Pgh Lesbian Correspondents

I’ve always been slightly haunted by a 1952 novel Excellent Women. The main character is a modest, unassuming woman in post-WWII London. She’s an excellent woman, always on hand to help with all the church stuff. She has a modest little life, unrequited love, and all these expectations heaped on her as the nation recovers from yet another trauma.

The world is changing. Mildred Lathbury gets far too little credit for bridging the old and new, relegated by most to the past. She is just past 30, but might as well be retirement age. Even as a relic, she’s indispensable to the men around her.

I always thought this would be me. I’m a doer although not so much in a church sense. However I was a missionary, I guess. I had some relationships, but I could never figure out how to seize the dream. In hindsight, I see how the SA grooming by my grandmonster sent me in this direction with a serious unhealthy twist.

Anyway, I’m not here to go too deep. I thought I would be single forever for a lot of reasons. Part of me thought Mildred Lathbury had it pretty good – food, lodging, purpose. I didn’t have those things on a consistent basis as a kid. Well, I had shelter. We always had a home.

Divorci-yay? Not so much

As I’ve processed being divorced by my partner/wife of over 20 years, this nagging thought was in my brain – that I would be a spinster like Mildred. I could find contentment. But I won’t have a home. And I’m not an excellent woman after all. Plus, I don’t garden.

I’ve also likened myself to the spinster aunts and cousins of period pieces who are bounced from sitting room to sitting room first as governesses then as chaperones. Charlotte Bartlett is a great example. Dependent, resentful, and dismissed. That doesn’t feel better than excellent woman. Excellent spinster cousins and aunts are made more vivid with allusions to long lost love or tentative friendships with more worldly single women.

That’s when it hit me – I’m going to be a divorcée, not a spinster. I’ve got 20+ years of partner/spouse stuff under my belt plus all those previous relationships. I don’t need to pine after anyone. I just need a home.

I’m not here to be your governess or companion. I will do my portion of the household chores. I will try my best to gently corrupt your young into watching classic movies, indulging in takeaway Chinese food, and always allowing them to order a drink one size larger than permitted by parents. But I have work to do. A legal appeal to win. A blog to continue. A pet food pantry to restore. I even have correspondence. I also teach good sweary words that will horrify the grans.

Breaking chains, not just vows

I don’t love the term ‘ex’ to describe a person I actually loved and cared about. It doesn’t bother me to be on the receiving end because I know better. But I just can’t use it to describe my people. I tend to think in terms like “my old boyfriend” rather than “exboyfriend.” Maybe that’s just a new thing.

Let’s get back to me – the divorceé.

They rarely quietly fade into single life, one website read. They fight to change family court and challenge the structures. The strictures?

I’d love to have a persona that isn’t sad and mopey, but I am limited by my resources. I will have no home. I will have few funds. I will be dependent, that’s true.

You can help with that – GoFundMe and Venmo are good options.

While I long for someone to give me refuge, I loathe dependency. If I were not a burden, someone would have offered by now. I’m afraid I’ll never regain independence or at least the hope I could do better in the world. My income is what it is. Wealth will not be replenished.

Divorceés Onscreen

I was thinking of the famous, flamboyant divorcees in the movies. At first, I thought about Auntie Mame, but she was a widow. Then Eleanor Lavish, but she was single. So I went searching in old movies.

There’s quite a few pre-code movies about divorceés in particular. I’m going to start watching them this weekend, while I still have housing.

• Cynthia Warrington (Katharine Hepburn) in A Bill of Divorcement (1932
• Madge Evans and Alice Brady in Beauty for Sale (1933):
• Madge Kennedy in Merry Wives of Reno (1934
• Lucy Warriner (Irene Dunne) in The Awful Truth (1937)
• Mary Haines (Norma Shearer) in The Women (1939)
• Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell) in His Girl Friday (1940)
• Tracy Lord (Katharine Hepburn) in The Philadelphia Story (1940)
• Ann Downs (June Allyson) in The Shrike (1955)
• Mildred Pierce (Joan Crawford) in Mildred Pierce (1945)
• Lora May Hollingsway, Rita Phipps, and Deborah Bishop in A Letter to Three Wives (1949):
• Giulietta Boldrini (Giulietta Masina) in Juliet of the Spirits (1966)
• Vivian Bell (Helen Shaver) in Desert Hearts (1985):
• Bernadine Harris (Angela Bassett) in Waiting to Exhale (1995)
• The First Wives Club (1996)
• Gloria Bell (Julianne Moore) in Gloria Bell (2018)
• Carol Aird (Cate Blanchett) in Carol (2015)

The Gilded Age family has two dependents – Aunt Ada and niece Marian. Then tides turn when Ada has the money from her late husband and Agnes has lost her fortune due to her son’s poor decisions. That’s an interesting switch.