A Little Bit Married

Synopsis

What happens when domestic bliss isn't what it’s cracked up to be, and cracking up isn’t an option?

From the time she was a girl, Bitsy Beberman had her entire future planned. She would marry after college, move to the suburbs, and have babies. At age 43, with everything in place,  Bitsy's life should be one of contentment. Instead, Bitsy’s kids are misbehaving in mortifying ways, her husband repeatedly suffers vague "accidents," her mother-in-law continues to torment her. Worse, every humiliation is being recorded by her seemingly perfect  neighbors and broadcast throughout her seemingly perfect town, reinforcing her fear that her name–Bitsy–aptly describes what her life has become, little bits and nothing significant. A Little Bit Married is the tale of one woman’s struggle to keep the pieces together as her idyllic world falls apart.



Inspiration for writing A Little Bit Married

After having so much fun with Julie Berman in Lucky Me I felt the urge to explore the feelings and doubts of a different sort of woman, one who was even more conflicted about the choices she had made; one who was faced with the possibility, either in spite of her best efforts or because of them, of a huge life change. Think Picasso and his blue period.

Don’t get me wrong. Bitsy Beberman Lerner will make you laugh as she cries and her journey is anything but depressing. But I have long been fascinated with the hidden disappointments and doubts we all feel and every day I meet more and more women who are willing to identify and not hide behind that perfect press release we all put out for the world. Who has a fantasy marriage, family or career? Not me. I have to work my butt off at all three.

I'm not sure where we got the message that after a certain age or stage life is smooth and easy but we all did, and with disastrous results. So many of us are walking around feeling inferior or frustrated or devalued because we don’t have these perfect lives. We play the ‘if only’ game: If only I had…more dollars, less pounds, bigger rooms, better hair. When what we really need are less toxic friends and a feeling that we are enough. It took me years of actually practicing clinical social work to realize for myself that more than anything else; happiness is determined not so much by the number of blemish free straight-aways, but by the mood, manner, grace and humor by which we navigate the bumps. And the bumps will come.

Let's face it. Most of us make choices when we are young, before we have even the slightest idea of who we are or what we want and often those choices determine our entire lives. Sometimes it works out. Sometimes it partially works out and can be tweaked for improvement. Other times it's a complete disaster. I've been craving to explore the murky in-betweens of happiness and despair in one woman’s heart; in her marriage, as a wife and mother, and as an emerging woman. One thing I’ve learned is that it's not only possible to reinvent yourself in a big way when necessary, but also in smaller, powerful segments of your self and your life.

I hope you'll find the family in A Little Bit Married, and especially Bitsy, with all her imperfections, to be what I strive to be as a woman and as a writer; compelling, real, hopeful, and evolving.