Re-do

If nothing else, Hollywood helps magnify some of the patterns of us common folk. I don't spend a lot of of time reading the gossip columns, but I'm into pop culture so I know what's going on. I don't know if people like Harrison Ford and Collista Flockhart or Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie or Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner will last. But at least one half of each couple has something in common: They divorced and hooked up with their current squeezes in a short amount of time.

I wouldn't be surprised if some of these folks do make it. Afterall, everyone knows the first marriage is a practice run! Is it any great surprise that these people can make it work on their second or third try? Practice does make perfect. Seriously, though, all joking aside -- this sequence of events is hardly a great feat. You marry someone you're in love with, things get hard, you're not getting everything you want, you decide to separate, you meet another person with even more desirable qualities and (wonder of wonders) it's somehow easier. Duh! You've already been put through the wringer that marriage sometimes is, learning the value of patience and defined expectations. And voila! A brand-new person to try it with all over again -- a re-do.

I'm not naive (how could anyone be who's been married more than a year?). I know as well as the next guy how challenging things can get. But what takes real strength is accepting your mate as your soulmate from the get-go, evolving together and growing in that reality. I certainly can't stand in judgment of those who end their marriages. And I'm happy when people find happiness after divorce; good for them. But I'm even happier at the prospect that a few decades down the road, I'll be with the same man I vowed to spend my life with as a young bride. Will I have more gray hairs as a result? Probably. Wrinkles? Definitely. It's not the easier route by a long shot. There are plenty of men in the world I could be happy with after matrimony's tough tutelage. But I choose Superman ... and no re-dos.