Forever is a Long Time, Part 5: Aunt Rari

My aunt Rari divorced her husband so completely and so long ago that I don’t even know the man’s name. She tells me that story and about the life she built without him. It makes me contemplate the value of a life spent alone — but also of lifelong companionship.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:31Speaker 01

  This is a CBC Podcast.

• 0:35Speaker 01

  My name is Ian Cosse, and you're listening to Forever Is A Long Time on CBC's Personally. Part Five: My Aunt Rory.

• 0:47Speaker 01

  I think in a way I'm coming to you last because, in my mind at least, you relate with this topic a little differently than most of my family because

• 1:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00Speaker 01

  you haven't structured your life around a romantic partner in the same way that most other members of my family have. Like, you have a very strong and internal sense of yourself that guides you, at least from my perspective. And I was curious if that feels accurate to you, if that's how you see yourself.

• 1:24Speaker 02

  I do. You know, because I have been, I mean, since I got divorced, I've really only had one long-term relationship, and that ended, you know, decades ago at this point. And to add to that, or to help, I think, help create that, is that I lived away from family for a really long time.

• 1:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41Speaker 02

  And I was on my own a lot for holidays and birthdays. And, you know, you either throw yourself into relationships to not be alone, or you find a way to embrace that as that being alone doesn't have to mean lonely, being alone doesn't have to mean that there's anything wrong, it's just what you are doing. And to me, I'm pretty good company. I'm funny, and I'm, you know what I mean? It's like, I just feel like that's a nice thing to feel about yourself.

• 2:29Speaker 01

  When I was growing up, we didn't see Rory nearly as much as my mother's other siblings. But she had a deal where whenever one of us kids turned 16, she would fly us out to California, where she was at the time, and we'd do all the silly tourist stuff that one does in California, like go to the Jelly Belly factory and drive down that really curvy street in San Francisco.

• 2:55Speaker 01

  I have this distinct memory of going to a piano bar together, the kind where all the waiters take turns singing. And either it was my birthday, or Rory lied and told them it was my birthday, but somehow she got the whole place to sing for me. And that's Rory. She has no qualms about getting exactly what she wants. She'll order a steak off the menu, then ask to swap out the sides, hold the sauce, and bring extra butter for the bread even before she's seen how much butter they were going to bring, because she knows we'll need it. She lives her life so completely on her own terms.

• 3:37Speaker 01

  It's almost hard for me to imagine that she was once married to another person.

• 3:52Speaker 01

  That said, of course, you were married at some point.

• 3:55Speaker 02

  I was.

• 3:56Speaker 01

  Pretty early in life. This is the crazy part is I don't even know the name of your once husband. This is so totally removed from my life.

• 4:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, his name was Joe Branch. And let me see if I can put this timing together. I graduated from nursing school in 85.

• 4:18Speaker 02

  So I'd say we're probably married, uh, early eighties and divorced and we were only married for seven years.

• 4:24Speaker 01

  Oh, so right around the time I was born, you guys split up?

• 4:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think so. And this was all while I was in Florida.

• 4:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:32Speaker 02

  I was a waitress at a restaurant and he was one of the managers there. And, um, I don't know, it was just easy. Falling into a relationship was so easy. I mean, like, within a matter of days, we were practically living together. Um, and, uh, he was funny and it's kinda hard to actually, it's kinda hard to voice all this stuff, cause I ended up so disliking so many things about him by the time we were done. And I'm sure part of it is that, you know, okay, I'm gonna sort of segue a little bit, but I was involved in this thing called Divine Light Mission. And it was a cult that was headed by this young guru called Guru Maharaji.

• 5:13Speaker 03

  Guru Maharaji says, "Life is like a chess game, and very soon now, the whole world will be checkmated."

• 5:21Speaker 02

  And I was very involved in it here in Boston before I left. And then, when I went down there, I was very involved in it, you know, going to meetings seven days a week and doing two or three hours of meditation a day and... And the meditation was extraordinarily healing from, you know, a pretty crazy childhood. And it's not like I ever did anything crazy. I mean, I followed this guy around the country and went to a lot of conferences that he gave. But for me, I started getting disenchanted when I would go to some of these conferences and I would see the behavior of a lot of the people and I sort of felt like...

• 6:01Speaker 04

  I have Guru Maharaji's knowledge. I don't have to think, I know.

• 6:05Speaker 02

  You know, even like the hotels and people would trash the hotels and if the stuff that we're learning about love isn't actually changing you into a better part of everything, then I don't think you're really doing it right. But anyway, so I had just kind of was on the outs of that when I met Joe.

• 6:44Speaker 02

  And I think that it was just an easy transition from loving that to loving him.

• 6:51Speaker 01

  And he just filled that void?

• 6:53Speaker 02

  And he just filled that void and he was funny and it's like in a lot of relationships, I think. After the honeymoon period is over, you start realizing the things about them that you don't like. And one of the things about Joe that was very hard was that he never really grew up, you know? He was one of these people who just knew that at some point he'd luck into something and his ship would come in. And so he started going after a lot of get rich quick schemes.

• 7:26Speaker 01

  Do you remember any of the specifics?

• 7:28Speaker 02

  He got involved with some new magazine that was coming out that was selling ads. He bought shares of some, I don't know, some mining operation someplace. He was just so gullible about money and so I was the one who was supporting us.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:44Speaker 02

  Rather than forcing him to be an adult, I just ended up taking over his life. I was even paying his child support. I was, I was like paying all the bills. And I was pissed at him a lot, but I just never, this is where I did not have the skill to be able to say, wow, you were like completely enabling him to be this way. And the real nail in the coffin though was he had done something that had earned him a couple thousand dollars. I was very excited that he had money. And then my dad died. And I needed to go to the funeral and I ended up using that money and he was so pissed.

• 8:26Speaker 02

  And he said, you know, I finally earned some money and then, you know, it all just gets wasted.

• 8:34Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 8:35Speaker 02

  And I know he didn't mean it that way, but I sure took it that way. And then I was like, you know, well, fuck you, buddy. And, you know, I told him I wanted a divorce.

• 8:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:46Speaker 02

  So, yeah, so that's kind of a quick and dirty.

• 8:50Speaker 01

  I'm curious, why do you think you were able to kind of like find that escape velocity? And not sort of linger in that sort of codependency or in that just sort of cycle of of anger? And, you know, all that negative stuff that a lot of people just get stuck in?

• 9:10Speaker 02

  I don't know. I think that I think that maybe moving away gives you a certain, because you know, you can live on your own. You know, you can pack up and go. You know that you can survive in a way that maybe people who live in their own community for a billion years don't.

• 9:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. So you got married, sorry, you got divorced in the late eighties. At some point you moved out to California, you moved to Colorado, you moved back to Massachusetts.

• 9:42Speaker 01

  I'm curious, sort of in that journey through your life, through your career, was finding a romantic partner to share that with, was that a priority for you?

• 9:55Speaker 02

  So when I moved to California, not long after I moved there, I actually met David. And we were in a relationship for about six years. And, um, once we broke up and we stayed friends, we stayed friends until he died.

• 10:11Speaker 02

  And then, I don't know, I tried a couple of dating services and stuff, but everybody just felt like so much work, Ian, you know?

• 10:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:21Speaker 02

  Everything just felt like a lot of work and I just was feeling okay by myself, you know? I just thought that I didn't want someone enough to deal with most of the stuff that I was already finding out about on the first date. And then I just didn't care anymore, you know, I just, it just was a complete non-issue for me.

• 10:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:41Speaker 02

  Where I just, I was fine and happy and can't even imagine wanting to get into a relationship with someone and doing everything you need to do to, you know? Involve yourself with someone's life that way. And in fact, sometimes I feel sad that I don't. I'm so allergic to cats because I'd be perfectly happy to be that woman at the end of the street with 15 cats. I wouldn't have any issues with that at all. So.

• 11:06Speaker 01

  I just want to say that, you know, I realize there are negative stereotypes around the idea of being a single adult woman. And I don't mean to harp on that at all. In fact, I mean, when I look at your life, you know, and the fact that you've lived all over this country, you've traveled all over the world, you've had this remarkable career in medicine, you have hobbies, crafts, you have a wonderful home now with your sister, which is sort of like the hub of our whole family. I mean, and you've been able to do all of that partly because you sort of have this autonomy of self, you know, that you're not attached to another person. So I guess I'm kind of in awe of that in a way.

• 11:48Speaker 02

  Hmm. Thanks.

• 11:59Speaker 02

  There's a lot of things that can make you feel bad about being on your own on a Saturday night without things to go do. The way I was thinking about it, it's like you go to a mall and you're just sitting around and dozens of people are walking by you and that's, you know, all the bad thoughts and all the whatevers and you're just, you know, learning how to just let it go by, let it go by, that you don't, none of that stuff, the random thoughts in your head, the whatever, that they don't, they're nothing. They're just like clouds in the sky and just not to own them and not to, because it doesn't become real until you suddenly say, wow, yeah, that is true. And wow, that makes me really mad. And, you know, all of a sudden you're in this place and it's completely made up, that

• 12:44Speaker 02

  all that stuff is just completely made up. We make it up. Instead of saying, wow, I got a whole night free. What do I want to do? And I used to love to go out to eat with a good book. I never felt for a second that there was anyone in the restaurant looking at me and saying, oh, look at that person. They don't have any friends or they don't have anything, whatever. And it felt kind of nice because I always want to do what I want to do.

• 13:22Speaker 01

  I'm pretty sure I was nodding along during this whole part of the conversation. Like Rory, I love to do things alone and at my own pace, to go somewhere I've never been before and simply take it in, in silence.

• 13:43Speaker 01

  When I interviewed my dad for this project, he told me he was surprised that I got married when I did, because I'd always been so determined to do my own thing. Self-contained was the word he used. I had always been so self-contained. And it really is true. For years, I resisted the very idea of being in a serious relationship. And whenever I came close to one, I would always find a way to just slink off or let it fizzle without having to even talk about it. Seems like a pretty weird MO now, but I can think of several times as a young man when I just stopped calling, stopped responding, and pretended it never happened.

• 14:29Speaker 01

  Not because there was someone else, but because there was no one else, and I liked it that way.

• 14:37Speaker 01

  Somehow, Kelsey stuck. Maybe it was her tenacity, maybe something in me had changed, or maybe I had just found someone who I liked being with more than I liked being alone. After we dated for a few years, we actually gave ourselves that chance to be alone again. I moved to Indonesia, she moved to Japan. It was a 15-hour flight to see each other, which we only did a couple of times. And after a year, I came and joined her in Tokyo. I think for both of us, that moment was very important, to know, as Rory said, that we were just fine alone, that we didn't need each other, but we wanted each other.

• 15:23Speaker 01

  A few years after that, much to my father's surprise, we got married.

• 15:31Speaker 01

  I have a sort of a last question. Sort of bringing it back to this idea of links, you know, and cycles and families, how they play out generation after generation. I'm curious, as you look at, you know, me and my generation, sort of recommitting ourselves to this idea of, you know, having life partners and getting married and sort of setting ourselves on that course. I don't know, does any part of you shake your head at, you know, the way we're seeking that same structure in our lives? Or what do you make of it?

• 16:11Speaker 02

  No, no. First of all, I think that you've all picked extraordinary partners. You all have your own sense of real personhood. I mean, I think that you guys all are true partners, that love is never foolish, and I think you're all willing to learn from the hard things in life. And I'm 100% rooting for you guys, that you'll have these partners for a lifetime. I will say though, and I think this is something that's important to do, is to look at your

• 16:52Speaker 02

  parents and realize that, yeah, they did, they did a lot of stuff to fuck you up, but you also get gifts. And to focus on the gifts, and I think that the gifts that mom and dad gave me, and Mia and Paul and Ellen and I have all talked about this, that the gift that they gave us, which was an incredible sense of humor, a gift to be introspective and spirituality, that those three things have held me in such good stead throughout my entire life, that I actually feel at the end of the day now, as I'm looking back when I'm 64, it's like those gifts were worth it, you know, to walk away with those things. Because I got through the rest of it, you know? I learned, I learned how to, you know, wash my clothing, and I learned to cope with all

• 17:37Speaker 02

  the things that life threw at me. But I was able to do that because of the good stuff I got.

• 17:44Speaker 01

  It's almost like our, like our parents give us wounds and trauma, but if we're lucky, they, they give us the tools and medicine to deal with those things, too.

• 17:55Speaker 02

  Right, right. And to face it and work our way through it, you know?

• 18:23Speaker 05

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• 18:29Speaker 06

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• 18:42Speaker 05

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• 18:55Speaker 01

  Do you think I'm making too much of legacy here? Like, is it, um, am I making too much of the role models, the examples? Are we our own people more than I'm maybe giving credit in the way I've presented this?

• 19:16Speaker 05

  Well, maybe, but I think also you, you are leaving out in this presentation, you're leaving out all the good role models.

• 19:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I really do, you know, despite exploring the divorces in my family, I do give my parents a lot of credit for...

• 19:40Speaker 01

  Given the circumstances they had, also giving us the best possible examples, I think they could. And for them, that meant not vilifying each other.

• 19:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  It meant dating other people and letting us meet those people and having them in our lives as role models. It meant eventually remarrying. I also feel like, like Rory said, I was given a lot of gifts, a lot of good stuff to work with.

• 20:16Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 20:17Speaker 01

  And I mean, I think especially hearing Rory's story made me rethink in some ways the way I framed the whole question of marriage and divorce.

• 20:34Speaker 01

  One way to look at a divorce is as a failure, right? It's a marriage that failed. Another way to look at a divorce is somebody took their lives into their own hands and made a change.

• 20:50Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 20:51Speaker 01

  In a way that is very difficult and is, still bears a certain amount of social stigma. And it does take some bravery. And I'll also say that

• 21:04Speaker 01

  in almost every case, it's the woman who takes that deliberate step. That's another story to tell here is women who are not stuck in marriages that they didn't want to be in.

• 21:20Speaker 05

  I mean, how much of that do you think is just that like marriage is in and of itself like an institution of the patriarchy and therefore more likely to serve the man well than the woman?

• 21:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:34Speaker 05

  This is something I like, think about, I struggle with, like, why? Like, why?

• 21:40Speaker 05

  Like, why don't we just like, date forever?

• 21:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:43Speaker 05

  Like, for, for us, there's no like, legal reason to get married. Like, it doesn't make our taxes cheaper.

• 21:49Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 21:50Speaker 05

  I don't want your last name. You don't want my last name. Like, you don't need a green card.

• 21:57Speaker 01

  I'm not too worried about being able to make medical decisions for you.

• 22:01Speaker 05

  Yeah. Um.

• 22:04Speaker 05

  I think there is something about...

• 22:07Speaker 05

  I mean, I think that it's nice to, that we, five to six years ago, sat down and made a decision that, that we wanted to like, work at being life partners.

• 22:19Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 22:19Speaker 05

  And I think something you said, oh, bless you, Chacha. Something you said earlier about, you know, like, being married made you realize that, you know, you had to like, take better care of the relationship.

• 22:33Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 22:33Speaker 05

  I don't think you get that if you don't ever sit down and make the choice to be life partners.

• 22:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:39Speaker 05

  And I think, being, like, marriage is that. That is what, that is like, at its core, what it is for me. That's the best justification of my decision I can come up with.

• 22:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:05Speaker 01

  I've been, um,

• 23:08Speaker 01

  while I've been working on this, I found myself thinking about our wedding vows a lot.

• 23:16Speaker 05

  And?

• 23:17Speaker 01

  They've, they've held up pretty well.

• 23:19Speaker 05

  Okay, except?

• 23:21Speaker 01

  No, there's no but coming.

• 23:23Speaker 05

  Okay, okay, no but.

• 23:24Speaker 01

  I, what I've been thinking is, you know, there was a lot, at the time we got married, that I didn't understand and, you know, sort of like, grew into maybe, but I actually feel like those last lines of our vows have like, only become truer to me. And especially in hearing all these stories, I find myself thinking of them again and again. Those lines about how,

• 23:52Speaker 01

  even though the future is uncertain.

• 23:55Speaker 05

  Although our future is uncertain.

• 23:56Speaker 01

  Today, we commit to a future together. And trust that the rest of our lives will fall into place around that union.

• 24:07Speaker 01

  We promise to keep that union and to never take it for granted. Knowing that love exists. Love exists. Because we make it exist. Because we make it exist. Love lasts. Love lasts. Because we choose to make it last. Because we choose to make it last.

• 24:23Speaker 07

  I promise to keep making that choice even as we change and grow in its bounds.

• 24:29Speaker 01

  I promise to keep making that choice even when it is a difficult choice to make.

• 24:36Speaker 01

  And that idea of

• 24:40Speaker 01

  promising to choose. Let these rings. That's something you can promise. Be a reminder of that promise. You can't promise a feeling. And a reminder of all of the wishes. Because you can't know how you're going to feel. And you can't promise a reality because you don't know what your reality will be.

• 25:05Speaker 01

  There's very little in life that you can promise. Look around this circle. And let each one of these faces. The only thing you can promise is what you can control. And the thing that you can control is your own choices.

• 25:23Speaker 01

  And that is, I think, the best promise that we could have made is to to just keep making that choice.

• 25:33Speaker 01

  You're now married.

• 26:23Speaker 08

  Someone to come home to Someone to come home to Someone standing in the window In the window In the window Someone rolling over Someone rolling over Someone laying on my shoulder On my shoulder On my shoulder It's not for now But it's for later The sits in the ground So there's food on the table

• 27:07Speaker 08

  You'll be around And I'll be grateful Grateful Grateful

• 27:44Speaker 08

  Someone who is waiting Someone who is waiting Someone who will watch me aging Watch me aging Watch me aging It's not for now But it's for later The sits in the ground So there's food on the table You'll be around And I'll be grateful Grateful

• 29:16Speaker 01

  Do you have any last questions?

• 29:17Speaker 05

  You are supposed to have questions. You didn't ask me, like, any questions.

• 29:21Speaker 01

  Well, everything that I wanted to ask you about has come up along the way.

• 29:26Speaker 05

  I mean, I don't know. I'm getting, how, tired, so I feel like I'm just gonna start...

• 29:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm kind of running out of steam, too.

• 29:32Speaker 05

  Rambling. I'll probably have more thoughts later.

• 29:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's okay. We could talk about it again later.

• 29:37Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 29:37Speaker 01

  It's okay.

• 29:39Speaker 05

  I love you.

• 29:40Speaker 01

  I love you, too.

• 29:42Speaker 05

  That's good.

• 29:59Speaker 01

  "Forever is a Long Time" was edited by Lacey Roberts. The songs were mixed and co-produced by Alex Shakur and mastered by Nick Zampiello at New Alliance East. You can hear the full album, including songs not featured in the podcast, on Bandcamp and Spotify. Just search for Ian Coss. The artwork is by my wife, Kelsey Tisowsky.

• 30:27Speaker 01

  My collaborators really deserve more than a one-line credit here. I would have abandoned this project many times over if I didn't have some of the most brilliant and creative people I know working with me on it, telling me it could work, and then telling me how to make it work. Truly, you do not want to know how convoluted the entire series would be if Laci Roberts had not set me straight again and again. I'm grateful to my colleagues at PRX, who have supported this project in so many ways: Julie Shapiro, Mark Pagano, Ian Fox, Jason Saldana, Jocelyn Gonzalez, Valoma

• 31:12Speaker 01

  Orozco, Mayon Plout, Marielle Carricker, and David Cutrone. I want to thank my entire family for their openness and understanding. Most times, when I would tell someone about this project, they would say either, "Well, that should make for an interesting Thanksgiving dinner," or, "Wow, I could never do that with my family." I had my own doubts when I started out, and with each relative I reached out to, I was totally prepared for the whole endeavor to come to an end. Yet, one after another, they said yes, and then shared with me pieces of their lives

• 31:55Speaker 01

  that I had never heard before, and that helped me understand my own relationship in new ways. That openness to conversation and reflection is one of many, many gifts I have received from my family, and I feel so blessed to be related to them. Finally, thank you to my wife, Kelsey, my partner in life and in this series. Among the many things you have taught me about love and relationships is the fact that it's always better to open up the windows and doors of my mind and let other people

• 32:35Speaker 01

  in, even, or perhaps especially, when I don't like what's in there. Your probing mind, your compassion, and your perseverance make me a better person, and I can't imagine my life without you.

• 33:18Speaker 09

  For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca/podcasts.