Top Eleven Things I've Learned or Realized Since the Divorce

11. Sometimes the worst thing happens, but life goes on. My whole life changed in an instant, and then some other life unfolded before me. To my supreme surprise, it was good, even if admitting it only to myself feels something like a betrayal of my marriage. My husband was the most important and meaningful person in my universe, and as I sit here typing this, I haven't seen him in 32 months and have no idea where he is. Crazy how that happens, the salve of time.

10. Just because I think things in my life are a certain way, they may not actually BE that way. Assumptions are fraught with misapprehension. Just because I have an ability to vicariously justify the actions or motivations of others doesn't mean I'm accurate in my justifications.

9. Nobody can prepare for everything, no matter how hard we try. If I step into a new relationship, for example, it will have its own problems. Maybe they will be different problems than I tackled in previous relationships, as I might not repeat the same mistakes. Rest assured I'll make new ones I never thought about before.

8. Relationships mean putting the good of the group ahead of the good of the individual. I have a lot of stress with this one. I have fought so hard for my independence, it seems somehow both wrong and frightening to consider compromising it to have another relationship.

7. I don't ever take the easy way in situations. In fact, sometimes I make things difficult on purpose. The easy way is accepting TCMT at face value, for example, a good looking intelligent man who seems to adore me. However, I always want the man who's unavailable in some way. Why do I do that? What I am I afraid of?

6. I am not at all responsible for others' choices, and I can't in any way predict them, either. Nobody can, not even when they think they have control... not parents, not spouses, not children, not friends. People will always come up with something unexpected, and when their latest thing is a clear wrong thing to me, well, this is America, and it's their prerogative. I can do only what I know is right for myself.

5. Nobody is perfect. Even the people I hold as role models and as leaders are as fallible and as fraught with issues as I am. They will let me down in my idolatry of them; it is inevitable. All of us are a huge mix of good and bad. There is no such thing as "a good person" or "a bad person;" it's much more complicated and interesting... and scary.

4. Treating myself well not only means sleeping at eating well, but it means cleaning, exercising, reading, bathing, having quiet time, and establishing order in my environment. I feel much better about everything in my world when the grass is mowed and the carpet vacuumed, when I'm clean and rested and following patterns that create a structure for my life.

3. Whenever there's a question, the answer is love. Trite but true. While I shy away from being hurt or somehow forgotten, the answer lies not with fear, but with love. There I find the fortitude for hope, to reach out, to strive to understand others and accept them for who they are.

2. There is no substitute for being ready. Without readiness, we are reactive only; things may happen to us, but we don't deal with them or accept and resolve them until we're ready. Without ripeness for change, nothing changes, and nobody can make himself or herself ready. But with time, patience, love, and support, we can achieve readiness for all things.

1. The world is better off with me in it. While sometimes I question it, I cannot escape that my friends and my students have enriched my life -- but I enrich theirs as well. When a student approaches me with a confidence, or when I have a family member ask me for guidance, I realize that though I now occupy a small part of the world as a single person on her own, I'm not thereby rendered meaningless. I add value to those who come into my life, as they add it -- make it -- in mine.

Fundamentally Speaking

In rereading some old posts, I recognize some progress that I've made with myself and my own thinking. I've gotten over the hump of wanting the HL. Having reestablished physical and emotional distance from him since the last night I saw him, with several weeks to reflect in peace and quiet about the circumstances in my life and my own motivations, it's like suddenly all the pieces fit together. It was good to see him again -- most especially because after he left, I grieved, but I emerged with him finally exorcised.

I see that was chasing yet another rainbow. When we saw one another in October and remained drawn together like to magnets, we -- both of us -- flirted on some level with the possibility of something real happening for us someday, which is the equivalent of dangling a carrot in the face of us staying friends. That couldn't happen; I'd continue to hope that'd he'd change into a man who wants what I want and what I have to offer. That wasn't ever going to happen, and with distance (and without my hormones screaming), I am able to see that. He's already moved on; he wasn't offering more, just fantasizing along with me. None of the feelings between us were real or based on anything tangible or rational. It was chemistry, pure and simple, between two people who basically liked each other, but that was it. Nonetheless, those hormones were strong enough to distract me from the wisdom of separating from him altogether. Our mini-reunion brought to the surface so many feelings and concerns whose time had ripened for resolution. It was, in other words, the event that shoved me over the precipice.

And I don't mean to yearn for an illusion.

But like Susan Meyer said last night on Desperate Housewives, relationships aren't rational, and even smart and trustworthy people find it a challenge to let their heads rule their hearts and hormones. If nothing else, this blog illustrates more clearly than anything else the lack of a future in that relationship. I was planning to break it off through most of it! Then I saw him, I confronted my hormones, and now, as I sit here, I think I've finally seen, and accepted, the reality of the big picture.

Now, I have spent a little bit of time lately with TCMT, and that is something that, as I told P, will work out or not. But I intend to continue living my life, on my own terms, and either he can go with that, or he can't. But it isn't going to change. It cannot change, and it must not change. I must be myself first and foremost. I have had this time to grow back my confidence and learn a little about how life can be, and there are parts to hold on to, parts to preserve. I am not ever going to sacrifice myself, my own comfort, or the fulfillment of my own needs, on the almighty altar of getting along with anybody else. Period. Even if it's hard, and even if it's not convenient. I'm not married, I'm not obligated, and I have a life to live.