September 30, 2001 - 8:44 p.m.
I'm beat. Yesterday I spent over 10 hours in the car, driving from the southeastern most corner of Virginia to the northwestern most corner for a friend's baby shower. Don't get me wrong - I wouldn't have missed it if it were held in Wyoming or anywhere else between, but the drive really takes its toll.
The shower put me in an intellectual/emotional overdrive as well. There's trouble between my friend and her husband - the kind that looks like an inevitable path to divorce court or a lifetime of matrimonial misery. She was in such a heated desire to marry that she wasn't picky and now it looks like she made a very bad choice. And, pregnant less than a year after the wedding, there's a baby dragged into the ugliness.
What's worse is my friend's denial of the situation and her blind belief that her husband will change. Of course, she told me, years ago now, over a different man and another unrequited love, that "you can't help who you fall in love with." Even the ultra-romantic bookgirl knew that was BS, but I guess I didn't get the message across that well.
I'd love to talk with her about it now, but there's a catch. I'm not supposed to know that anything's wrong. Although there were hints galore all during the shower, she and her family are carefully hiding the trouble. I only know because I'm also close with one of her sisters who's completely frustrated and is hoping I'll intervene. But intervening means exposing the fact she told me which could bring down the fury of the rest of the family on her.
So I'm stuck. And I'm not sure what I could say if I were let in on the truth. And I'm very uncertain she'd listen.
Damn. Damn. Damn.
OK - here's a message for all you unmarried readers out there in hopes you'll spare yourself and those around you this kind of angst: Bands on the fingers won't bring anyone around to your beliefs or philosophy. They aren't leverage for getting your way. They are work and compromise and swallowing big chunks of pride like horsepills. Marriage is beautiful, to be sure, but like a garden is beautiful. You have to weed and prune and cut the grass. You have to maintain it. Marry someone for who you are willing to work and you know will work for you.
And that's enough of the soapbox tonight.
