"Until death do us part"

One of those odd bits of news that still comes as a bit of a surprise.

Al and Tipper Gore separate after 40-year marriage - Yahoo! News

I don't identify with his political beliefs and find his climate change alarmism bordering on cartoonish until some better data establishing a relationship between atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases and climate conditions over the last few millennia is developed (following link gives an approach which might work, although it will take a few years to collect Antarctic ice core samples and perform the necessary analysis):
 
Unearthing Cold, Hard Facts About Climate Change in Antarctica - WSJ.com

But, that's one of those things hopefully we'll be able to figure out and know with a higher degree of confidence than we do today. Our emotional reactions to things which we don't know about, but only react to is something else. I sometimes fear my empathetic and sympathetic responses to events reflects as much my experiences, age, and general state of mind at the time as they do the actual event. Still, that being said, the Gore's separation after such a lengthy marriage and public live leaves me sad. I can't really say why and instead will relate one of those anecdotal tales which I store in the recesses of my brain.

Some years before meeting J, I had a short lived first marriage which ended with the girl leaving. The days and nights which followed that misadventure changed me in ways which reverberated through me for more than a few years. It's main effect on me was I misbehaved. To this day I hate meeting some of the people I knew during that time because I was not exactly the most effective, brilliant, or honorable individual during that time of my life. I seemingly lost the capability to care about things which had been very important to me just a few years earlier (it was still there, maybe I just stopped caring about caring). On weekends I would go down to the local nightclub/bar on the hunt for random female company. Most of the time I would meet someone who liked to party or drink. Sometimes both. Rarely did I meet anyone memorable, although I suppose I would've had to first define memorable requirements, which I really didn't care to do at the time.

And so we present, a typical evening at "Avenues" (a "true" story):

"I'm so happy tonight!" she exclaims as she slides close to my right elbow, which in turn rests on the heavy poly surface of the bar. I'm nursing some type of whiskey on the rocks, periodically poking at the ice with my index finger.

I turn and smile and simply respond, "Oh, that's good", the response tempered as much by my drink as a desire to engage. She's about my age, mid twenties (definitely no longer a teenager), blonde hair with dark roots showing, nice smile, nice figure, but a little too eager to compliment the place which my drink has taken me to. That place was uncomplicated by sharp edges, detailed examinations of memories for clues, and consideration of life's complexities. That's gone. That's why I'm there. Again. On Friday night. I just need a little company and it'll be perfect. I'm in a pretty good mood and continue to smile as I check out my new found companion.

"Aren't you going to ask why?"

"Well, I wasn't going to, but I don't mind listening if you want to."

"I got my final divorce papers today!", she exclaims before I can really finish saying "want to".

I hesitate just a smidge (maybe the drink?) and simply say "Oh."

She notices. "Well, I'm just glad it's over. It's been such a long time and now it's finally done and I've got my papers". She gives me a look like she just remembered something, and I really don't want her to just leave, but I'm feeling the effort of coming up with something to say that will keep her talking at my right elbow.

"Well that's good for you then. I'm just never sure what to say to people when they tell me that because I don't really know their story or the people involved. You know. Most of the time I just tell them I'm sorry, but I can see that's not where you are."

"Well, I'm not and it's a really good day for me", she insists.

"Well then congratulations," I say and smile.

She stays and talks about a lot of things. Her just concluded first marriage. Her two children. Why she left him. "He just wasn't growing anymore, you know?"

I drank during that time to take the edge off. To make the memories not so overwhelming. Yet, something about that remark penetrates my consciousness and I feel offended. Should I have? No, this was just a girl I didn't know in a bar on a Friday night, but the wiseass part of me uncoils a little bit, "Couldn't you have got him elevator shoes or something?" I inquire while smiling gently. "No", she says quickly, "I don't mean like that." She doesn't laugh.  And she continues talking.

"Oh", I say somewhere in the middle of things.

Her kids slept at her mom's house and she had dinner with them. This was beginning to attract my attention on another level. "Gee, do you really think that's fair?" I quizzed.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you know. Your mom raised her kids and now she's got a fair amount of responsibility for yours. That doesn't seem fair."

She pauses for a minute while looking at me. "No, I don't think so. I mean, how else could I go out like this?"

I smile slower this time, close my eyes for just a moment while still smiling, and realize all of these places have the smell of stale beer, cigarettes, sweat and old perfume (I usually put my clothes from Friday night in a plastic bag until I could get to the Laundromat). For a second I just didn't want to be there, but then I simply responded, "Yeah, I guess you couldn't".

We leave together, but I still have this feeling I wanted to be somewhere else. I wind up following her in my car with a growing conviction the whole evening is wrong.  In the end my memories of who I had been a year earlier were more dominant than any opportunity available that night.   So as the evening draws to its' inevitable conclusion, I decline to cross a doorway, and with as much grace as I could muster I excuse myself and go home before I compound the mistakes of that lost year. About the same time I also started to realize no amount of drink, or passages through new rooms, would ever change the fact that what had happened to me in my life, had happened.

A long time later I still don't know why we're all so damn prickly. I realize, like Woody Allen once said, "The heart wants what the heart wants", but somewhere along the border between id and ego, between individual liberty and social constructs there are casualties and I think something is lost even though I understand it can all be explained. So, for Al and Tipper, although I don't know you and often disagree with you, I'm sorry to hear the news and I hope things work out for the both of you.

As for me, almost thirty years ago, the Friday following the above tale I was back at "Avenues".  Today, I'm much more reluctant to trust the emotions of any one moment.