Just call me Mrs. Leisure

This month I confirmed something I've always suspected about myself: I could totally be a lady of leisure. I could wear tennis skirts and make lunch dates, muse over fabric swatches, maximize our closet space and plan extravagant vacations to exotic places I'd only read about in magazines. 

In the past few weeks, I've taken some time off work just to relax, breathe and get my bearings. With Dave working all day at his summer internship, I've been free to rattle around our one-bedroom condo, read novels in the park, shop for ties to match his new gray suit, try out a new gazpacho recipe and organize spontaneous dinner parties.

I bought pussy willows from the farmer's market, arranged them in a vase and put them on the shelf in our bathroom. I went to yoga three times a week. I attended meditation services at the neighborhood Buddhist temple. I visited my friend, Amy, three days after she had her baby and held him for three hours while she recounted every detail of her birthing experience. All during weekday afternoons while regular people were working.

Relaxing in our hotel in Vietnam during our honeymoon.

Like most Americans, I've long defined myself by my work, my job title, my "transferable skills." A few years ago, when the journalism industry started to free fall and I lost my job as a magazine editor in the height of the global recession, something inside me shifted. There was no longer a clear career progression: local newspaper to regional magazine to national publication.

I had made it to the regional level but just as I may have started making my move to the national scene, the ladder was kicked out from under me. There was no place safe to climb. Newspapers across the country were undergoing mass layoffs. Magazines from Gourmet and Vibe to Portfolio and Men's Vogue folded. Even Playgirl went out of business. (If you can't count on porn to sell magazines, what can you count on?)

At the time, I was devastated. After 10+ years in the industry and a fancy degree, I could no longer tell people at cocktail parties, "I'm an editor at Crain's Chicago Business" to approving nods and affirmative glances. I was a nobody. My life was over. Or so I thought as I drank copious amounts of red wine and cried into the phone to helpless family members in California.

What I didn't realize was that I had been granted a rare freedom. I've always been someone with outside interests, but now I had plenty of time to step back, reevaluate, think about what I really wanted to do without a deadline looming over my shoulder. It enabled me to go to parties like the salon in Hyde Park where I met my husband, who was drawn to me even though I was no longer a big shot.

When I think about it now, it's scary to me how much time we spend at our jobs each week and how much we're willing to sacrifice to keep them. There has to be a better way to make a living.

These days I'm back at work, commuting to a skyscraper downtown where I swipe my access card to take the elevator to my cubicle on the 34th floor where I write and edit web content from 9 to 5 for a global law firm. It's fine for now. Really. But I've had a taste of freedom. I know what I'm working toward. And I'm sure I'll look damn cute in that tennis skirt.

Still my valentine

Two weeks after my wedding, my friend Heather emailed me. "So how does it feel to be married?" she asked. "AND DON'T SAY 'THE SAME.'" Under strict orders, I stopped and thought about it.

When Dave moved in after we got engaged, it was a pretty seamless transition (sorry, Heather). There were no wagon wheel coffee table arguments like in "When Harry Met Sally." And Dave quickly took over all the cooking, including making my lunch every day. I haven't met a woman yet who doesn't cock her head to the side and say, "Ahhhhh..." when I tell them that.

But upon further reflection, I realized something did feel different. For the first time in my life, I was officially off the market. When I talked to male coworkers, I noticed I no longer sized them up or wondered what they thought of me. At parties, my head chatter about my perceived sex appeal stopped. Not that I didn't care about my appearance anymore. I assure you, my vanity is well intact. But I was free from the mental circling and sniffing of the dating/mating game. It was a welcomed relief.

One of my biggest fears about getting married was that once you made the commitment, all the love, levity and compatibility you felt during the courtship would somehow wear off. That we'd start taking each other for granted, getting on each others nerves, bickering in front of other people, wondering where we'd gone wrong. The product of a 15-year union that ended in a bitter divorce, I feared that some unforeseen force of life would derail us.

The other night Dave and I watched such a derailment in the movie, "Blue Valentine," a story of unraveling passion and love. Starring Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams, it's like watching a car accident in slow motion and not being able to avert your eyes. The movie juxtaposes the happy beginning of their courtship with the tragic ending of their marriage.

In a series of flashbacks, he serenades her with a ukulele, she tap dances for him in the doorway of a shop. They kiss passionately on the bus, in the back of a taxi and walking along the Brooklyn Bridge. They run backwards down the street together, giggling. He is holding a sign that says, "Is this you???"

In the present day, he has a receding hairline, paints houses for a living and starts drinking by 8 a.m. She has dark roots, drives a minivan and wears scrubs to her job as a medical technician (she'd aspired to be a doctor but an unplanned pregnancy put an end to that). She cringes when he tries to kiss her. He busts into her work and punches her boss. They rent a room at a themed hotel and drink to oblivion. But no amount of vodka can bring back what they had or get them out of this mess.

As the movie ends (badly, of course), Dave and I sit frozen on the couch, shell shocked. When the credits end, Dave turns towards me and envelopes me in a hug.

"It's not us," Dave says as the screen goes dark.

"What?" I say, not getting his reference at first. I realize I've been holding my breath. "Oh...yeah."

We kiss.

Slowly, I let my breath out. I shake it off. I look into his trusting eyes and know he's right.