forced our wedding to be bumped up by 36 hours.  We tied the knot as the winds picked up and the storm rolled in.  (Omen, anyone?)  Unaware that the hubby had been caught in the rain coming into the church, I thought he was drenched in sweat.  I spent the ceremony fanning him and asking him if he needed to sit down.  I was convinced he might drop like a fly at any moment - and I may not have been far off.  When we danced to Adam Sandler’s “Grow Old With Me” from The Wedding Singer, I literally had to hold my groom up.  The man’s not a dancer, nor does he like being the focus of that much attention.  The smile on his face looked something like this:

When he picked me up to carry me over the threshold of our home on our wedding day, the hubby let loose an impressive fart.  And suffered a minor lower-back injury.  Clearly, in spite of having met my goal weight for the big day, I am no delicate little flower.  (And he’s no bodybuilder.)  We laughed about it briefly, until the laughter induced back spasms that sent me on a quest for Aleve and alcohol.  Why do they not show this sort of shit in the movies?

One Halloween, I donned this outfit and challenged our guests to identify me.  In hindsight, this may have been the beginning of the end.  Very bad wife:

Also on Halloween, we dressed our dogs like this:

And there were Christmas cards like this:

Hindsight being twenty/twenty, maybe we invested more in humor than we did in our marriage.  Then again, maybe we made the most of our common ground and simply ran out of steam too soon.

Maybe the moments like this:

only carry you (and the employees at Homegoods) so far.

Who knows?

The thing is, life - much like shit - just happens.  If you’re blessed enough to be around funny, vibrant people, maybe it matters less how long it lasts, and more how you enjoy the moment.  

Yeah, divorce fucking sucks.

But I can still look back and laugh.

So, I’ll leave you with this - a joke the soon-to-be-ex hubby recycled so often it elicited groans:

A pirate walks into a bar.  He’s got a steering wheel sticking out of his pants.

The bartender says, “Hey - do you know you’ve got a steering wheel sticking out of your pants?”

The pirate nods and says, “Arrrrrrgh!  It’s drivin’ me nuts!”

{Admit it, you laughed…}

www.kcwilder50ways.com

Running Strong

I am an unlikely runner, the very opposite of a natural athlete.  Growing up, I was always the kid picked last for teams in gym class - and for good reason.  A single lap around the gym left me winded.  Rules of team sports eluded me.  The only time I scored in basketball, it was on my own team’s hoop.  (Ooops.)  One P.E. teacher reduced me to tears, insisting I try serving that damn volleyball again and again and again while the other kids groaned, because, “You’re clearly not trying; no one is that bad!”

Actually, I was that bad.  Anything involving hand-eye coordination was beyond me, and the basic athletic ability that allowed most kids to run back and forth on a soccer field (as if it were actually fun!) left me gasping for breath and praying for a natural disaster to end my misery.  If you’d told me at age 12 that one day I would call myself a runner, I’d have said you were crazy.  You know, once I stopped laughing at the mere thought.

But strange things happen in life.  At 17, struggling mightily with depression, I ran outside one day and, much like Forrest Gump, just kept running.  I think the idea was to outrun my problems, maybe to outrun my very self.  Instead, as running one mile turned into two or three, and as I traded my Chuck Taylors for actual running shoes, I found that there was more to myself than I’d allowed.  I was still slow, still had to fight through the shortness of breath and the stabbing pain in my side, but I wasn’t the kid who faked sick to get out of gym class anymore.  I began to look forward to lacing up my shoes and getting out there on the road, on the trails, on the path to some unknown destination that just felt right.  

What I’ve learned since is that running is a sport like no other.  It accommodates all body types and levels of ability.  There are no damn balls or hoops to contend with (hallelujah!), yet there is a sense of camaraderie that makes any runner part of the biggest, most supportive team imaginable.  I’ve lost track of the number of races I’ve run, from 5Ks to half-marathons, but I remember every single time I was struggling and another runner helped me along.  I remember countless kindnesses and laughs.  

Yesterday I was fortunate enough to find myself among the spectators at the Boston Marathon.  That’s a distance I’ve yet to run, a feat that seems amazing to me.  The dedication of those runners impresses me beyond expression.  Which is why, when I heard the news of the bombings at last year’s marathon, I thought it was the most cowardly act imaginable.  I thought of that community of runners - of the sacrifice and hard work on the part of everyone involved, of the tide of positive energy that’s carried me through every race I’ve ever run - and those bombings seemed to me the smallest, darkest acts of terrorism possible.  I was not, however, surprised by the reaction of those present.  The rush to help, the resolve to find the culprits.  That is how running shapes a community.

Yesterday, I watched all those runners crossing the finish line, all those loved ones and strangers alike cheering them on, all those teams of volunteers making the world’s greatest marathon possible.  I watched thousands of people prove that hatred and cowardice never win.  Determination wins.  Hard work wins.  Love wins.

In some ways, I am the same gawky kid who loathed gym class.  I still tortoise-along at my own slow pace, but running has changed me.  When I think of how strong running has made me - in body, mind and spirit - the overwhelming display of resilience I saw yesterday is no surprise.

Of course Boston is running strong.  That’s the only way to run.

www.kcwilder50ways.com

• Read about marathon champ Meb Keflezighi
 (ditched by Nike, winning in Skechers).

• Check out this touching story about my heroes, Dick and Rick Hoyt.