Chapter 1 Unmarried In Which I Leave My Spouse; Flee to Independence, Oregon; and Assume a Future So Bright, Protective Eyewear Is Required It was the summer of 2016, and I was the manifestation of a 1990s country song about how cool it is to be a gal. My freedom and self-sufficiency oozed from every pore. I felt more powerful and in control of my life than ever before, I was excited about the future, I was bopping around in a 1994 Mazda Miata, and it was great. I'd ejected from my marriage after only a few months, leaving behind a brilliant, loving, and impossible man. I fled to Independence, Oregon (get it?!?), population 8,590. I know I am in INDEPENDENCE because it says that on the water tower right outside my window and also because I am living a romantic comedy with zero subtlety. I feel an overwhelming sense of freedom that I escaped something I thought inescapable. I am terribly sad, but there is also relief. And of course, tremendous shame. I got married even though I knew I shouldn't, and I hadn't even made it to our one-year paper anniversary. "Why did you marry him?" you might ask. Easy: he was the smartest, funniest, and kindest person I'd ever met. All three, by a long shot. He would casually drop things in conversation that rearranged my understanding of the universe. He was, and is, astonishingly loyal and loving. He's a man in his 30s who makes new friends and then keeps them forever, along with dozens of other friends he has made starting from when he was five. He loves, fiercely and loyally, the shit out of people, even-and perhaps especially-when they can't love themselves. His table is big; whenever we went anywhere, he had a bunch of people to see. And all those people were amazing, too. Before we met, he would save up money and then go on, say, a four-month trip by train. He had been everywhere. He's the best storyteller I've ever known-when I heard him recount a story, even if I had been there, it was changed, becoming hilarious and true in ways I hadn't seen. I loved living in the world of his stories. He made me laugh so, so hard, every day, every hour. I would think of his jokes days later and laugh again. I still do. We were hanging out at his apartment early on, and somehow farting came up. I tossed off a dumb joke I'd made to every guy I've dated since I was 19 to the effect that although farting was fine for other people, I myself had never done it. "Yeah, no, me either," he said and then frowned, looking worried. "I mean, what do you think it feels like? Do you think it hurts?" This happened in 2012, and I still sometimes remember it and laugh. On our first date, I told one of my Amusing Anecdotesª that I had probably told a dozen times. It was about the first time I was out on assignment with one of my Mississippi coworkers who I will call Don, a charming and insane photographer in his 50s. As soon as we were on the highway, Don, with no prompting, launched into a story about the time he was caught trafficking 50 pounds of weed through rural Mississippi in the '70s. I won't relay the whole roundabout tale here, but the punchline was, "Then the biker said, 'Oh, yeah, that state trooper? That's my brother-in-law. I was testin' yew.' " Former Husband laughed and then said, "And, you know, it's funny because of course that story was also his way of testing you." I almost fell off my stool. No one else had noticed this thing or arrived at this analysis, not even close. It was a pattern that would repeat itself again and again. A spoonful weighed a ton. He was smarter and infinitely better-read than me, which of course was hideously annoying, but mostly I could only marvel at his brain-it was just so fast. When I was around him, the charisma got all over me-I was funnier, somehow, quicker and cleverer. He made me laugh until I peed, and in return, he told me I was the funniest woman he'd ever met, which goes a long way with me. No matter how much I seemed to upset him, I knew he saw me in a way that no one else ever had and that he loved what he saw-the good, bad, and ugly. He wrote song after song about me, not uniformly flattering but all exceptionally loving. One time, I was wandering around in my underwear, and he looked up. "Jesus fucking Christ, this is ridiculous. You look like . . . like . . . a painting of a really hot woman, or a drawing in a comic book done by someone who actually likes women." I have a gap in my front teeth that I've always been sensitive about-as in, there were large swaths of my life when I thought I would be cute if it wasn't for that gap. I have a terribly awkward smile because I spent the first 25 years of my life making sure my lips were firmly closed. At one point I looked into closing the gap. He was aghast. "Why would you want to look more like everyone in the world?" * * So, then, what was the problem? Well. As you read the following, please know that I have my side of the story and he has his, and there is no way I could fairly and accurately impart both of them. And that I did love him, and do love him, and wouldn't take back any of it. I would, in fact, give a fairly glowing letter of recommendation to anyone who wanted to marry him who is not me. We could not get along for a week to save our goddamn lives. Everything-everything!-had to be a fight. I am quite conflict-averse and had never really fought with a significant other before. So imagine my surprise when he got mad at me on our third date, which I was terribly late for. In my defense, I tried to cancel, saying my day had filled up and I couldn't get up to Portland in time, but he said that he'd looked forward to and planned our date, insisted I be there and did not want to reschedule. When I did finally arrive, he wasn't at his apartment but at a coffee shop nearby, tutoring one of his friends in math. He told me coldly that I could wait until he was done, and so I did, sitting chastised and quiet a few tables away. I'd apologized several times already, starting with when I tried to reschedule, but it still took another one before he looked me in the eyes and told me he forgave me. I won't lie: this dynamic was new to me, and I interpreted it not as someone with a, ahem, rigid belief system who might not always consider my point of view, but rather as someone who "respected himself." Or maybe both were true? He had an endless appetite for what he always framed as debate . . . but was often extremely stressful for me. I did not share his love of verbal sparring, and I withdrew. When something was wrong between us (always), I imagined myself folding inward; becoming a small, smooth stone; going to a place where whatever bullshit we were on about now couldn't affect me. I appeased and said whatever insincere thing I thought would end the argument. Feel free to place a bet on whether this made things better or worse. I tried, in my unhealthy way, to put an end to our ongoing discord. I twisted and turned and contorted and moved as quietly as I could, but it seemed that no matter what I did, I always upset him, with words or actions or inaction, in ways that I could not predict. I couldn't be someone who conducted herself in a manner he found acceptable, who didn't warrant constant criticism. Eventually, I realized this person just didn't exist. Or maybe she did, but I sure as hell wasn't her. At some point, I apparently decided I might as well be dramatically not her. If you don't like me like when I'm trying, hoooo boy, wait until you see what I do when I am entirely out of fucks. In the grand tradition of misery, I did not keep it to myself but was generous enough to spread my unhappiness around. I drank four or five glasses of wine a night because at that level of drunk, you can pretend a lot of things are okay, and the next day you can lament your hangover instead of where your choices have brought you. I withheld love and avoided him. The more he ran toward me, the more I desperately I wanted to bolt. We were the couple who stressed out others by being constantly tense around each other. I resented it and tried to paper over everything rather than actually solve our problems. Something neat about staying in a decaying relationship is your slow but notable transformation into a version of yourself who is unrecognizable. This person is so different from who you imagine yourself to be, and yet she looks, talks, and cries just like you. When did you get so angry? I decided perhaps one didn't get to be happy in their relationship, that fighting all the time, about everything, was something I needed to be more Zen about. Some people are tall, some people are extremely good at billiards, and some people find life much easier and more calming when they are on the other side of the country from their significant other. Variety: the spice of life! And like I said up top, I loved him. And he loved me. He was unlike anyone I'd ever met before, and as excruciating as life with him was, life without him felt like it would be worse. He made me feel incredibly safe. He was protective, loyal, and caring, and the same scrappiness that made me crazy at home meant that he moved through life true to his principles and unafraid. I truly admired him-he took me to new ideas, new ways to look at the world, and new ways to be. But despite all this, we could not get along. The way to solve these problems? Yep! Get married. I am a serial monogamist and had, before he arrived, bailed on several great boyfriends who were marriage material. Why did I always feel the urge to bolt when they wanted to settle down? The commonality in my relationships was me; therefore, perhaps, I was the problem. Maybe I was the one incapable of accurately assessing my own relationships and should, instead, outsource this job to the general community. My friends loved him; in fact, we had lots of people in common even before we dated, all of whom were delighted by our pairing. It felt like I should get married, and I was on the wrong side of 30. According to some of my Louisiana college sorority friends, I was on the wrong side of 25. And-this doesn't make me proud-like so many middle-class '90s children, I grew up thinking there was a sensible and obvious order to life. If you followed it, you would be okay. I'd already checked the college and career boxes, so now it was time to check marriage and children. If anyone reading this is engaged and terrified and constantly doubting yourself, don't do it. I know how easy this is to say and how impossible it is to act upon. But seriously and truly, you do not have to get married. That shit is fucking optional. Any engagement, however conflicted, feels like a huge ball rolling fast, its mass composed of family and friends' expectations and travel plans and deposits and caterers and the fact that you have made this giant, public announcement and everyone liked it on Instagram and it's hard to break up even when you're not engaged, and, and, and, and, . . . forever. There might be 14 million external reasons why you should get married. But what if the only reason you shouldn't is inside of you? And what if you aren't sure you can trust yourself? So here, now, is my promise to you: If any of you ever need to leave someone, even the day of, even at the altar, and you are within 50 miles of Salem, Oregon, just email me-pleasesaveme@kellywilliamsbrown.com. I will come to you like a falcon to the falconer and swoop you away and we can go get smoothies. If I don't reply in a timely manner (which I almost certainly will not), or the logistics don't work, call an older female friend or relative who has left a bad marriage, and they will be there in 10 seconds. If you're wondering if you have to do it, you almost certainly shouldn't. Yes, the wedding was beautiful-but oh, the internal screaming. A good bit of ugly-crying during our honeymoon in Sicily when, yet again, I'd violated some principle that I didn't understand and he stormed off, leaving me in the street. (This happened several times.) You can go around the world together and still feel alone. I had a series of increasingly deranged thoughts: My grandmother didn't have a super-happy marriage, but she was an exceptionally happy person. Maybe I need to meditate more. The subject of this first-person New York Times essay felt like she'd made a mistake, too, but through perseverance and personal effort, it turns out that she absolutely did not make a mistake and is now the happiest woman on Earth. Perhaps I am her! Maybe I can have some kids and then co-parent with him. Maybe I will turn into a bird and fly away. It was utterly impossible to be together in a way that didn't involve constant, grinding conflict. I'm not going to say it was trench warfare, both of us putting everything on the line to gain a yard or two, but . . . it wasn't not that. In the end, there just wasn't a moment when I could acknowledge and act upon the sad, deep truth of our relationship: no matter how much we truly and sincerely loved each other, we were fundamentally very different people, neither of whom could-or should-change enough to satisfy the other. So, after one especially terrible night, I left. I fled our house for Salem, my quasi-hometown 45 miles to the south. I said it was because of a book deadline and that I wanted to get away from distractions, but the truth is that I wanted to get away from him. The absence of my husband was deeply soothing. Excerpted from Easy Crafts for the Insane: A Mostly Funny Memoir of Mental Illness and Making Things by Kelly Williams Brown All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
