Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Picking a New Page

Hi. How are you? I've missed you. Did you miss me? I sure missed me. I've been under a lot of stuff. Snow, mostly.


But a lot of stuff that has nothing to do with the weather. See, I know that I last posted in September, when school was new and things were staring up again. But at the same time, things were ending. And I had no idea. Turns out that even though it takes two people to be married, all it takes is 14 weeks and one person to end it. Quickly and with no warning. And when that happens, blogging goes by the wayside, because really, you  are just trying to figure out what happened and how to put one foot in front of the other.
And how to get up in the morning.
And take the dog for a walk.
And go to work.
And just breathe. Because you forget to do that.

You forget a lot of things. When your whole world flips upside down and every plan and every thing that you thought you knew to be true turns out to be false and you realize that nothing will ever, ever be the same, you have two choices. Go under the covers or try to remember how to put one foot in front of the other. So, I thought about it. I thought that I could just curl into a ball and sort of disappear and dissolve and fade away. But I realized that, in fact, I was not made that way. So I had to force myself to remember how to put one foot in front of the other. And I had to get up. And I had to move forward. And I had to re-asses the situation and the life I was in and go through my grief. But nothing said I had to do it alone. So, I quit my job. I apologized to my kids and my heart broke again when I told them I had to leave.
In December I moved myself, my dog and a truck full of my stuff back to NY where my family was waiting. (I did not actually drive the truck. I left that to my father who, on the way back, missed New Jersey. To be fair, he drove it the whole way and we both had colds.)

And then I did nothing. For three months.Well, not nothing. I got tan.

I went to Hawaii.







I went to Barbados.

I drank lots of things with umbrellas and read really bad books on beaches and cried.

And I thought about who I was and who I wanted to be. I thought about all of the things that I had not wanted that had been thrown in my path and to which I said "oh, well. Ok, I can work around this" I thought about all the stuff I had settled for and finally I realized something. I get a do-over! I get to do it all over. I can move to London or teach in India or get my real estate license because apparently no one is getting a teaching job in NY.

I can dress up my dog any way I want. (well, let's face it. I was going to do that anyway)









I can make totally different choices. Kind of like a "Choose your Own Adventure" book. Remember those? You got to a point in the story and if you picked choice A you went to page 45. If you picked choice B, you went to page 96. I did page 45. I'm going back to the beginning and picking page 96.

People keep asking "What are you going to do?" and the truth is, I don't know. I'm in mourning for the person I was and the marriage that was and the vacations and houses and children and all the possibilities that I imagined but will never be. I don't know.

I do know that I am surrounded by friends and family who have offered me unconditional support and love. I am lucky enough to be able to live in a place that asks very little of me and where I don't have to pay my utilities and I get cable. So I ask those of you with whom I have been incommunicado to please forgive as I am only now beginning to communicate. I'm struggling to find out what my new adventure will be and waiting to turn the page.