Where do we come from? Who are we? Where are we going?

Oh my gosh. enough about me...what is going on with my peers? Babies, marriage and .... infidelity?

tonight I had dinner with a great (acquaintance) friend of mine - and 2 of her girlfriends. P.S. Zilla Sake is the most authentic Japanese experience I've had in America since I've been home. But whatever. The point is....I'm talking to these 2 new girls who are both married, when suddenly the topic turns to one of the girls' "special friends". She then turns to me and says, "I've had my first affair. Or rather, my first indiscretion." Suddenly we were all in 1870 Russia and I was talking to Anna Karenina (which is the book I am completely engrossed in at the moment).

WTF?!

She said, "first" as in... not the last. She was contemplating continuing this "sexual relationship" a few more times. And she spoke of it so nonchalantly. Adding, "I have a great life. I do. I don't know why I am doing this. I have a husband, and a house and a great family and tons of friends. And I've been married and with the same person for TEN years." She drew out the word ten as if I could empathize what it must be like to spend ten years with the same person. (Nope). Immediately I thought about my sister Katie who has been with her husband for 10 years. It hasn't been the easiest for both of them but they never threw their hands up and said...well, I guess we could always just go out and find someone on the side.

This girl continued with, how her and her husband were trying to have a baby. (A great time to start sleeping with other people, I think.) How hard and stressful it is to have to have sex for reproductive reasons. And the expectations that come with it. This part I get. It must be hard. But that's when you start talking to each other, maybe? I felt like I was in an episode of the Twilight Zone, the way her two other friends were joking and laughing about this "indiscretion." The other girl being married herself! It was "funny" is what she kept saying. It was "funny". Thirty two years old, married for 6 years this Sunday, together 10 years, great life - and a "funny" affair. What a light word to describe something that can hold so much weight in her future. And there I was, sitting across from her "funny" affair. My first experience with someone "my age" in a lengthy marriage and an "indiscretion."

I know it happens. But I felt shattered a bit by it. There is pain, disconnection, suffering, shame, guilt, fear wrapped up in the word "funny".

"Where do we come from? Who are we? Where are we going?" Paul Gauguin.