Not too long ago, I found myself sitting at a local coffee shop trying to focus on the task at hand: writing the introduction to an article concerning a unicorn float. You know, the kind that goes in the pool and shows up all over Instagram by people who don’t appear to have any intention of getting wet? I’ve neither owned nor been on a unicorn float at any point in my life, and can’t particularly say I care one way or another about them. However, here I am. What makes this assignment all the more burdensome is that one hour before, my husband of nearly 10 years told me he no longer wanted to be married to me.
This unicorn float is big enough to hold two adults, but it’s also fine if you’re now on your own and you just sprawl out in the middle of it like a sad walrus and sob while drinking vodka (there’s a cup holder!). You do you, girl.
I’m in the last step of an interview process to be hired by a millennial parenting website as one of its lifestyle writers. Part of this edit test is to create an article about why readers “need” this particular unicorn float. Who knew there were so many unicorn floats vying for one’s attention? Now, I’ve done hard things before, but at this juncture I’m not sure this challenge is one I can overcome given my current state: a disheveled, blubbering mess circa Renee Zellweger in the opening scene of “Bridget Jones’ Diary” as she’s mouthing the words to “All By Myself” on her sofa. Except I am now in public.
Before dragging myself to said coffee shop, I sat at my desk at home and listened as my husband explained to me that he was tired of being made to feel like “the bad guy” and that while I wanted to make our issues about cancer (more on that later), our problems existed before he got sick. “Neither one of us is making the other happy, and I just can’t do this anymore,” he told me. It’s a peculiar thing, I noticed, how a person can declare he no longer wants to be with someone he’s built a life with and show zero emotion. He said these things to me without shedding a single tear. He was stoic, resigned. So I did what any self-respecting person would do in response: I sobbed. How could this man I loved, and whom I know loved me, watch his wife collapse into a puddle of tears and not realize what a huge mistake he’s making?
This colorful unicorn float quickly inflates in five minutes. The same amount of time, it’s worth noting, that your entire marriage can deflate right before your very eyes.
To be clear, John is not the bad guy. Neither of us is. We are both bad and good, and both neither bad nor good. We are two people who met, quickly fell in love, and married two years later. It was easy to be together because while we became lovers, we also became best friends. It was us against the world, as they say. At our core, I believe we are still those two people. We just didn’t know “the world” was going to test our union with such ferociousness.
Yes, I know you have bills to pay and avocado toast to buy dear reader, but let me tell you something I know for sure: Nothing is guaranteed. So while you’re living your life today, tomorrow your 36-year-husband could get a Grade III brain cancer diagnosis, and whatever plans you’re making will come to a screeching halt. So you know what, maybe you should buy this $60 unicorn float. Treat yourself!
We found out John had brain cancer a little over three years ago. At the time we had 9-month-old and 4-year-old sons, and two busy careers in television. Cancer didn’t care about any of that. We did everything the doctors told us: undergo an awake surgery to remove the grapefruit-size tumor on his front left lobe, six weeks of daily radiation and chemotherapy, followed by 13 additional rounds of chemo. We got it done together, and we came through to the other side of the cancer storm. I kept waiting for a rainbow to appear, but I couldn’t see it. Though his scans were now clear, everything else was murky. Who are we now that he has parts of his brain missing, and I am so exhausted and fearful of cancer’s return that I feel peace may never come?
Who are we? I asked myself this question regularly. I never had the answer.
Reviewers of this unicorn float applaud how sturdy and well-made it is. It really seems like you can count on this float to support you in whatever water you’re in. That’s what we all want, right? Just to feel like we’re safe and protected. I mean, you can’t just go through life wondering if one day you’re going to wake up and your unicorn float has suddenly sprung a leak. Because although it starts small, and you may not always know where it originated, even the slightest tear can lead to your float’s/marriage’s demise if you don’t mend it fast enough.
I was reasonably sure that day my husband had made up his mind; he’s not the type to say things he doesn’t mean and he told me he had been thinking about this for a while. And, he was right: We weren’t happy. In fact, I had been threatening separation for months. But hearing him say it cut me to my core. I didn’t want our marriage to end. I just wanted it to be better, and I wasn’t certain it could be. Apparently he wasn’t either, though he hadn’t expressed that to me quite so directly before.
He was also right that cancer wasn’t the problem, though it was certainly my problem. For inasmuch as I hated the fact that he seemed to shrug off any lasting impact it had on him, and us, I was stuck in it. Whenever people would congratulate us for “beating cancer,” I would cringe. “Yes, we’re very happy about his scans,” I would say. “But (always with a but), there’s still so much to navigate.” That was my code phrase for, “I’m drowning in the aftermath of all of this and I just need you to see that without me having to explain it because then I sound ungrateful and selfish. I also think part of this was a defense mechanism. If I never let cancer escape my thoughts, it could never surprise me again. I would always be ready for its return. In the process, I was driving my husband away.
In fact, this unicorn float is so whimsical and comfortable that you may be tempted to float away to an entirely new life — a life that isn’t burdened with the relentless pressures of parenting; a life that isn’t consumed by work, and to-do lists, and household chores; a life that is out of cancer’s reach. You may not be able to run away from life’s problems, but with this float you can certainly forget them for a few hours.
In the end, I got the job. I pulled myself together and I wrote about that unicorn float like my life depended on it. As for my marriage, well, it turns out a marriage can’t actually be undone in five minutes, contrary to how I felt that day. We started seeing a new therapist, both as a couple and on our own, for hours each week. We quickly began to face all the pieces of us that had become deflated. We starting mending the tears.
We found out that we are, in fact, still those people who became lovers and best friends and wanted to take on life together. There are no bad guys. There are only two people who want what’s best for the other, and also for ourselves. We are healing, growing and moving forward from a more loving place. For now, we are floating together on calmer waters.
Sure, your life will go on if you don’t buy this unicorn float. But I can pretty much guarantee you that it won’t be as magical. Maybe it’ll last forever, and maybe it won’t, but the happiness you’ll get to experience while you figure it out is definitely worth that risk.
Kelly Hoover Greenway is an unscripted television producer and a writer focusing on lifestyle and parenting. She lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband, two sons and a recently adopted pandemic puppy.
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