Twenty-Five Years Since My Divorce and I still Remember My Ex’s Birthday

I wish I could forget it.

I am one of those people with a freakishly good memory. Unfortunately, I only have a good memory for trivial things about my own life.

For example, if you tell me you like a sweater that I’m wearing, I will tell you I bought it at Target on Coolidge Highway, six years ago on a Sunday afternoon around 3:00 p.m. in March, after going to the car wash where there was a $5 special on the “ultimate car wash.”

I will then tell you how the sweater was hanging on the wrong rack among a bunch of jeans, and it was on clearance for $9.97. Then I will tell you how I scoured the store for another sweater like it in a different color, but there wasn’t one, so I could only buy the one that I was wearing.

After an experience like that, you will probably never compliment me on anything that I am wearing again because you don’t want to relive hearing details about such insignificant details ever again.

I don’t have a good memory for any information that could make me rich, like the type of information you need to win on Jeopardy. Unless a Jeopardy category is “best places to find abandoned sweaters on clearance,” in which case I am a winner.

As a result of my strong memory skills, I am frequently plagued with remembering and randomly recalling things I don’t care about or things that I would prefer not to remember.

One irritating thing that is stuck in my memory is my ex-husband’s birthday. Every year since the divorce, it pops into my brain even though I have no use for that information.

I also still remember his Social Security number. Of course, I would do nothing with that information because that would be morally and legally wrong, and I like to think that I am a good person who doesn’t do those types of things.

Personally, I think you should be able to get a new Social Security number after a divorce because of the potential for abuse of the information by an ex, but I digress.

Yesterday, just like clockwork, I remembered my ex’s birthday when I wrote the date in my journal. I would prefer not to remember this date.

Just like I would prefer not to remember when he told our marriage counselor how he loved one of our dogs more than he loved me. He said that.

I once accused him of having an unhealthy attachment to that dog, and he got super mad. Thou doth protest too much? Maybe. That is a story for another day. I digress again.

The only thoughts that fill my brain about my ex are the bad thoughts. Isn’t that funny how that happens?

I remember very few good things about our seven years together, but I remember lots of bad stuff. I remember his yelling, pushing, threatening, his flaky family who always wanted me to have a kid with him, his lying, cheapness, sloppiness. I could go on, but I won’t.

I am a firm believer that most things happen for a reason. I don’t think that something like disease and natural disasters happens for a reason; those things are just pure suffering if you ask me. But stuff like dysfunctional relationships have a hidden bright side it is up to each of us to find.

It’s up to me to turn things around and come up with something positive to remember from my time with my ex. Being negative serves no purpose.

So far, I haven’t been able to find a ton of positive things about the seven years with my ex. For the longest time, I felt like it was a total waste.

I walked away with virtually nothing that I didn’t come into the marriage with except for a treadmill. Seriously, that was all I got in the divorce other than stuff that was mine before the marriage. So, on the materialistic side, it was a waste.

But I did learn a few things. Oddly, I learned two things about entertaining and food. First, I learned how to make the right amount of food for your guests.

Being Polish, I grew up believing that when people were coming over; you needed to make enough food for the meal, more food for another meal a few hours later, and enough food for the next four days after — minimum.

My ex’s family made enough food for the main meal, and that was it. If you didn’t like it or were still hungry, you could go to McDonald’s.

Something was freeing about that way of thinking. It was nice to learn not to pressure myself to prepare enough food to make every person at the dinner happy. With the way I grew up, if you were making a turkey and one person didn’t like turkey, then you had better also make a ham. If someone didn’t like turkey or ham, you had better make a chicken, too. If someone didn’t like turkey, ham, or chicken, it was time to break out the kielbasa.

As a woman in my family, it was my job to please everyone — all the time.

I’ve tried to hold on to the lesson from my ex that you need enough food, and that’s it.

The other thing I learned from my ex was about stuffed cabbage.

Being Polish, I eat a lot of stuffed cabbage. Stuffed cabbage has a Polish name that I have no idea how to spell, so I will refer to it as stuffed cabbage.

According to him, my ex is Hungarian; they too eat stuffed cabbage; they have a different name for it, which I also can’t spell. He taught me to put sour cream on the stuffed cabbage. He said that is the Hungarian way. I do not know how true that is, but it is delicious. I highly recommend trying it.

Maybe one day, I will see some profound purpose in those seven years. For now, I will settle with entertaining and food tips that even Martha Stewart would probably be glad to know. It’s enough for me, and it makes me feel like I didn’t mess up so badly.

It’s up to each of us to find the good in things we did that didn’t turn out so great. Even finding a little of good can go a long way to getting you past the not-so-great days.

Help an old lady build her email list. Click here to join.

Linda Kowalchek is a work in progress and a member of the typewriter generation. She spends her time with her husband and her rescue cats waiting for golf balls to crash through their windows. PSA: Don’t live next to a golf course.