If you had told me when I was 25 that at 50 I would be divorced and raising a daughter on my own I would have looked at you like you were nuts. Yet, here I stand at 50, divorced, single and raising my shining star. Although my marriage remained intact for a mere seven years (or was it six? I can't truly remember) my divorce continues on after 12 years, and counting. Nora Ephron coined the phrase: "Marriages come and go, but Divorce is forever..." Which in essence means, happily ever after should include a clause outlining the high probability that your imminent divorce (statistically speaking of course) will last longer than your marriage. Sadly, Nora was all too accurate. The good news is; yes, there really is good news after divorce; you can and should find humor even when all seems bleak; life does get better, and falling in love and perhaps even dipping your toe back into the newly unchartered waters of marriage may grace you again.
Nora's movies were filled with romantic love stories and endings that made all of us yearn to be living in New York only to climb the Empire State building daily in hopes of meeting our very own Tom Hanks. Her books on the other hand gave us a glimpse into her own painful struggle of divorce and the bitter tangled web it can weave. Even with her romantic story lines she always found a way to pepper them with a dose of humor filled reality. Remember the repartee between Meg Ryan and Rosie O'Donnell in Sleepless In Seattle :
"Now that was when people KNEW how to be in love. They knew it! Time, distance... nothing could separate them because they knew. It was right. It was real. It was..."
"A movie! That's your problem! You don't want to be in love. You want to be in love in a movie."
Indeed, I have come to realize that most of my life I wanted to be in love in a movie. Now I realize, I just want to be in love with life and if someone saunters into my production as a leading man, then I will simply welcome him into my repertoire. I miss Nora's practical sensibility, her coy approach to life's relationship challenges and her never ending optimism that life always finds a way of working out. She has left an indelible mark on my life and the way I view my broken marriage, my meaningless divorce and the future of my love life. Somehow, the combination of all her work continues to make my heart do a little dance in hopes that someday someone will be the butter to my bread and the breath to my life...
I miss you bunches Nora Ephron.
Agi Smith - www.dearagi.com