Jennifer Birmingham - Three Things

 

 

Okay. So, I was married twice in rapid succession. Six weeks after my husband moved out, I looked up an old boyfriend, and we immediately started dating. A couple years after that, we were married. I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to marry the recycled rebound guy, but I did because I didn't want to fail again. And more importantly, because I had a baby boy with my second husband, I stayed longer than I should. 

 

I stayed through the lies, and the affairs, and him losing his job and refusing to ever get another one. I stayed through two years of marriage counseling. Just when I thought I couldn't take another day, our counselor asked for a solo session. She asked me to come in. She said, “Hey, I can see you're pretty ready for a divorce, but I'm not sure you are. You need to be able to accept three things before you really are ready, and here they are. One, you may lose your child.” And she said, “In your case, it would probably only be 50%, but you have to be ready to give him up. Two, you are the moneyed spouse, so you better be ready to pay child support for someone to take your child from you. And three, you may never find love again.” 

 

Yeah. These are really stark things to hear, but they're real. I mean, divorce is messy, and you honestly don't know what's going to happen. I wasn't ready to move forward with those three things. So, I went back to the marriage for a couple more years until it was completely untenable, and I was willing to pay pretty much any price to get out. And so, I got out. Happily, I got 100% custody of my son. [audience cheers and applause] 

 

And because of that, taking out a second job to pay child support was a moot point. But the question of whether I was going to find love again, I decided to let that linger. I did not want another rebound relationship, and so I declared a six-month sabbatical from dating, and I did. At the end of six months, I declared another 12 months sabbatical from dating. [audience laughter] And to make sure I lived up to that commitment, I decided to get orthodontics. Not the subtle Invisalign that most sane adults sign up for. 

 

I got braces, because I knew for me, there was no better reminder that I wasn't ready to date than having [audience laughter] sharp metal objects cemented to my teeth. [audience laughter] And it worked. I stayed out a full 18 months. But eventually, life calls me back and I decided I had to try to get back out there. I signed up for all the usual suspects. I found myself on my first date in a really long time. He was a great first date. He was perfectly benign. He was absolutely [audience laughter] not my type, but terrifically nice. We had drinks, and we had dinner and I was like, “Whew, did it. Now, I can go back into hiding.” 

 

We walked outside and I hailed a cab. And just as the cab pulled up, the guy leaned in and kissed me. This undid me, because I wasn't ready. I wasn't really sure I wanted to go back out there. I jumped into the cab and I pleaded with the driver to drive. I was like, “Drive, drive, drive, drive.” But he didn't move. He just sat there chuckling in the front seat. He told me that he had witnessed the kiss, and it looked really good. [audience laughter] 

 

I stuck my head in that little window between the driver and the passenger, and I was like, “No, it was not good. It was terrible. It was awkward. And this is my first date in 15 years and it was just too much.” My driver introduced himself as Pablo, and told me that he himself has been on a sabbatical from dating. And yet, he had a lot of dating advice to dispense, [audience laughter] and oh, he dispensed. 

 

Pablo told me all his theories on dating as he drove me home from the Upper West Side to Harlem. And then, when we got to my building, he pulled over and he turned off the meter and we talked for another 45 minutes. We did, all the while holding hands between that little window. [audience laughter] I wish I could tell you, this is the night that I fell in love with Pablo, the wise man. [audience laughter] Pablo the wise man of the New York City taxi fleet. It wasn't, but it really did feel like that the universe had put Pablo in my path to tell me a few things that made it easier to move forward. 

 

After I got out of the cab and ran upstairs, and I wrote down as much as I could and three of the things I memorized to heart and I carry them with me. There are three things that are a lot easier to take. One, Pablo told me, “Don't ever judge a date by the first kiss. Good ones will turn bad, bad ones will turn good. Only time will tell. Two, the only thing that matters is that two people can really talk. Everything else can get worked out. And three, at any given moment, God is going to smite you off the face of this earth.” [audience laughter] Pablo said, “So, get out there. Life is short. Get out there, full tilt.”