ED’S LETTER
Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and his soon-to-be ex-wife, MacKenzie, said such great things about each other in the run-up to their impending divorce that you almost want to revoke the right to divorce and insist they stay together. In an interview with his journalist brother Mark two years ago, Jeff described the quality he looked for in a wife and found in MacKenzie: ‘I wanted a woman who could get me out of a Third World prison.’
I really love that as a criterion for a partner. None of that ‘completing’ him nonsense, or obligatory shared interests or being beautiful or accomplished – just someone he knew would be resourceful, strong and sane when the chips were down. Sounds like a proper partnership to me.
When they announced their divorce, their statement read: ‘We feel … deeply grateful for every one of the years we have been married to each other. If we had known we would separate after 25 years, we would do it all again.’
I like that too. It acknowledges that just because something doesn’t end the way you’d hoped it would at the start, it doesn’t negate the entire experience. It’s a grown-up attitude in a world that sometimes undervalues being grown up.
This issue is all about being magnificently grown up, from Cathy Eden’s funny – and thoughtprovoking – piece on taking responsibility to Lisa Templeton’s rediscovery of herself (in her 50s) as the ballerina she always wanted to be. Maya Morgan-Skillen’s recommendations of her Top 10 Podcasts will open up a fascinating new world to you if you’re not there already (and if you are, please share your favourites with us).
The sad end note to my praise poem to Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos is this: the entertainment journalist he is leaving her for apparently has a helicopter pilot’s license – which may indicate that he meant the bit about getting him out of a Third World jail slightly more literally than I’ve given him credit for. But I’m not going to let that get in the way of a good life lesson!
Have a wonderful March, and remember to stop and smell the lilies … Love, Suzy