11-Hindsight…

I always postscript the story of my husband’s and my marriage breakup with a realization that I had a few years afterward: marriage is 100%–100%. He had not given his 100%, but neither had I. The breakup was a shared responsibility. 

You know, it is so nice not to blame and be angry and live in self-righteous justification that I did everything right and the other person was a jerk. It is so freeing! We were young and misguided. Two of the popular movies were “Bob and Carol, Ted and Alice” (which we did not see) and “The Graduate.” Wife swapping and adultery were the subject matter. In our small circle of friends, which was mostly university students, ‘commitment’ was not the popular moral standard of the day. We were in the world and of the world. That was our entire frame of reference.

The sixties was the era of the Pill, the sexual revolution, and militant feminism. The philosophers and college professors were espousing ‘God is dead” and existentialism. Existentialism means there is no truth, no right or wrong; I am my own free agent and life is meaningless unless I give it my own meaning.

A majority of college students were anti-establishment and anti-war. Radical activists showed up on college campuses, gathered a following, and caused disruptions. There was a counter culture of dropouts called hippies. And the civil rights movement was in full swing.

America was shaking. My world was shaking.

My stability was my job. I loved teaching and I kept up with the challenge of working at Glenn Duncan School in the 1^st grade for four-and-a-half years, in the 2^nd grade for two years, and in the 3^rd grade for one year.