I’m starting over. 


It’s hard to know where to start.  There’s just so many things.  All the cliches – one foot in front of the other life hands you lemons you make lemonade etc etc etc. 


I went to see an accountant the other day with my soon-to-be-ex-husband.  We want to know the best time to divorce for tax purposes.  We’ve run a business together for many years and both have been terrible at bookkeeping and haven’t been profitable and the books are a mess.  The accountant said well maybe I can go through all your records and help you straighten everything out, or maybe you have one big knot and you just want to chuck the whole gourd and start over cleanly.

 

Chuck the whole gourd and start over cleanly.  That sounds good.  There’s not a whole lot I have I want to keep.  We went through the house like you’re supposed to do to say you take this and you take this and it was a no-brainer.  30 years of marriage.  I didn’t want much of anything.  Just the equipment I need to do my work (I’m a musician), half of the new purple sectional  - custom colored – it’s beautiful – it arrived the day my son left home and I realized my marriage was over.  That was about almost 2 years ago.  Everything since then has been moving through the logistics. 

 

Anyway, my son flew the nest and (the spirit of) my husband was gone and there was this beautiful purple couch sitting in my den.  My friend EL came over.  She was the first to see it.  We talked about the pillows.  They had sent the wrong ones and I didn’t think I liked them as much as the ones I thought I had ordered, but EL really liked them so I kept them and I’ve grown to like them too.  We sat on the couch and I think we watched a movie or something.  The name of the couch is big purple. 

 

So I’m trying to take stock of where I am, where I want to go, how I’m going to get there, all the great & inspirational books I’ve been reading, trying to “look at the positive”, “choose what I want” and “create my life.  I believe those books.  It’s just hard to wrap around them sometimes on those days when you get caught up moaning around and feeling sorry for yourself.  But I’m taking those messages to heart and doing my best to pull out of this.

 

It’s funny, some of my friends have actually expressed jealousy of my situation, if you can believe that.  I look at them in their pretty houses with their families all around in that same pathetic way someone who is going through a break-up looks at all the lovers in the park and wails to themselves “That’s not for me now!!!!!!”  Well, I’ve done (& continue to do) my share of that, ok?  But anyway, my friends look at me and say “You’re free!  You can do anything you want now! Your son is grown! You’re healthy, beautiful (I like that one:), young (51) and can do whatever you want!  How many people get that second chance?”

 

It’s true, most of my friends have been married 20 years and more at this point.  They love their husbands, but have all had their issues and come to this half happy stalemate where they just kind of keep going along going along.  And then I have one friend whose been married 30+ years and she loves to go places and do things, and her husband never did, always had reasons, excuses.  A real home body.  She had all these brochures and flyers of places she was planning for them to go.  The latest was a rail trip through Canada. I was at their house and she had all these fantastic brochures and she was actually starting to plan it for them.  Anyway, then, 2 years ago, he had a major health scare, and is still under doctors’ care, and he’s not going anywhere.  Neither is she.  He might be around for another 20-30 years.  I doubt she’ll ever leave him.  She loves him, they’ve been together their whole lives.  I would never leave my husband if he got sick (might resent it even though I’d pretend not to, but I wouldn’t leave him).

 

But anyway, my husband didn’t get sick. He asked for a divorce.  And if truth be told, I was the one who probably should’ve asked for the divorce, but I didn’t, I kept limping along with the status quo thinking things could get better or change – ever the optimist who wanted things to stay the same.  Even if they sucked, I wanted to pretend it was all ok.  Why do we all hate change so much?

 

But like I said, he asked for the divorce and I know it’s a good thing.  But what do I do now? 

I had my whole life running so well on autopilot.

 

It’s not like I haven’t started over before.  The first time I think I started over was when I left my parents house at 20 and into the arms of my husband, declaring my “independence”.  It was a bad situation in the home I grew up in.  But the joke is, instead of declaring my independence, I probably should’ve been declaring my “co-dependence”:).  One dysfunctional situation into another.  It’s ok.  I’ve done a lot of work and “I can see clearly now” (music here) and I’m ready to move on.  But no more of this “lemons-to-lemonade” crap.  The lemons have been squeezed and sugar-coated enough and I’m trading it all in for orange juice.

 

More later.