Was $14,345.95— Now just $1.95! (While supplies last)

Was $13,375.95— Now just $1.95! (While supplies last)

Was $11,315.95— Now just $1.95! (While supplies last)

Marital Status?

©2008 David Boyne

Share

Recently, I had an identity crisis.

This is nothing new, as I have one almost daily. But this crisis, rather than being triggered by insistent voices in my head urging me to call in sick to work, to spend the day at an Indian gaming casino, and to buy a garishly multi-colored and logo-emblazoned nylon NASCAR jacket, was triggered by my failure to place a check mark in a tiny box on a piece of paper.

I wanted something, but I could not have it unless I filled a form. Filling forms, or filling out forms, or filling in forms, is a necessity in modern American life. Filling forms begins at birth, when others do it on our behalf, so that we can start having things. Like a name. Our schooling teaches us to fill our own forms, which we dutifully do until we die, when our forms are once again filled by others, only this time on their own behalf, so they can divvy up the things we could not take with us.

I was quickly filling this form so I could get what I wanted, when I came to a nest of tiny boxes, each beside a singe word, one of which would declare and define my marital status. My pen hovered first over the tiny box beside Divorced, then over the tiny box beside Single. Which was I?

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, I had been one of the other words on the form with a tiny box beside it, Married. But then I had become Divorced. I know this because I received a fully filled form from the State of California 17 years ago declaring I was legally Divorced. That form is somewhere in one of my filing cabinets, I am certain. But I have yet to receive a filled from declaring me as Single, I am equally certain. So am I still Divorced? Having been declared legally Divorced, can I ever again be legally Single? Is remarrying the only way to become un-Divorced? Or is being Divorced, unlike being Married, truly until death do we part?

I could be wrong, but shouldn’t there be a Statute of Limitations on Divorce?

As I spiraled down this rabbit hole of questions, I wondered why it is so important each time we fill in the blanks of our lives, to declare our marital status. Does this obsession with marital status reveal a deeply ingrained Puritan bias in our culture? Is it wrong, somehow suspect, and perhaps even unsavory, for an adult to not be married? Is the scarlet letter of modern life a D? Why, outside of a police station, hospital, or bar, should it matter to anyone whether I am Single or Divorced? Aren’t we either married—or not?

I grew up in a Catholic family and retain fond memories of how fixated on blame and punishment that religion is. As a kid, it always struck me as a rigged game, the way we are all inescapably born with something called Original Sin. Then, when we fail to lead a saint-like life, our souls don’t get to go to Heaven, but are put in a place called Purgatory. While not as bad as going to Hell, Purgatory does not sound like a summer picnic at twilight with fireflies swirling overhead and the love of your life snuggling up close. At least in purgatory there was an exit strategy; a soul must stay there until enough people still living here on Earth prayed long enough and hard enough for its release and elevation to Heaven. I could be wrong, but as far as I remember, there was no system set up for souls languishing in Purgatory to lobby the living, and solicit prayers for their release. The Catholics living in the Middle Ages had a better system. The Church would sell Indulgences to rich folk. Indulgences were essentially pre-absolution for whatever sins you had made, or planned on making, while alive here on Earth. Once an indulgence had been secured from the Church, a rich person could relax, live life as brutally as they were inclined to, and know that when they died, their soul would be on the express lane to Heaven. Which was important, because if they landed in Purgatory they would need the same folks they had crushed who were still alive on Earth to pray for their release. Fat chance.

But I wander.

I solved my identity crisis, as I often do, by ignoring it and running away. I tore up the half-filled form, walked out of the video store that had what I wanted, and drove home. Once home, I got on the internet, went to Amazon.com, and filled their online form which did not ask about my marital status, wanting only my address and credit card number.

Two days later, what I wanted was in my mailbox. My own copy of the movie Groundhog Day.