| Thirty years ago today I was lying on our bed being un-lied to for the first time in the twenty years of my relationship—four going steady years and sixteen married years. We were almost to the mid-point of the at-least-fifty years I had planned to spend with my spouse as devoted wife, help-mate, and mother to our children. I thought I was doing a really good job and was looking forward to our Golden Anniversary until that fateful spring day.
Ironically, I had never given much thought to the meaning of April Fools Day, except to avoid the childhood pranks and teasing at the hands of my older brother way back when. But I never miss remembering how 04/01/77 changed my life during that dreadful Sunday afternoon chit-chat with my husband.
According to historian William Walsh, the celebration of April Fools Day was a direct result of calendar changes in the year 1564. The European New Year, until it changed to our current January 1, was March 25 followed by eight days of merriment ending on April 1. For obvious reasons, not all people knew of the restructured calendar. Many continued their new year’s frivolity on the old time scale, thus becoming known as April fools or the last to know.
Some medieval festivities “provided opportunities for the overturning of conventional reason, and indeed the overturning of the social order itself.” The Feast of Fools, much like Boxing Day in some countries, was a holiday when roles were reversed between the elite and the common citizens. Rulers were gleefully ridiculed by paupers elected as Mock Kings for the day, and paupers were mimicked by Royalty who probably enjoyed stepping outside the confines of their daily roles as rulers.
This jocularity seemed to work for everyone—until the Feast was discontinued after the social climate of acceptable self-mockery was replaced by, shall we say, a less fun-for-all tradition. Harvey Cox asserts that, “The divine right of kings, papal infallibility, and the modern totalitarian state all flowered after the Feast of Fools disappeared.”
But my camouflaged king necessitated a detour in my illusion-clad reality as our sacred vows were brought to truth that day. For seven more years I tried to “fix” myself and our marriage, looking inside myself, as women tend to do, for “cause.” Unfortunately for me however, there were no answers that could glue us back together again as I treaded midair.
Our marriage had been centered on a booming business that had become an industry, and I an active part in that drama. For twenty years, I had been known as the boss’ wife rather than as a fully-up-to-the-hilt pledged partner—financially, physically, and emotionally. Ever since, I’ve been known simply as the ex-wife.
Our son and daughter were in high school, and well-supervised when I or their Dad was otherwise occupied. My time was devoted to working, or rather, finding my own work in life. Having practically grown up with my entrepreneur king, I figured if I could become an entrepreneuse in a world that hadn’t invented the word yet, I might redeem my shriveled self worth.
Fortified with excellent corporate experience, I started a video production and publishing venture to replace the void of a burned-up heart after our divorce. Fulfilling a presumed need for credentials of my own, I attended hundreds of hours of classes at a Midwest school of Christianity. For recreation, I was a student of ballroom dance before it was cool and until my feet finally rebelled. My social life consisted of volunteering hundreds of hours for charitable causes.
Tiring of the big city lifestyle, I purchased and operated a 600-acre guest ranch. In my spare time, I hosted and taught twice weekly classes for metaphysical students, and served on numerous civic boards. One day I woke up and decided my life was not fun anymore and subsequently retired with very little fanfare in 2004.
That completion felt sad and hauntingly empty upon realization that in the process of those achievements, I had served the masters of my own enslavement. This discovery seemed to invalidate everything I had done, even though I thought I was happy and right in the doing. It also necessitated changing my long-held beliefs and allegiances.
And so this 04/01/77 reminds me where and why those changes of mind might have begun, and brings us back to the sacrilege of the man’s world women and girls must inhabit today. My hope is that our sisters everywhere will wake from their wishful slumber and begin to see that our illusions of good men, and therefore our hopes of a good world, are but a dream until we are fully included in the human family.
Remember, dear old April will be making her way around the calendar again, and someone just might wish you a happy new year.
#0001
|
