Learning through life's curve balls

Many women and men who have been married for a long time will tell you that marriage is a difficult. It starts off for most of us like William and Kate (or a smaller version of that), and then life happens, throwing you a few curve balls along the way. Children arrive, jobs are lost, spending gets out of control, s/he gains weight....life happens.  But few of these events can prepare you for what Maria Shriver must have been enduring the last couple of months privately, and the last couple of weeks publicly.

I don't want to dwell on salacious details of a public figure, particularly one I have always admired.  I have been a fan of Maria Shriver for as long as I can remember. When I was quite young, I remember a story she told about how she came up in the journalism field. She always wanted to be in front of the camera, but a boss early in her career blew up at her once, telling her that she was shrill, unfit for the camera, and is only there because she's a Kennedy.  She went into the women's bathroom and balled, and after gathering herself she washed her face with cold water and made a promise that she'll continue to work on becoming what she wants to be (a journalist) and that she will never cry at work again.  This story resonated with me because someone who looked like she had everything (name, fame, money and resources) still had to struggle to define herself.  In the years since I heard this story, I have drawn upon her experience and strength to steel myself in the worst days at work, and I have never taken anything I achieve for granted because it never came easy.

But, despite her strong public persona, her successful journalism career (which she gave up), her wealth, her large family, and being the first lady of California the past several years, Maria has once again been brought to a point where she must be questioning her choices to date.  Her husband of 25 years had a child with their housekeeper and if we believe the details, Maria was pregnant at the same time as the housekeeper. The child is something like 14 years old, and Maria confronted her husband after a nagging feeling that the child was his. He never came out and told her.  (My guess is if you have to ask, it's probably his.) After a 24 year marriage, this is a transition we simply cannot begin to conceive after investing so much into our lives--relationships, children, family.

If the rumors are true, Maria is a stronger woman that I gave her credit for. It takes a healthy dose of courage to face reality and  confront a housekeeper and one's husband about a child that is a half brother to your children.  Many women would have turned a blind eye to this fact, and chosen to live their lives blissfully ignorant about the fact.  As a woman, I am comforted that Maria seems to channeling her inner strength into the right places: her children, herself.  Given these few, awful details, there are some things that are helpful to keep in mind--that I would remind my daughter--as she prepares for a life that might throw you curve balls despite our best hopes and romantic beginnings fit for a princess:

1. Keep your day job. 
2. Don't take up more than you can handle in life, but push yourself. 
3. When the worst comes, permit yourself to lose it for a short while but get it together for your sake, your children (if you have any), and your own well being.
4. Do not lose your ability to love even in the worst of times. 
5. Keep good friends around you. 
6. Your instincts are there and we cannot do anything about them, but not acting upon them is what makes us human.