Divorced Mix

I’ve been putting together two mixes, very slowly, as something to do when I need a break at work. One mix is called: “Divorced at 23, Oh Shit.” The other is called: “Divorced at 23, Fuck Yeah!” I had originally had the idea to try and find quotes from people who had been divorced before 25, and make a mix with quotes in between the tracks. Which would be a super awesome idea, but, you know, one of those “I’ll totally do that someday” ideas.

I just put Tom Jones’ “It’s Not Unusual” on the Fuck Yeah! mix, and it reminded me of a little story. In the last six months of our marriage, Mr. Flint once told me (over dinner at a restaurant, very casually) that he’d been planning out how to kill himself. A cry for help, this was not. He went on to explain that he’d figured out the best way to traumatize me for life, make all our friends and his family hate and blame me, and make me feel guilty the rest of my life for wanting to leave him was for him to hang himself. Part of his plan was to hang himself somewhere I could find him, probably the bedroom, and to loop “It’s Not Unusual” on the computer, so that for the rest of my life, whenever I heard that song, I would burst into hysterical tears and everybody would think I was a crazy person. And, of course, in his fantasy world, I couldn’t ever explain to people why “It’s Not Unusual” made me sad, because then they’d know what an immoral terrible woman I was.

His telling me this didn’t have the intended effect. First I suppressed laughter, then tried to say with serious-face, “That’s a really fucked up thing to say, Flint,” all while thinking, “Jesus, how that would simplify my life.” So, onto the Fuck Yeah! mix it goes.