Remind Me Not to Marry Tom Cruise

I wish I could say I wrote this. I did not. I subscribe to this blog about life during and after divorce through Hopeful World Publishing. It's fantastic. Not just because of great information; but, both women are expert writers with hearts that are full and open to change. I'm re-posting one of the meditations from this week that resonated so deeply with me. Even if you're not on this page, you know at least one person, maybe many, many persons who might like to read this. Enjoy.

Whether you're happily nestled in a budding new relationship or disentangling from your marriage, claiming your power and perhaps more importantly your wholeness is a critical element in a hopeful divorce. I bought my first People magazine ever when I saw Katie Holmes' escape from Tom Cruise plastered across the cover. This marriage had always been symbolic to me of that precipice where the fairy tale leaves off and Happily Ever After is a free fall. While I'll never know and am not too concerned about what actually happened between those two people, I found their public trajectory representative of one of the most primary themes (for women) that gets played out in a romantic relationship--moving from enchantment to entrapment to escape. We think a man is going to give us something necessary to complete us or even save us. We don't understand the kind of helplessness and hopelessness this agreement establishes. We don't understand that we actually already have what we're looking to the man to give us. It takes walking in heels for a decade to get over his idea of beauty and our willingness to sacrifice to achieve it. It takes leaving him to find that we had the damn glass slipper in the back of the closet all along. When I learned of Katie's secret plot, her secret phone, her secret little pilot light of a self still flickering deep within her--despite the light that had gone out of her eyes--I felt fierce. For all of us women who literally had to kill ourselves off in our marriages to get ourselves back, wizened, tattered, in divorce. I'm sorry Tom Cruise, but my answer is no. You can jump on Oprah's couch till the cows come home. You can stun the world with your exponential romantic gesture. My cup is full. I've arrived with both feet on the ground at Happily Ever After. I'm not buying what you're selling. Where did you buy into the myth of Happily Ever After? Where can you take back a little part of yourself that you've put in the hands of another? You'll need that glass slipper for your own magnificent dance. No prince charming necessary. Sage Cohen is the author of Writing the Life Poetic and The Productive Writer, both from Writer's Digest Books, and the poetry collection Like the Heart, the World. Awarded first place in the Ghost Road Press poetry contest and nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Sage teaches and lectures at writing conferences throughout the country. She offers information and inspiration about the writing life on her blog www.pathofpossibility.com.