Comfort Food
Midge felt both relieved and terrified in finally telling Susie that she had married Joel…again. She had to come clean since her and Joel's divorce court date was during an event Susie wanted her to attend.
Susie sat in silence with a look of disbelief as she processed everything Midge had just told her. She started to say something but suddenly stopped. Midge was waiting for a profanity tirade at her stupidity. Didn't crazy people keep doing the same thing with the same results? Instead, she was surprised by Susie's restraint. She used Susie's silence as an opening to soften the blow by berating herself before Susie did it.
"I was so stupid, I know. I can't believe I did it!" she frantically threw her hands up in the air. Her eyes pleading forgiveness to Susie.
"I know you're disappointed," she continued.
Her last statement shook Susie out of her shocked state.
"Well…hey, people disappoint you sometimes," Susie said getting nervous. Midge didn't pick up on it though.
"I know I disappointed you."
"No. No, you didn't. I was thinking about disappointment in general. How we're sometimes disappointed by the people we least expect it from," Susie said.
"Joel disappointed me once, and I should've learned."
"Yes, but he's still there for you in his own weird way."
Midge gave a questioning look at Susie's odd behavior. Before she could question it though, Susie said she had to run. Her other client was being a bigger pain in the ass.
Midge thought about Susie's reaction and decided it must've been due to Sophie. She shrugged her shoulders and left the diner thinking about Joel.
Joel was her current problem. Susie wasn't a problem at all, thankfully. She didn't want to tell her parents, or have his parents find out either.
She walked briskly down the street trying to unscramble a jumble of thoughts relating to one question.
Why did she keep going back to Joel?
Unbeknownst to anyone, Midge went to the library a few days ago to look at psychology articles about breaking bad habits and certain addictions. She and Joel were in a cycle.
She supposed one of the reasons was because he was familiar. She was dealing with the unknown and Joel was a familiar lifeline. She knew him, even if he drove her crazy sometimes. She was scared of the unknown. As much as comedy excited her and she looked forward to becoming a star, it was still scary. The incident with Shy made some of her fears a reality. She needed something familiar, even if it was Joel.
Joel was like unhealthy comfort food you craved when you wanted something to temporarily soothe you. Midge laughed at the thought of Joel as food and tried to figure out what kind of food he would be. Maybe French fries?
"Well, Joel standing in as food is better than me actually stuffing my face constantly," Midge conceded.
Yes, Joel was comforting in an unhealthy way.
But weren't her parents familiar and comforting?
In their own way but they didn't truly understand her. There was the crux of it. Joel understood her. They weren't just co-parents or former lovers. They were friends.
"Oh, my God! Joel and I are friends," Midge put a hand to her chest at the realization, practically clutching her pearls.
Sure, it was a strange, warped friendship. Then again, so was her friendship with Susie.
They were friends because they understood each other. How strange that Joel understood her despite being the catalyst for everything that had happened to her.
As she meandered through the city, she processed this new realization. Despite everything Joel had done to her, he understood her. He didn't judge her for liking dresses or fancy dinners the way Susie did sometimes. He wasn't disappointed with her for being a comedic or horrified by her comedy like her parents. He was ready to comfort her or support her when she really needed it. He still struggled with her path and the decisions she made because he was still a product his time. Yet, he tried overlooking his own judgement and encouraged her.
Her mind was going full steam ahead now.
Without Joel, she wouldn't be a comedian. She would be living in domestic bless, yet would she have stayed happy?
Her mind wondered to disturbing thoughts and "what-ifs." Would she have been happy in 10 years? What if she grew restless and wanted more? Would she have gone through a life crisis? What if she had been the one to have an affair, or ran off to find fulfillment elsewhere?
Although going about it in a cruel, selfish way, Joel had done her a favor of sorts. He showed her she had gumption and drive. She was more than a pretty face or a domestic housewife. She was seeing new realities of the world as well. There was also an underlying struggle for women to be more than housemaids and baby makers. She was setting a precedent for Esther, allowing Esther to have multiple paths to follow instead of the narrow one set by society.
She felt alive and more like her college self where she had been formidable and wanting to take on the world. After college though, she had somehow slid into domestic bliss. There was nothing wrong with domestic bliss per say, but it was the default mode society expected from respectable woman.
She realized that Joel felt his own set of restrictions placed on him by society, which he had clumsily tried to break free from.
One night after the bar had closed, Midge was helping Joel clean. She was complaining that her mother didn't understand why she wanted to work and be a comedian while her friends' daughters were satisfied with being housewives.
Joel listened before saying, "Midge, I want you to know how sorry I am for hurting you the way I did. I felt like I was in a cage. The cage was getting smaller and smaller, and I was being squeezed against the bars. It wasn't you or the kids I was trying to run from. It was something else. Everything overall, I guess. The 9 to 5 grind. Our parents. Me being piss poor at comedy. You and the kids were causalities in me trying to escape. Don't let anyone put you in a box. You're too big to be limited."
She hadn't understood then, but she understood now. He had certainly gone about it poorly though. She wondered if he had told her how he felt if she would've understood.
They were both trying to swim upstream against society's current. They no longer wanted to fit the mold. Coming from similar backgrounds with similar expectations, they both understood what they were up against, and they had one another.
If she and Joel had met in their current circumstances, they might have worked out as a couple. It hadn't worked out that way though.
At least now she had a better understanding of why she kept running to him. Now, she had to figure out how to break the cycle while maintaining their friendship.