Today is Super Bowl Sunday. I couldn't even tell you who's playing. I can tell you who's not playing (the Patriots) only because my friend, Tracy, is a fan.
But today is also a Milepost Day. Milepost Days are the name I've given to days or dates that are what the pop-psychologists have come to call "triggers" of strong emotional import regarding (in my case) my divorce. Other people have them for ... well, for any monumental life-changing event, I suppose, whether it's the death of a loved one, or learning a diagnosis of illness, or maybe even happy things like discovering you're pregnant or meeting your future spouse. Common Milepost Days tend to be broad-spectrum and apply across the board: Christmas, anniversaries, birthdays....
But others are more personal, in my case including that last wine trip to Sonoma, the trip to Iceland the year before, a ski day at a local resort -- In all of these, I can (in retrospect) see the seeds of the end of my marriage, though I hadn't known it at the time.
But another Milepost Day, for me, is Super Bowl Sunday. Weird, I know, right? It was the February before my May/June divorce -- a "surprise divorce" I recently heard a stand-up comic say, fittingly -- and my future-ex-husband (FXH) was going to a Super Bowl Party. He hadn't asked me because "I assumed you wouldn't want to come -- it's just a bunch of people from work...." I surprised him by saying I did want to go. For one thing, I actually love football though I don't make a point of carving out time to watch it. Besides parties are fun, and it never hurts to mingle with one's partners coworkers, just to keep things friendly. And then there's all the junk food:
As it turns out, FXH's future girlfriend was at the party, a waitress at his restaurant, and I'd met her before that day. She was nice -- young, I thought. And the party failed to disprove the initial impression, as she and her friends spent more time playing Buzzfeed quizzes on their phones then watching the game, into which I was occasionally roped, "C'mon, take the quiz and let's see which Game of Thrones character YOU are! -- Oh, me, too!! We're the SAME!!" (For the record, we were totally different breeds of dogs... totally!!)
In fact, I remember I was pretty much the only person actually watching the game -- weird, but Ok, I guess... I'm not great at social events, typically, so it didn't strike me as particularly unusual. At the time.
Of course, now it all seems blazingly clear: Why FXH didn't want me to go to the party, and the niggling part of my brain that I can never seem to quite contain in its little prison box can't help but wonder if there was already something going on there. Did he know yet that he was going to leave me for her in some three months time? Did she? (She was also married, her own husband also mysteriously absent from the party.)
I'll never know these answers, and I'm not sure I want to. But the point is, for me, now, Super Bowl Sunday is a "Yuck" day. All day, I just feel weird and can't wait for it to be over. -- This past year, Christmas was very much the same way. And I'm not alone. Earlier this week, I was standing in the bakery section of the grocery store when I overheard a woman crying softly. I asked her gently if she was okay, and she said she had just gotten off the phone talking to a friend of hers about her husband who had passed away twenty-three years ago, and how the holidays had been very hard for her this year. Twenty-three years and still a trigger.
And, for some people (not so much for me), another trigger day is just around the corner: Valentine's Day. A day for lovers and romance and proposals and ... well, it can be tough on the single folks out there, no matter how we got to single -- by choice or otherwise. A woman in an online chat group I'm part of is really dreading it: she sees it looming ahead of her and doesn't know how she's going to make it through.
So this is my advice: It's just one day. The same twenty-four hours, 1440 minutes as any other day. Treat it that way. Do what you do. Be who you are. If it's not a good-special day for you, then ignore it. You may need to turn off your TV or the radio or whatever, but it doesn't have to be so loaded with emotional weight. -- And for the love of god, stay off Facebook! Half those pictures aren't real, anyway. Hell, *I* could've taken a happy photo of myself & FXH at that Superbowl Party and my whole life was about to come unglued!
(Also, if it is Valentine's Day that's your trigger -- and even if it's not --, might I recommend the "30 Rock" episode where Liz Lemon decides to have a root canal on Valentine's Day? It's hilarious and the end-credits feature Jon Hamm dressed as a woman and speaking in a Jamaican accent. Seriously.)
I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth here, because I realize it's not so easy as all that: "Just treat it like any other day -- Screw you, you think it's so easy!!" Facebook and even phone conversations with friends will inevitably produce a few barbs, but after that phone chat, you've just put still another one or two or five of those 1440 minutes behind you. And tomorrow morning when you wake up, it'll all be behind you again for one entire year more.
This isn't new advice or even particularly noteworthy. But learning that Christmas doesn't have to be CHRISTMAS!!!!!! was a borderline revelation to me this past year. And I'm convinced Super Bowl Sunday can be the same, for all of us, no matter what our "Super Bowl Sunday" is. Just one day. You can do it. And so can I.
