50 and Single-Again: Is There a Moral to This NY Times Story?

Two items today:

#1
This past Sunday, the New York Times published a story about 50-something year old woman and her life after her divorce from her husband of 30 years. You can read it here. Before I tell you what I think, I'd love to hear your reactions. I read another person's take on the story, sent to a listserv, before I read the story for myself. What I was led to expect was not at all what I found.

So, if you will, please take a look at the story (it is fairly short - less than 3 pages when printed double-spaced), and post your reactions:

• If you had the kind of marriage described by the person in the story and you were considering divorce, do you think this story would tilt you toward the divorce, away from it, or have no effect?

• What was your reaction to the last two paragraphs of the story, in which she describes making dinner for herself?

• How do you think she feels about her life? How did her story make you feel?

Of course, feel free to comment on anything else as well. In a future post, I'll tell you what was said on that listserv account of the story, together with my own reactions.

#2
As I mentioned in a previous post, the online book club of the Alternatives to Marriage Project has chosen my essay collection, Single with Attitude: Not Your Typical Take on Health and Happiness, Love and Money, Marriage and Friendship, as its next selection. I've agreed to moderate. Today I wanted to let you know that our online discussion will begin on the last day of this month, Wednesday September 30. I'll post some introductory comments and maybe some questions, then everyone is welcome to join in the discussion. There is no particular time when you need to log in; just check in on the discussion whenever you like. I'll continue it for a week, or longer if people still seem to have themes from the book they'd like to continue discussing.

If you are not already a member of the AtMP book club, you can join it here. You can order the paperback version of Single with Attitude here or from Amazon. There is also a Kindle version.

Membership requests need to be approved, so it is best not to wait until the last minute. Also, you may want to say something about why you are joining the group (for example, you can say that you read about it on this blog). If there are particular essays in Single with Attitude that you would especially like to discuss (there are 89 essays in the book), go ahead and mention that too.

Looking forward to our discussion!

[To read other Living Single posts, click here.]