Rachel Simon's Blog

I married later in life. I was forty-one, and it was my first (and so far only) marriage. In my earlier years, I’d had all kinds of negative ideas about marriage. Who knows whether these ideas came from the aftermath of my parents’ divorce (at least an 8 on the Domestic Horror Show Richter Scale) or the sight of so many severely unhealthy marriages in film, TV, and real life. But my image of marriage was that it was constricting, stultifying, and ultimately doomed. By the time I got married, however, I saw it as joy-filled, comforting, and life-brightening.

I’ve talked over the years with many people who didn’t marry – or didn’t marry successfully – until later in life, and pretty much everyone agreed that their later marriage was worth the wait. They were more mature, less apt to look to a spouse to complete them, more accepting of the other person’s shortcomings, less interested in comparing the partner to an ideal, and, in general, more inclined to love consciously.

I’ve asked myself why this happened to so many of us, and I think it was because we all became more interested in the other person’s character than we’d been when we were younger. In those days, qualities like charm and sex appeal and friends’ opinions weighed more heavily than whether the person had integrity, exercised good judgment, had the capacity to feel compassion, and prized others not for what they could give, but for the depths and breadths of their personalities. At the same time, in my and my friends’ younger incarnations, we didn’t tend to cultivate those qualities in ourselves. We were more focused on other things, like ambition, social approval, and finding clever approaches to shedding our birth families, unsatisfying jobs, pitiful living situations, and under-developed selves.

Granted, I’ve certainly met people who married wisely when they were young. From what I can tell, they were either lucky or had their heads screwed on better than most of us.

But for the rest of us, there are the youthful missteps, and then, if we’re lucky, or our heads finally get screwed on right, we find it: the person of character who has the ability to love another person of character, too.

This is what I wish I had understood when I was younger:

You think you want someone to love you, and you do. But you also want someone you respect, and who respects you.

How I wish I’d known that long ago.

How glad I am that I know it now.

People often ask what my life is like.

The honest answer is it’s lacking in drama and steeped in routine, both of which help me stay on track with my writing.  I know that the image of a tranquil life with a lot of consistency is at odds with the myth of the emotionally overwrought writer who lives to excess and hobnobs with celebrities.  But I like telling the truth, so here are a few broad strokes to give you a sense of my life.

Rachel Simon at Longwood Gardens

I live in a row house in Delaware with my husband Hal and our two cats, Peach and Zeebee.  Our marriage, which came about after a nineteen-year courtship I chronicled in my memoirs, is a happy and enriching one.  We laugh a lot, prop each other up when we feel low, and give each other a lot of privacy for our respective creative endeavors.  When we disagree, we try to do so in a respectful and productive manner.

I make my own schedule, since I don’t have a day job right now.  I get up with the sun, write as much as I can, and do my best to keep up with emails, letters, and phone calls.

Every day I try to work out, and once a week I volunteer for hospice.

I treasure long-term relationships.  I’m still close to my best friends from nursery school, fifth grade, sixth grade, junior high, boarding school, college, and many of the jobs and twists in my life since then.  I’m also close to a number of people I’ve met in my trips to give talks related to my memoir Riding The Bus With My Sister.

I don’t drink, use substances, eat meat, watch TV, or feel comfortable in loud spaces, including stores and restaurants where music is played at high volume.

To stick with my writing routine, I prefer meeting people in the evenings rather than at lunch.  To be kind to both my waistline and wallet, I prefer visits over tea rather than dinners.

I like almost everyone I’ve ever met.  I find every person interesting.

I like to talk but I love to listen.

I wake up a lot in the middle of the night and worry.   Then I fall back asleep, and in the morning, I wake up happy.

Most days, I’m very content with my life.  I’m less content about the state of the world.

I walk around with a cast of characters in my head: everyone I’ve known in person, and many others who are entirely fictional and have yet to emerge from my pen.

I write by hand.

I write because I enjoy the act of writing.  I finish my writing projects because life is brief.

I don’t see much of a division between past and present, and can wake up fully immersed in other time periods I’ve lived in.

I’m slightly synesthesic.  Numbers and letters come to me as colors.  Sounds come as emotions.

I’m five feet tall and feel that the benefits of my short stature eclipse the difficulties.

I get cold all the time.  At home I sometimes wear a coat in the house, and when I go out I almost always bring several extra layers of clothes.

I’m not a joiner.  I like living outside life.  Though sometimes when I feel too outside, I get sad.

I try to be open-minded and openhearted.

I believe in the power of forgiveness and the pointlessness of holding grudges.

I believe in the inherent dignity and worth of every human being.