I remember the day well. To paraphrase from The Shipping News, it was two years ago, and it was yesterday. My then-husband, Jim, asked me to lunch. It was a lovely spring day and so I agreed to go. We sat out on the patio overlooking a lovely marina. I had no reason to think anything was amiss.
“I think we’re holding each other back,” he said.
Huh?
April 30 at 1:30 in the afternoon, my world ended. A few weeks later, he moved out and I was left with a house payment, a boat with a blown engine, and two cats. At that point, however, I was still okay. Or rather, I knew I’d be okay … eventually.
Then he told me that he’d been planning to leave me for two years. He’d met someone (of course!) who he was sure was his kindred spirit. The best part? She’s sixteen years my junior. Great. Can you say male menopause? Where’s the red sports car? Worse, he said he thought I was someone other than who I really was. We were married for over ten years! How is it even possible that he didn’t know me?
Perhaps at that point, I should’ve realized he was a complete idiot and thanked the heavens he’d hit the high road, but I didn’t. I sank into a place that was neither among the living nor the dead. I did my job. I fed myself. I paid bills. I looked like I was okay but inside, I hurt so badly I don’t know how I continued to breathe … or why I even bothered. My self-esteem was gone. The girlfriend thing just did me in. Sixteen freaking years. There was no way I could compete with that. It didn’t help that when I looked in the mirror, my evil twin said, “Of course he left. Look at you.”
I didn’t, of course. I sat on the couch and either cried or wondered why it had happened. Months passed. Eventually I got off the couch and started walking. Wandering would be more apt. I wandered at work, at home, whenever I could manage to drag myself off the couch or out of my chair. I watched seemingly happy couples go about their day and felt like the biggest loser on the planet. Everywhere I went, there they were, those dratted happy people. I couldn’t get away from them.
I wish I could say, at this point, that I had an “a-ha!” moment, but I didn’t. My world was a black swamp of depression and I was stuck. A year passed and my only accomplishment was to get the boat engine fixed. Huzzah.
They say that time heals all wounds. Eventually I realized that Jim and I were not all that compatible and divorce was probably inevitable. My mistake was not in getting older or losing that girlish figure; it was marrying the wrong guy in the first place. Part of me felt stupid for staying with him for so long. Part of me regretted my choices. Another part of me said that if I went down that road, I’d never get off it. What was done was done. I could never get that time back, no matter what I did or said or felt. And the truth of the matter, if I bothered to be honest with myself, was that I hadn’t been happy either.
So I had only one direction in which to move: forward. Yesssiree, that I could do. About the same time I noticed that all my wandering had been beneficial. I’d lost weight. I looked and felt better. If there was an aha moment to be had, this was it. I felt better. Alive.
Two years later, I’m learning about who I am and what I want out of life. This might be the part where you’d expect me to say I’ve met someone perfect and have fallen in love. I haven’t. I’m not even dating. This time now is for me and me alone to explore and learn and sample everything life has to offer.
