Book Review – Crazy Time by Abigail Trafford
If you are looking for a good book on the emotional side of your divorce process, Crazy Time is a book most attorneys recommend to their clients. Abigail Trafford sets the tone for the book in the prologue, when she writes, "The Chinese word for crisis combines the characters for danger and opportunity. In our culture, that's the definition of divorce."
Trafford breaks the book into three parts that roughly follow the chronological process of divorce. The first part, Crisis, discusses what went wrong, and the circumstances that brought you to this point.
Divorce is about ending what no longer works. It is, as Trafford points out, always about what she calls the marriage bargain. It's about how much things have changed since you married, and whether you have changed with those circumstances, together or apart. Couples who can evolve together with self-awareness and intentionality can remain together because the marriage bargain changes with them. On the other hand, couples who stay in their stiff unforgiving marriage roles while the world changes around them, quickly head for divorce.
The second part of Trafford's book is Crazy Time. This section is about the rollercoaster of emotions you experience during a divorce. Trafford's chapters in this section mirror the phases of grief – because after all, divorce is a profound loss.
Trafford's third section is Recovery. Divorce is hard. Learning to live and love again is also hard. If you approach this recovery with intention, your divorce can become the opportunity that Trafford speaks of. A new life and a new approach to love and relationship are possible.
In my upcoming book, Done, A Veteran Attorney's No-Nonsense Rules For Getting Divorced, I illustrate making intentional decisions with my tennis shoe theory. When I was a young adult, Michael Jordan was at the pinnacle of his career, and Nike was churning out Air Jordans as fast as their Chinese factories could produce them. You might recall Air Jordans had a cushion of air sealed in the sole of each shoe. The shoes were shipped from China on gigantic container ships, when one of those ships sailed into a particularly bad storm, a full container of Air Jordans washed overboard. The shipping container broke open, and Nike shoes floated over the Pacific Ocean. Thanks to the prevailing wind and seas, they began washing up on the Oregon Coast. Beachcombers were finding them right and left, and some small beach towns began having monthly match parties, where you could trade your shoes to make pairs.
Contrast this with another story. I reconnected with a bunch of people I went to high school with, including a guy who was crazy for sailing. He spent 30 years building a sailboat in his backyard. Through the ups and downs of his life, he remained dedicated to making this boat. He retired and posted pictures of him and his wife on a beach in Tahiti, his sailboat at anchor in the distance. You might think the two stories are unrelated, but here is the connection. You can live your life like a tennis shoe, floating wherever the wind and waves blow you, or you can build a sturdy life and chart a careful course. Either alternative is allowed, but if you choose to live as a tennis shoe, you can't bitch when you end up on the cold, rainy Oregon Coast rather than in Tahiti.
Surviving divorce is only the beginning. As you look back, your divorce will be a small part of your life, but thriving after divorce is the rest of your life. As you recover and consider new relationships, I also recommend reading What Makes Love Last? By Dr. John Gottman and All About Love by bell hooks.
Because let's not forget – living well is always the best revenge.
