Covid-19 Lockdown: Day 16

This post is late, yes, but only because I couldn’t get my nose out of a book last night. Love, Loss, and What We Ate (A memoir), written by Padma Lakshmi is very thought provoking and raw.

I love investigating everyone who’s food I draw inspiration from. People’s lives interest me and I enjoy memoirs and biographies in particular. Last year Andre Agassi’s biography taught me the value of discipline. I read that book right before I set myself some micro sporting challenges like road biking for the first time. I’d always wanted to do the 94.7 cycle race and with the help of my trainer, Kate Ortlieb, I comfortably completed it, eight weeks exactly after getting on a road bike for the first time.

The thread of Lakshmi’s memoir was truth. Her struggle with endometriosis and the dissolve of her marriage to famed author Salman Rushdie (who is a quarter-of-a-decade older than her). Some would call her divorce karma but I don’t believe in that. I believe in mistakes and Jesus because each and every one of us are flawed. Lakshmi was the ‘other woman’ and Rushdie had been unfaithful to his third wife.

I reversed back to 2015 and thought about my ex-husband and one woman in particular, that he had an affair with. I won’ say her name for obvious reasons but I can tell you this. I knew her and I had met her and her husband on several occasions. I had been to her home and we laughed and got to know each other intimately. I had even asked my ex-husband if he’d ever had a relationship with her because they did seemed almost too comfortable with each other.

I remember the day I called her to confront her about why she was sending emails to my husband and ending them with, I love you. Why was his reply saying, I love you too?This was my only evidence of an affair but I knew in my heart that something was wrong with my marriage.

At first she told me this is how they spoke to each other and I almost believed that lie because I’m like that - I feel sorry for everyone and their house spiders.

She weaved such a story that, at the time, it made me feel quite sad for her. She was roughly three months pregnant and she sounded unsure about who the father was. In times of duress I prefer to go silent and let the other person talk; or more like hang themselves with their own words. And she did. Without even knowing it she had cracked like a fragile egg and whispered, ‘It happened only once.’ I had stopped breathing and I remember starting at a bottle of Johnny Walker on my bookshelf. After I hung up I had waddled over there and unashamedly tossed the cap to the floor and proceeded to drink. It was a little after 10 am on a hot summer’s morning and I started breathing mechanically with the help of big gulps of alcohol. My chest burned as well as any respect I had left for my husband. Him sleeping with people I don’t know had hurt a little less than sleeping with someone I knew. My marriage was over. I didn’t cry immediately but when I did I couldn’t stop because my disappointment was so overwhelming. To this day I don’t drink Johnny Walker.

Back to Lakshmi. She got divorced after two years of marriage and her admission of the affair with Rushdie made me respect her. It takes courage to admit the truth, no matter how wrong it may seem to other people. The truth always wins and I’ve often wondered what it must be like for someone to knowingly ruin a marriage. Is there guilt? Remorse? A prickly spidey sense that this relationship is not a committed one because the other party is still going back home to a spouse? I have so many questions?

Have you been cheated on?

Below is a picture of me two or three months after my divorce - shattered but smiling. Time heals with good friends and family in your army because, let’s face it, we go to battle every day. But it is a choice who we allow to hurt us.