I faced what many divorcees have-an exodus of all those ex-family members that I had spent my entire live loving and tending. It happened suddenly. One night the New York Police came to our house for a DOMESTIC INCIDENT (no-he did NOT hit me but there was a whole lot of screaming and threatening goin’ on-Anabelle and I had spent some hours laying down in a cold bank vestibule because we did NOT have any money to get home from Hebrew School). Well, my best friend, Carey, happened to call and got involved in the melee and soon enough we were on conference call with my mother, Jojo, and his momma, Mimi. When my Mother implored his to intervene with her son who may have had a few cocktails with his sister while we cooled our tushes on the bank linoleum, Mimi did not want to get involved and years later I guess I understand but I am harshly critical of my own child and do not have my childs-perfect-it is, I think Mimi may suffer from a bit of that Particular malaise. No kidding when she knew so little about him-he masked everything so well-twenty plus years of hard core cigarette smoking and he would still drive home stopping at the last exit to gargle with mouthwash douse himself in cologne and pop in a piece of gum. Smelling like a Dakor salesman at Saks  he wafted in in a cloud of aroma-none of it smacking of nicotine. No, I was the resident smoker and the one of the lives of the party-the others being the sisters and nieces. Not a one of us wasn’t gregarious and extroverted-we were a squadron of cheerleaders looking for a team and we found it -The Home Team-OUR TEAM. I pulled as hard for us as anyone! I adored Mimi and still do-Te reason this topic comes u now-is that we have just celebrated my daughters Bat Mitzvah in November and it was the first time most (99%) of us had seen or spoken to one another-AWKWARD? No not for me. But I did think then as I was surrounded n the dance floor with some of my favorite folks-all of whom proclaimed their love for me-their missing me and all of our time together. And I’m talking some Hard Time- 25 years of nieces and nephews and cousins and cousins of cousins of cousins who lived with us in Atlanta or New York or stayed with us or needed help with a resume or a job or a boyfriend. Weeks every years spent together for every holiday, high holy day and even the most far-flung wedding or bat mitzvah. My own family of two brothers and 45 first cousins we barely saw-They just didn’t merit the money for extra visits and vacations. There was 2 days at Christmas and a couple of hours at Thanksgiving –OK  a couple of days  but every visit was brevity itself with my ex scowling and unhappy-but at least blissfully smoking as the whole family clambered for the ciggies-even the Doctors in the family. So, I was glad to see them all again and though my nieces Julie and Brook had stayed in touch. It was 2 down from about 50 and it hurt. I know of other divorcees where the lost spouse is still a part of family life-even if the bitter spouse-the one with blood ties has to be restrained in a  concrete cell but that didn’t happen to me and it didn’t happen to a lot of others. We mourned the lost of that missing family-aching like a phantom limb and thought of that vast time as wasted. And too often we are the ones who were wronged-lost our homes, our jobs or in my case MY BUSINESS and MY MONEY and MY HOME. But still tey stood on idly watching or at least knowing that I and my child lived barely above the poverty line-yes, a year before I had a full page story in town and country and the year before 5 pages in Southern Accents and now I went to the store with my ten year old who looked up in innocence and asked, Mommy , can we afford the good cheese?” And most times we could not because the market for a designer of alligator bags that fetch $10,000 is limited to about 5 companies-ALL conveniently located in Europe-so I did not have a skill set that would keep me employed and scrambled for work and opened an antiques store in Birmingham with my brother (another casualty of my ex-having “lost” shares “promised” to him with a hale and hearty “Don’t worry I am taking care of you.” So, brother Billy who had once lost a fiancée when our company couldn’t pay his salary and he had to move into our house in Atlanta and was also thrust dead center in the whole extended family clan and loved them too….what was not to love? They were fun and in the case of my sister-in-laws and my Mother-in-law damn near perfect! Angels!

So, at the Bat Mitzvah with my daughter telling me I was the best Jewish Mother alive (and I am Catholic) and all of my missing family holding my hands as we danced the horah- I was happy. I was home-only for those few hours but HOME.

When I am in Alabama I tote around a giant 24 ounce mug compliments of The University Of Alabama in Birmingham Hospital system much to the non-amusement of my child and other companions. Yes it seems that I am quite the spectacle at Family Holiday parties in a cocktail dress and the ubiquitous mug but then I tell one and all “this is my Seven Thousand Dollar” cup. Just like those tee-shirts that said “Mommy and Daddy went to Vegas and all I got was this tee-shirt.” I went to UAB hospital for yet another bladder surgery and all I got was a 7k mug-OH, I had insurance. ALLIANCE FOR AFFORDABLE SERVICES OR FIRST HEALTH NETWORK a part of the Mid West National Life Insurance Company of Tennessee.

Issuer:80840
ID: 2404501471
Name: Marcia Sherrill
Vision: Group 9660663
Dental: 2444501471
RXBin: 004336

A beautiful policy from the Damn Them To Hell Mid West National Life Insurance Company of Tennessee. And seven thousand dollars in debt. Phone calls and faxes and talking with countless representatives assured me that I was indeed NOT COVERED and not because it was a pre-existing condition. NO. Because they didn’t cover two procedures on one day. WHAAAAAAAATTTTTT? I had scrambled to get insurance when mine was peremptorily cancelled thanks to my divorce settlement-I may have built a successful designer label-Hell, I was the label but the court in its infinite wisdom did not think that a $27K payout and a couple months of insurance was a worth 24 years of 16 hour workdays. I may have had a full page story in Town & Country but most days I’d be cleaning the sewing machines in the factory, or chasing down suppliers or hustling the samplemakers to hurry, hurry, hurry Elle was coming to the showroom. So, I had little time to shop around for insurance and everything in New York was scads of money-500 bucks a month minimum and then a friend recommended an insurance agent and let me name him here for one and all-Bishop and he assured me that I could get GREAT insurance and it was cheap. Four pounds of documents arrived and WOW it all seemed perfect-OK they wouldn’t cover Prozac ‘cause it seems that my anxiety disorder was a re-existing condition-BOY WAS IT! And I’d written an article about my anxiety for Avenue Magazine entitled Prozac Poster Girl so   I was busted no matter what insurer I went to so after a desultory reading I signed on the dotted line. Everything went swimmingly. My co-pays were low, they covered my doctors in New York heck they even had dental. With a husband who treated my dental hygiene as a “luxury expenditure” I’d gone 3 years once without a dental visit and earned 13 cavities. My dentist threatened to call my ex who would later spend countless thousands on my daughter’s palate expander, braces, retainer, back to braces and now permanent retainer. I glued on loose crowns with dental fix at the Duane Reade drugstore. So, I went happily along and planned a surgery that would hopefully restore my bladder to pre-childbirth elevation. A surgery that was the turning point in my divorce-I refused to see a mediator until the bladder was fixed-in 10 years there was never a convenient time for me to be away from work. Of course not. Work was everything to him, so I knew that if I didn’t get that surgery before the divorce I would get screwed and I did. He filed on me after I told him I wanted a divorce-or rather I was indiscrete with God Knows WHO in Atlanta because nether my Momma or my best friends had an inkling we weren’t the perfect couple-classic emotionally abused spouse behavior, Well, I had shot a pilot in Atlanta and it was grueling and went on for 3 18 hour days and I must have talked-been foolish enough to admit that this Pilot or my latest book Schiksa: Getting in Touch with Your Inner Jew would sell and I could leave-I knew that if I went unprepared I would get the “scorched earth” treatment of our ex-backers and anyone who crossed him. Anyway, delirious with tension and exhaustion and slap-happy with my girlfriend and Executive Producer, Jill, I must have said something in front of someone. I never did figure out who? Now ten years had passed with me saying “I call my bladed my new best friend because it so loves to come out and greet me. Don’t make me laugh or my friend will be out-I will be over in an hour and I will have my BFF bladder behind me in a little red wagon.” My brother, Billy, was horrified but not my husband. Every time I mentioned my bladder brother Billy would scream-“not your friend!!!! Don’t say it is out” So, armed with my insurance I went to the hospital for a same day procedure that turned into an overnight stay since my blood pressure fell rapidly and I was a “FALL RISK.” I only remember my sweet Doctor, Dr. Varner and his hottie assistants howling with laughter as I felt the anesthesia hit and asked coyly on the operating table if they wouldn’t mind adding a Brazilian wax to the scheduled procedure. My bladder was lifted back into its old pre-baby days and I was on the mend and deep in debt and while I will pay these folks off in time I am sure that there are others out there who like me buy insurance that is NOT insurance. Insurance that is masquerading as INSURANCE as in Hop In That Hospital Bed INSURANCE and it ain’t. Do not do what I did and believe every sweet talking insurance agent with a dashingly patrician first name. Buy insurance with any group that you can or buy individual Blue Cross. You can still envy me my mug!

Oh, rest assured that I will be detailing in grueling and painstaking detail my divorce so that y’all can either sympathize with me (my favorite currency being PITY) or also learn from my mistakes WHAT NOT TO DO. However, I would be grossly negligent if I didn’t dedicate this blog, SWEET REVENGE, to the person who started me on my path to healing. No, it wasn’t the dutiful girlfriends who held my hands until my nails had dug into their skin leaving marks or went to court with me in troops (until they were banished by New York’s Judge Drager who told my sweet but unpaid attorney Ravi Sharma (a saint masquerading as a Hottie lawyer) “tell her not to bring her POSSEE!!!” No, not the anguished late night phone calls listeners who hung on my every incoherent word while I burning through a pack of ciggies with a Thera Flu chaser to battle my insomnia. I must start my blog with a dedication to the man who saved my life, gave me a job worth doing, a place to call home and encouragement to start over with all my businesses. A man who while he paid me to start an on-line magazine that would include a story on me, gave me back my belief in myself, Michael Bruno the founder and owner of www.1stdibs.com, the world’s leading on-line marketplace for antiques and mid-century design, refused to let me wallow in self-pity and yet endured what no boss should -the never-ending intrusion of my personal life. Michael believed in me when I couldn’t. He held me up as I fell time and again into a morass of self-defeat and he gave me the encouragement to Stop writing yet another book-this time on divorce and instead create a website that would transform the lives of divorcees.

Having saved the Paris Flea markets when 9/11 threatened their very existence and then sustained New Orleans legendary dealers when Katrina swept away anything resembling a customer in its wake-he flew in his own photographer to shoot the dealers antiques for free and dropped all charges for a year.

Yes, he is a hero to two cities and one lone divorcee. When my father died (more on that relationship in a coming blog-Marrying Daddy) and I was told in his car hurtling along a Hampton’s Highway and threw myself out of the car onto the grassy embankment Michael picked me up literally and figuratively. He did not skip a beat despite his own crazy schedule (he is the most popular man in Interior Design with a cell phone log that rivals Netanyahu and more emails than Larry Ellison). He called and bought my ticket to Birmingham, picked up my daughter Anabelle and took us to a public place so that I could tell her and not completely crumble and then went to my apartment and packed my clothes and got me somehow on a plane. I don’t know how he does everything that he does and still is compassionate and kind and awake to every detail of his friend’s lives. He gave Anabelle and me hope and we ran with it. I am dedicating my blog to Michael because he gave me faith when all was lost, pride where their was crippling self-doubt, a job when I had no purpose, a future when I was blind to possibilities and compassion through all the days I surely drove him crazy. This and all that I do now-is his.