You just can’t escape fate.

You can’t escape fate.

Last night I activated my Facebook secretly out of boredom and I could pretty much confirm that Ken and his wife have been divorced, and it should have been a while, say 6 months. Their daughter is probably around 5 years old or younger.

I don’t really feel anything about that, although it has got me to wonder about many things. Wasn’t she the woman of his dreams? He had always wanted to marry someone who was more capable that he was and who he could adore. She was the epitome of those. One can see news about her startup getting seed capital every now and then and the valuation of her startup should be worth at least US$5m (ok maybe that’s really not such a big deal). She is not yet 34 years old and she finished her undergrad at UChicago in just three years. She’s skinny, sharp, and fully trilingual. Why would it not work?

And that poor girl of theirs. Girls who grew up in broken families very often replicate the paths of their parents and attract abusive men. I’ve been there and that’s why I’m scared for all girls on earth.

I also wonder what would have happened if Ken had chosen me. I’m not career driven like his wife at all; I’m the opposite of that. I’d be a stay-at-home mom. Ken has to travel a lot for his job, but would he take me and the kids with him all the time? Or would he actually change his career path and do something instead so that our family can stay together all the time? Would he quit smoking and drinking? Would he still enjoy cooking and doing housework for me and pampering me in every way? I would never find out and no one would know. Oh well, it’s better that these things stay ideational because that gives me some imaginary room to feel pampered, to escape every now and then from the reality.

I’m not saying one man is better than another. There’s no comparison that can be made here and there’s no point in doing that. Remember, I’ve given up “that kind of romantic love”. Being with one man gives you one set of problems and you just have to man up and deal with them. In my case, Angel cannot do housework, can’t use a screwdriver, can’t speak the language in the City of Rain, can’t drive, can’t really navigate in this country and culture, can’t communicate with my family, can’t fix anything in our apartment, can’t really use any remote control in our house, can’t really take care of our sons outside of our house due to his language barrier. I wonder what it would feel like if my husband could do all those things and pamper me every day; what would it feel like if my husband was more generous towards me and my family so that I didn’t have to work and could be a stay-at-home mom?

Then again, what’s the point of thinking about all these things? No man can take care of me anyway. Ken did many things to pamper me, but he was too emotionally shut off to cherish my emotions. That was why we couldn’t work. Instead of waiting for the perfect man to show up, it’s more realistic to just face the fixer upper in front of me and suck it all up. In the end, nothing matters more than the well-being of my two kids. I’m well as long as my kids are well, no matter how burned out I am.