Marya Morris - No Time for Second Guessing

 

 

I was 46 years old. Never married. I lived in Chicago. I owned my own house, and I had a fantastic career going. My big indulgence was traveling to see about 15 or 20 Bruce Springsteen shows every year. [audience cheers and applause]

 

I had a little bit of FOMO though. I thought maybe those people that say, “I don't want to die alone.” All right. So, I joined eHarmony. The first match I got was a fellow named Andy. He was a widower. He had a job as a software engineer. He had three children. He lived in a little nice suburb. And he actually mentions Springsteen in his bio. So, of course, I pounced on at him. [audience laughter] It wasn't quite like that. [audience laughter] 

 

Our first date, we went to a very elegant restaurant. We had THE best time. He told me that his wife, Judy, had died four years prior and he'd been raising his kids on his own. It was just the best night. We closed the place down. He drove me all the way back to the city. And when he dropped me off, he said, “Would you like to go out again tomorrow?” I was like, “Oh. Okay.” He said, “How about coming up to the house to meet my kids?” And I said to myself, I don't know much about dating, but I think that breaks a rule. “Sure, [audience laughter] I'll meet them.” 

 

So, I get there the next night, and three of them all lined up at the front door waiting to shake my hand. Cassidy was 12 at the time. She was very reserved, keeping an eye on me, but very polite. Honor was this tiny wisp of a little kid. He sat on my lap and drank an entire quart of wonton soup by himself. [audience laughter] And Hannah was nine, and she wanted to show me everything in her room, her Polly pockets, all her American girl gear. 

 

After a while, I played with them, and I was like, “Okay, I got to take off you, guys.” And Hannah said to me, “Do you think you could stay and help us get ready for bed?” I'm like, “Come on, [audience laughter] what is the matter with you? Are you trying to cue me to death?” And I drove home. I'm like, “I think I love these people.” [audience laughter] 

 

Our third date was, it was either the next night or the night after that and Andy said, “I'm going to ask you to marry me, but I'm going to wait until enough time has passed that you won't think I'm joking.” [audience laughter] And I said, oh, what the hell he just ask me. I'll say yes. [audience laughter] So, he asked me. I said, yes, I'll marry you. At that point, I thought, maybe I should tell some people in my real life about this. [audience laughter] 

 

My parents lived on the first floor of my two-flat in the city, and I hadn't even told them I'd gone on a date. I had not been on a date in more than 10 years. [audience laughter] So, I tell my mom, “Mom, I met somebody.” And she said, “God, you think you know a person.” [audience laughter] And my friends, I find out later, were trying to stage an intervention. Everybody was unsettled, let's put it that way. 

 

And so, we got married six months after we met. I moved to the suburbs, into the big house. And immediately, I could feel the void that Judy had left. It was deep and cold and quiet. I just looked around and said, what is my role here? What do I do? I got the answer two months later when the mortgage crisis struck and I got let go from my job. I went from a person who had always obviously supported themselves and had a really good thing going to being financially dependent on somebody. And I was a full time stay at home step mom. 

 

I looked around and I thought, you know, I have never cooked raw chicken before. [audience laughter] I have never managed household finances. And here I am, I'm in charge. I googled what do families eat for dinner? [audience laughter] And it turns out it's not popcorn and red wine. [audience laughter] 

 

So, one of those very first days, I was home alone. The kids are at school. And I'm looking, I'm like a detective with a marriage license in lieu of a search warrant. I'm digging through drawers, like, how did she do this? How did she manage finances, feed these people, keep them clean and relatively happy? How did she care for Andy? How did she care for the kids? And in the drawer of the vanity in our bathroom, I found a black compact of Lancôme blush. I opened it, and I could see the indent where her finger had rubbed it down. I turned the compact over, and the color was aplomb. It was the same one that I had. 

 

And under our bed, I found the baby books. Judy had taken such care to write every detail. The first smile, their first food that they liked, what they didn't like, their first little noises, of course, their first steps. I found out from that part of my search that Cassidy, who was 12 then, she didn't sleep for the first three years of her life. I was glad I missed that era. [audience laughter] But I had time. That's all I had. And I dove in. I'm getting kids out of bed, I'm making lunches, I'm driving to school, I'm sitting in the car line. I'm just following along what other parents seem to do. And it was a lot. 

 

I realized at a certain point, I'm not sure I like this. I started to panic, but I was so invested in looking competent and secure in my role that I didn't tell anybody. So, it just built and built. And the frustration grew. I was both overwhelmed and finding the whole thing just really tedious at the same time. It all came to a head one day when I was serving corn chowder that I had made from scratch, okay? No powdered mixes here. [audience laughter] I was ladling it into Hannah's bowl, and she looks at it and she's like, “I'm not going to eat this.” 

 

I responded in a way that I thought was proportionate at the time. I took the pot of soup, I walked to the sink, I held it three feet higher than the sink and I dropped it. I turned around, ran upstairs and I cried in the bathroom. [audience laughter] Andy came up. He's like, “I'm sorry. Hannah feels really bad. She's sorry.” I said, I think I'm in over my head. I'm not good at this. I don't even like it. I'm sorry. I don't want to do this anymore. I got to go. And he's like, “There, there, there, there, you're doing a wonderful job.” And I was like, “Job? Did you hire me or marry me? This is awful. I don't like this.” [audience laughter] And he's like, “Well, what's so bad?” 

 

I was like, “Well, take the socks, okay, in the laundry. Pairing up little kids’ socks [audience laughter] is a job that should be relegated to people who have to do community service in lieu of jail time.” [audience cheers and applause] 

 

I settled down. I just got used to what I was doing, even though I'm still bitter. I missed about 20 Bruce Springsteen shows that first year. All my friends are out there on tour, and I'm matching socks. [audience laughter] 

 

I did eventually, on another excursion into [unintelligible 00:09:29] find the key to the castle. It was in the form of Judy's blue Lucite recipe box. She had all the recipes for the Jewish foods that the family loved. I made it as a meal. I made the beef brisket. I made matzo ball soup. I made noodle kugel. I put it on the table and everybody smiled. They were so happy. They were like, “You get us. This is wonderful.” I met other parents and I realized, I'm not a failure. This stuff is hard. Everybody goes through stuff. 

 

My coping mechanism was to take a bottle of wine up to the laundry room and iron sheets and pillowcases for an hour, but everybody's got their thing. [audience laughter] I could even see myself rubbing off on them a little bit. I busted on her, who was only six, singing Born to Run. [audience laughter] And that first year, Christmas fell right in the middle of Hanukkah. And Cassidy said, “Let's call it Christmakkah.” I'm like, “Yes.” And then, we went to get a Christmas tree, and Hannah says, “We can bring that thing in the house, but it's going to have blue lights and we're calling it a Hanukkah bush.” And I'm like, “That's perfect.” It was wonderful. 

 

It was about six or eight months after we were married that I was helping Hannah get ready for bed, and she said, “Mumsy, is there any way that you know of that my mom can come back someday?” I wanted to say yes so bad, but I said, “No, honey, and I am so sorry.” We cried, and then she said, “Well, you're a pretty good, mumsy.” So, last August, Andy and I celebrated 13 years of marriage. [audience cheers and applause] 

 

Thank you. It was all me. [audience laughter] There's been, I don't know, 12 or 13 Christmakkahs, two bat mitzvahs, some door slamming. Andy and I went to see Bruce Springsteen together on Broadway. [audience cheers and applause] 

 

When I think about it, I hope Judy is both relieved and proud of us. Thank you.