The Newspaper

It's funny the things that can bring you undone.

I was happily single, enjoying my new life, free to do what I wanted when I wished. But every Saturday morning I fell down, slumped myself into a pit of despair and it was all because of The Newspaper. For the first time in a long time when I bought it I got to keep the whole thing, it was mine mine mine, I could read it cover to cover without having to sacrifice any part or beg for the crossword section first. And that's what was hard.

Every Saturday I sat on the grass and watched couples around me silently divide the newspaper then take their respective sections for reading. I knew the ritual off by heart. With us, he always did the dividing. I got the Metro, the pull outs and the Good Weekend, he always got the Sport, the Business and the It section. Cars and employment automatically got the heave and we routinely argued over who got the front section first. Like a comfortable blanket or an old shoe this was our Saturday Morning Newspaper Ritual.

Then there were the other sort of rituals I missed. The compulsory fighting over who got the bathroom mirror 10 seconds before leaving and running out the door. The Spanish Inquisition before going out "Have you got your keys, wallet, phone?" The way he'd question whether I knew the way when driving just so I could get huffy then realise that no, I didn't. When you break up all you feel are the spaces, the bits that aren't there anymore. The kisses goodnight, the cuddles, the way he holds you when you are feeling small and vulnerable, alone and sad. The newspaper on a Saturday...

It's the missing rituals that bring you down. The rituals that used to hold your life together, the tapestry of comfort and security, the things that made you feel loved and part of a duo. It's the relationship rituals that you used to do and do no longer that break you, the rituals that every couple embark on when two become One and then no longer exist when One becomes two again. And once you've walked that rite of passage, there is no turning back. It's only when you break up that you realise how much these couple rituals have become a part of your life and how desperately it breaks your heart to live without them.

And so, there walks an entire population of broken hearted people, recently bereaved of coupledom and desperately wanting to get the relationship rituals back in their lives. People who know what it's like to have a whole unspoken language with another about who does what and how and when. People who now walk around with a huge gaping hole in their heart and watch enviously as laughing couples silently divide the newspaper.

It's the rituals that make a couple a couple. It's the rituals that provide the glue to keep you together in a world of unspoken communication, of just knowing what the other wants like how many sugars and how much milk you like in your tea, or whether you don't like tea at all. It's the memory of those rituals when you are single that bring you undone and let you feel lonely.

I don't buy the newspaper anymore.

I'm waiting for the day that I can fight for the front section first and argue over who gets the pen for the cross word.

Rituals are the silent language of togetherness and also the deafening silence of lonliness. Rituals of intimacy, of love.

Could anything be more sacred?

- V.W.

[ 11-09-2002, 12:32 PM: Message edited by: Yorick ]

Ouch, that's very deep.

[img]graemlins/awesomework.gif[/img] Magnificently done. Your ex-wife is a scholar compared to me. [img]graemlins/awesomework.gif[/img]

That's a nicely written piece.
It must be particularly hard for you to read that Yorick, or does it make things easier?

<font color="lightblue">Very touching. [img]smile.gif[/img]

I`ve always liked pieces like this, that come straight from the heart. They have far more meaning then alot of the fiction that some authors churn out today.

Your ex-wife is obviously very talented. [img]smile.gif[/img] </font>

Awww Yorick *HUGS* that reading must have been very hard for you, since you've been the second half of all these rituals ...

I guess she is very very right - amazing how the things you miss the most are the very things that felt so annoying when they were there.

I also guess all these rituals may make very hard to enter a new relationship, since both persons of the new couple may unconsciously try to have back their own old rituals, which is impossible since the other half is a different person.

Good article Yorick - thanks for sharing it with us.

No worries guys [img]smile.gif[/img] Glad to share it.

Yeah it cuts me up. I don't know how healthy it is for me to read stuff like that. There are plenty of pieces like that.

I suppose it's no different to her hearing a song I've written about it. Still, I tend to write more generically than that. She can be quite specific, bringing back particular images, well a flood of images actually. 10 years is a long time to have someone in your life.

Anyhow, like music, these may heal another through empathy. It's a common experience. When you're down it can feel like no-one understands. Which is partial truth, no one truly understands as individual experience is unique. But we can empathise, relate, recognise similarity of pain, and offer support and encouragement with the reminder that darkness passes, and that we can have strength in connection.

She is a genius though. [img]smile.gif[/img] I've always known that. I'm glad she's articulating in a way that benefits others. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Thanks for your feedback. I'll pass it on.

Yorick,
I feel for you, I went through the same thing when I split with my wife after 10 years together.

Me and a friend were just talking about the same things last night over a glass of wine, since we both have recently ended relationships. I'm going to forward this to her.

Take care.

Wow, Yorick, if my ex-wife could write things like that, maybe things would have worked out better between us. But, I didn't miss any rituals between us, we had too little contact. Certainly, if anything ever happened between <font color=lavender>Galadria</font> and me, I would miss all of that, the Sundy morning paper-reading and breakfast-making, the frantic struggle to get to work in the morning. Funny, she calls them "traditions," but they mean the same things.