True Love Deluxe

by Jennifer Lopez

  I held my breath.

  But instead, he said, “Okay.” And then he added, “I want you to know, I’m always here for you if you ever need anything at all.”

  I burst into tears.

  The only other thing I remember is that when he got up to leave, he gave me a hug. He walked out as I turned away and faced the window, but I could still see his reflection on the glass. He had stopped at the door. He stood there a moment, and then he made some kind of joke. I turned back around to acknowledge him, but I couldn’t laugh—I was overwhelmed by the moment, too sad and too overcome to join in. Right then I saw Marc’s whole face change, because he knew the one thing he could always do was make me laugh.

  On July 15, 2011, we made the public announcement that we were going to divorce. Hardest. Day. Ever.

  LETTING GO

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  The days following our announcement were agonizing. I knew I’d done the right thing, but it still felt very sad, our marriage had failed. And as Marc himself had pointed out, there was nothing I hated more than a failure. I was glad to have my mom there so the house wouldn’t feel empty, but it still felt lonely waking up in bed alone every morning. I mourned the loss of this dream I’d had since I was young. I longed for a beautiful family and a loving husband to grow old with. I had come so close to it that to let it go now was traumatic.

  As I continued to struggle with the fallout, I began to think something was still missing. Yes, I had done the therapy, made important realizations, and taken steps to do the right thing for myself and my kids. But that wasn’t enough. There was something else I was seeking, something else I had to learn.

  I took out some of my old books—ones that had helped me in times of need before. At first I was looking for things to help me get through the next hour, the next day . . . And then I decided to reread one of my favorite inspirational books, You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay. It’s all about how you can make your own reality and your own destiny by the power of your own positive thoughts. I had always found that message—that you have the power to change how you feel, to make your own life better—really comforting, so I started reading it again.

  In those weeks right after the split, I was scheduled to shoot the movie What to Expect When You’re Expecting, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to get through it. Work can be great for taking your mind off of things, but I was still struggling so much. I didn’t know if I’d be able to focus. But the schedule was the schedule, so I had no choice but to try and do the best I could.

  There are a lot of early-morning call times when you shoot a movie. I found myself driving out to work at six a.m. each day, usually after a restless night of little sleep and feeling really depressed. There were days when I’d walk into hair and makeup, and Mary would start doing my face, just as she always did, and I’d say, “Ugh, I feel funny.” I’d feel like I had something caught in my throat, or something making my chest feel tight. I’d wonder whether maybe I was getting sick, but then, suddenly, the tears would start coming—again—and I would understand that it was all those emotions forcing themselves out.

  Emotional pain is such a strange feeling. You can forget you’re in it—or try to, anyway—and then it sneaks up and finds its way to the surface. I felt sorry for Mary during that movie, because she was constantly using ice to reduce the swelling around my eyes. And both she and Lorenzo, who did my hair, were very sweet, always telling me, “This is normal. You will get through it.” They’d let me cry for a while as they did their jobs, and then I’d finally go shoot whatever scene I had to do.

  I brought my books with me to the set sometimes, and every once in a while, Mary and Lorenzo and I would read affirmations together. I ended up thinking, I wish I could have Louise Hay here with me, to show me how to deal with all this. It was a silly thought, coming from a desperate place. But when I told my longtime executive assistant, my great friend and confidante Debbi, how I felt, she said, “Well, why don’t we call her? Maybe she’ll come out to the house.”

  I looked at Debbi like she’d lost her mind.

  “What?” I said. “Have her come here?”

  And Debbi said, “Yeah. Let’s call her and see. The worst that could happen is she says no!” Debbi called her, and to my great surprise, Louise Hay said, sure, she’d love to come over.

  Wow . . . okay . . . Louise Hay was coming over!

  A REALIZATION

  On the covers of her books, Louise Hay looks young and energetic, but when she arrived at my house, I was surprised to see that she was in a wheelchair. She’s in her mideighties now, but although she’s not as physically spry as she used to be, she still has an amazing energy about her. She kind of sized me up for a minute, and then she got right to the point, as people of a certain age, clarity, and wisdom tend to do. (I love that. No time to waste, gotta run. I love being around people like that.)

  “Why am I here, Jennifer?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said truthfully. “I just . . . Your books have always helped me through the years . . . and now I’m going through a divorce . . .” I felt a little tongue-tied, not sure how to explain why I’d asked her to come all the way to LA from her home near San Diego. “I just . . . I don’t know what to do.”

  “I thought that’s what it was,” she said, and looked at me intently. “Tell me a little bit about what’s going on.”

  I started talking about what had happened and how I felt about it.

  “Well, you don’t seem angry,” she said.

  I thought about it for a second and said, “No, I’m not angry. I’m sad.”

  “When a marriage falls apart, people tend to feel angry,” she said. “So, that’s great that you’re not. Now, tell me more about what you’re feeling.”

  So, I did. I talked about my previous relationships and how I wanted things to be right for the kids . . . I kind of laid it all out there, holding nothing back. And when I was done, she spoke again.

  “You’re a dancer, right?” she asked. “When you’re learning a dance, if you mess up a step, you don’t beat yourself up over that step, or get angry or hate yourself for it, do you?”

  I shook my head.

  “You just keep going and you do it again,” she said. “Well, that’s what you’ve got to do in this situation as well. You haven’t gotten things right yet, but you just have to keep going with the dance. And don’t beat yourself up along the way.”

  As soon as she said it, I realized how much I actually had been beating myself up—I’d been upset and disappointed with myself for having been through three failed marriages and for having dragged the kids into this one. When I couldn’t make it work, I blamed myself.

  “Fear, guilt, and blame are useless and destructive,” she said. “What happened has happened. Just keep doing better and eventually you’ll get the steps right.”

  She couldn’t have said it more clearly: Dance again!

  But it was what she said next that finally unlocked things for me.

  “You know, when I first started doing my work, I would listen to people describe their problems, and then I’d try to figure out how to fix those problems,” she said. “Sometimes it would work, and sometimes it wouldn’t. Some people were going through rough divorces. Some people had eating disorders. Some people were drug addicts, et cetera, et cetera. So many different problems. And I was always trying to figure out the solution for each particular one.”

  She looked at me and smiled. “But I finally figured out that it didn’t really matter what all these different issues were. There was the same basic problem at the root of them all. If I could teach people to love themselves, then they would wind up fixing their problems on their own.”

  The minute she said it, something clicked. Whenever I’d heard the phrase “loving myself” before, I’d never really gotten it. I felt like I was already doing it. I would think, Of
course I love myself! I like who I am. I work hard. It was just a phrase to me, not something that I really knew how to do.

  What was loving yourself, anyway? Nobody teaches us what that means, but now I’ve discovered that it’s the key to life—because it’s the key to loving someone else and allowing others to love you. And without that love inside, we are lost and empty shells. More practically, you have to take care of yourself, your body, your mind, take care of your soul—be your own keeper. You can give, and love, and do all kinds of things to make a relationship perfect, but if you don’t think that you’re great, if you don’t love yourself, you’ll be treated in a way that is less than you deserve. You have to make good decisions for yourself, treat yourself well. Lie down and read a book you love, or sit outside on a swing, or eat healthy—whatever it is that helps you feel good. And that includes not letting people treat you in any way that you don’t want to be treated. Because when you love yourself, you don’t let that happen. That’s loving yourself.

  Big. Fat. Epiphany.

  You have to take care of yourself, your body, your mind, take care of your soul—be your own keeper.

  Now that I got it—now that the switch had flipped on—I got excited. This was, really, the biggest epiphany I’d ever had.

  “Yes . . . yes,” I said. “That’s so important! And you know what? We don’t learn that when we’re young, not from our parents, or in school, or anywhere.” And I went straight into Producer mode: “Louise, we should do a kids’ program, or maybe a TV show, like a Barney type of thing—but not Barney because he’s corny—but something like that. Where some character sings about loving yourself . . . or . . . whatever! Do you want to work together on this? We could make something great happen! We could teach the whole world how to love themselves!”

  Louise smiled and said, “Okay, Jennifer, slow down. Before you can teach anybody else, first you need to learn how to do it yourself.”

  I smiled back. She was right.

  In the weeks that followed, I worked really hard at internalizing what I had learned. Every night, I’d take a hot bath and listen to a CD of affirmations and think about the ones that Louise had given me. Then, when I’d go to bed, I’d take it there and listen to it until I fell asleep. Over and over I would say, “I love you Jennifer, I really really love you. You are worthy of love, this whole situation is easier than I thought it would be. Me and my babies live a happy, healthy, joyful life full of love.” Somewhere deep inside, I started to believe that tomorrow would be easier than today and that things would keep getting better. And eventually, they did.

  I wasn’t just realizing but feeling myself fill up with love and appreciation for myself. I was getting through this all on my own, and the love I was feeling inside me, I didn’t need to get that from anyone else. This changes everything, I thought. My own happiness doesn’t depend on anyone but me. Holy crap, oh my God. All that stuff you hear about love is true! Everything you need is inside of you. Love and happiness come from within. It wasn’t just words anymore. I could feel it. I felt peace for the first time in a long time. There was nothing to search for or hope for in anyone else. I am complete all by myself. All on my own, I have all the love that I need.

  I’m okay. Holy shit; I was doing the work and the work was working!!!

  Week by week, month by month, I felt stronger and happier.

  When Louise visited, I had still been crying a lot, but a few weeks later, I noticed one day that I hadn’t cried yet. I looked at a clock, and it was almost four in the afternoon. It felt like a victory.

  Such a strong feeling

  There comes a time in everyone’s life

  When you know that everyone around you knows

  That everything has changed, you’re not the same

  It’s a new day.

  —“BABY I LOVE U!”

  I remember having a conversation with my sister Lynda several months earlier.

  “Jen,” she said, “you’ve always been everybody else’s keeper. You’ve taken care of me. You’ve taken care of Mom and Dad and the kids . . . but when are you going to take care of yourself? When are you going to be your own keeper?”

  At the time, in the midst of all the confusion, I told her, “I don’t know.” But all these weeks later, I finally had an answer: Now and forever.

  I had truly found myself and was rejoicing in this new and tentative self-love. My loved ones surged around me, bringing strength and hope with every hug and kind word. I was healing and learning to accept their gracious support on this new adventurous and joy-filled journey.

  LET’S GET LOUD

  REMEMBERING HOW TO LIVE

  The giant neon sign hovering above the stage says CLUB BABALÚ, and the dancers are dressed for a night out at a classic Cuban nightclub from the forties. The men are dressed in tight black suits with ruffled sleeves, white tuxedo shirts, and sparkling fuchsia cummerbunds. The women are wearing black long-sleeved backless sparkly leotards and spiked heels and are wrapped in pink ostrich feathers. The very beginning of the show was all about black-and-white, classic Big Hollywood . . . but now it’s time for the colorful, loud, electrifying Latin finale.

  I rise up through the stage floor, dressed in a black suit, white shirt, and pink scarf, with a fedora perched on my head . . . because I’m not a dancing girl at this club, oh no. I’m the bandleader. I’m Ricky Ricardo, I’m Xavier Cugat—I’m the one who’s going to be leading this show, and I start it out with a solo on the conga. Then it’s “Uno! Dos! Tres! Cuatro!” and the opening notes of “Let’s Get Loud” kick in. It’s time to celebrate life. And the whole place comes to its feet, jumping up and down, dancing, and singing at the top of their lungs.

  It’s party time.

  Let the music make you free, be what you wanna be

  Make no excuses, you gotta do it, you gotta do it your way

  —“LET’S GET LOUD”

  The “Let’s Get Loud” part of the show was all about shouting to the world that life is to be lived! Being sad, being regretful, that’s living in the past. We are here, right now, and we are going to live it up.

  In the months after the breakup, I’d found myself wondering, Where did I go for all those years? Where was the girl who loved dancing, and didn’t think so much, who allowed herself to enjoy the journey—to enjoy the steps? I had gotten lost in the pursuit of the perfect relationship and the perfect life, and as a result I hadn’t really been enjoying life. Getting back in touch with that side of myself—the dancer in me—while we were doing the show, was the way to rediscover the power of my true self.

  And that meant getting back in touch with my roots. I am Puerto Rican, I am Latina, and yes, I do represent. So I knew I wanted to end the Dance Again show with a big Latin blowout. It’s the music of my upbringing, of my family. And at my core it’s who I am.

  That was the idea behind this final section, and when I started looking at my Latin-flavored hits, they all fit perfectly: “Let’s Get Loud,” “Papi,” “On the Floor”—all songs that would get people on their feet. High-energy dance hits infused with Latin flavor. It was funny to me how perfectly the songs I wanted to do fit into each section of the show. The truth is, they all expressed who I am, or who I’ve been at certain times, so maybe it’s not so surprising after all. Liz Imperio was doing the choreography for the “Let’s Get Loud” section, and I told her, “I want it to be really exotic, really sexy. And I want it to be big.” I’ve always loved musicals—I think my mom showed me every musical known to humankind when I was growing up—and I loved the spectacle of it all. I wanted this section to be red and pink and vibrant and loud, and I even added a salsa dance break on the end of “Let’s Get Loud.” I wanted the audience to feel like they were suddenly in this amazing club in Havana, in the forties or fifties, with all the showgirls and all the rhythms of that era.

  But I also wanted a little twist . . . It’s always the girls in the sexy costumes, doing the dances for the guys, right? Well, I wanted the gu
ys to be the eye candy in my Club Babalú. We had eight amazing male dancers, every one with a shaved head and a six-pack to match, and during this section, they all stripped their shirts off and threw them into the audience. They were so hot, and our female dancers were so hot, that no matter who you are or what you like, there was something up on that stage for you.

  The funny thing was, two of our guys felt a little uncomfortable with this part—not because they didn’t want to be shirtless and sexy, but because they hadn’t really danced salsa before. They were both incredible dancers, but Latin dance is a little different, and they were nervous about it. So Liz came to the rescue, putting trumpets in their hands for “Let’s Get Loud,” so at least they didn’t have to worry about what to do with their hands. They just had to do the basic salsa step and look amazing, which was no trouble.

  That’s the beauty of having a great choreographer when you’re designing a show like this—Liz understood the strengths and limitations of all the dancers, and she worked around them to make sure the performances were perfect. By the end of the song, I wanted everybody to have caught the spirit—like some kind of Cuban revival, with everybody flailing around, dancing their asses off. Liz made that happen, and it was so good that the audience caught the spirit too. The whole thing was just madness—of the best kind.

  THE ROOTS AND THE BRANCHES

  In that crazy year leading up to the tour, my birthday was nine days after we announced our divorce. It was a particularly tough time, because while I was married we always made big deals out of each other’s birthdays—and now, for the first time in seven years, I’d be facing mine alone.