Forty Years Later

Small Town Life U.S.A.

Katy and I went to town yesterday for Western Days.  It closes the summer tourist season here for the most part, though people drive up from the flat lands throughout late September and October to "see the color". The color is the spectacle the aspen make of themselves in autumn.  Today I'm going to take you on a photo tour of my town during Western Days when the old girl puts on a great show for us all.

The day began with a wonderful surprise.  There is a new Amish family group in town. They've opened a shop where they sell beautifully crafted outdoor furniture.  The surprise was that the ladies set up a table heavy with pies, home canned pickles and...raised, glazed, doughnuts so recently fried they were still warm.

I brought home a jar of these bread and butter pickles.  Heaven!


I love the carnival atmosphere on a festival day, especially the hour or so of roaming around town waiting for the parade to begin.

There are garage sales all around town to check out.

The quilt bazaar for early Christmas gifts.

Sitting around  people watching is always a favorite activity.



Town is in full bloom. This is the public restroom garden!



Even the trash cans are festive.



The new hitchin' post just for our new Amish family. 



There is western sculpture  in several  spots in town.



But then someone yells out, "Here it comes!" and everyone settles in to watch the parade which is small but energetic. This parade isn't as large as the Memorial Day Parade but it's appreciated all the same.

There are cowgirls and flags.  Patriotism is alive and kicking here.




The kids that work at the alpaca ranch and their trainees.




Plenty of cowboys.



And one glorious Indian.   This man and his horse are gorgeous.





Even our health club got in on the act. (I told you, this is tiny town America)





And bringing up the rear is the law.  These guys dress like this for real.



When the parade ends there's still a lot of shopping, eating and visiting to do but eventually the crowd heads down Main Street for the best part of the day...the music.  The music is true western music: plenty of cowboy music, and depending upon the group it might be  bare bones simple with just a guitar, or modernized with lots of instrumentation.This year we had four first rate groups with awards and top selling western c.d.'s to their credit.  Vendors selling western art, and bar-b-que, fajitas, and corndogs stay busy till late into the night.

Plenty going on in the tent.




But if you need distraction, there's a lot going on outside the tent, not the least of which is the gorgeous view.



The "Ranch Family of the Year" is always honored.



There's lots of action amongst the vendor and food tents.




Lots of cowboys here. Even the father from the catholic church. Actually he is a beekeeper .




A storm threatens every year , but no one  cares a bit. It just provides dramatic scenery.


But all lovely days end with that soft contented feeling. The feeling that tells you that today, anyway, you were in just the right place at just the right time.  I'll leave you with one final photo that (if it wasn't for that fence behind him, oh and those little red flags) gives you a taste of how the valley must have seemed before we all arrived.

Western Days

I have been either busy or tired since I last wrote.  Getting back into the school schedule is difficult this year.  I have the hardest time getting into bed before ten. 

Katy and I are heading out to Western Days in our little town today.  We have two music festivals a year, the bluegrass festival which has gotten really big and this smaller music weekend that focuses more on the old time western traditions. Good music and food. Cowboy poets.  A big parade with lots of horses. Indian craft displays and spinning demonstrations.  Activities for kids and western art vendors. It'll be a fun, long day.

This will be the first time I've been to a town parade and festival alone. Well...not alone, there is Katy and Paula, but I meant without FH. But, gotta get out there and do things. 

I have to pick up my friend Paula at 9 so we can put our chairs in a good front of the crowd location in the tent then get back up to the other end of the street and hit the bakery before the parade starts.  And with that 30 minute drive to town, I've got to get moving and get ready.  I'm taking my camera today so I hope tomorrow to have a few town photos to post. 

Have a great day.

My Long Sordid Story

was it just a dream?

My marriage was leaking blood before Katy came.  The life was running right out of it, but we were talking about doing some things.  Traveling more.  Traveling was always good for us together and he needed something to do.   All long term marriages have flat times.  But when it is a good marriage with a solid core and both people want  to be married to each other the smallest things can reignite a forgotten spark and the marriage is off and running again, all the stronger and livelier for the revitalization.

We both agreed there was no other choice but for Katy to come.  Traveling was then out of the question. Or any other activities just for the two of us because Katy was pretty delicate then. The focus was turned on her, and the day to day work of being a surrogate daddy was just too much.  The thing is, though I was disappointed I understood. It was hard.  For me too!  But I had that primal mother thing going on.  It wasn't long before our relationship began to seriously crumble.  Being the optimist I still thought, way into the second year of her being here, that things would work out.  How could they not?  They always had, and he and I belonged together, so things had to work out.

But eventually we indisputably agreed he would have to leave.   I, silly woman, believed a good long vacation away from each other would give him time to find a way to be at peace with himself and to miss me enough he would want to return.  You can't cage a bird and expect it to be happy.  Same with a man.  And I'm not the kind of woman who would ever want a man to be with me if he didn't want to be with me. If a man stayed with me out of some misplaced burden of duty or guilt I wouldn't want him.

Cut to four months ago. I'm sitting in the glider on the deck one night. I'm basking in the light of the full moon and thanking the Universe for letting me get through his leaving and being gone with strength. I'm feeling really good,  as if a weight has been lifted from my back.  But the phone rings, I answer, and it is a man in another town who I don't know telling me the details of the affair between his wife and my husband.  And...that it had been going strong for nearly two years.

Sounds like a sordid little soap opera.  But...Hello, welcome to my life!

Well, enough  background.  Despite the hurt and anger and the raw pain, I was getting through it.  I went to Oregon with Katy and we had the best time, doing whatever we wanted, and I felt lighter and freer for the absence of him. 

While I was gone I was paying my one credit bill by phone because it was a new card (of course I got the new card and had to prove my paying capability), but when I returned home I switched to online payment. The first time I went online to pay, I realized that through some computer fluke, I could view his credit card charges.  And of course I looked.  Who wouldn't have? I began to follow the details of his new life with her through his charges. At first it made me feel powerful, even though seeing charges for jewelery from Sundance catalog (the source of many of my  gifts from him) and trips to resort towns and expensive dinners out cut me to the core.  It was something I "had" on him.  Addiction set in and I was having a look every day.  Occasionally twice daily.  I couldn't stay away from it.  It was this masochistic spying that I thought was empowering me.  But the joke turned out to be on me.  A few days ago while checking in for my daily kick in the ribs, there was her name.  He had given her a card to use on his account.  I  plunged into a dark place of pain and anger, and I've been wallowing around in there for days. 

Luckily I was feeling maudlin when my friend Linda called, and upon her questioning I told her of my anger and how I felt I was going backward not forward anymore.  She said, "Stop with that damned credit card already! Now! You're killin' yourself!" (she's from New York) After a good hour's talk I new I would stop it and I told her so.  After hanging up I wrote the email.  Now that part was a little pleasurable because I could imagine his response upon reading that I had been spying. I wrote a cold, harsh letter that I new would change the tenor of our friendlyish emails and whatever "relationship" we had left forever. I paused with my finger over the send button for what seemed like many minutes, weeping, because I new it was something I could not take back once I hit send and I didn't want to send it. But I knew if I were to ever get strong, I would have to close that window into his life. I hit send.

Well, I can't report that I felt all better right away. No, I wept off and on all afternoon till I had to straighten up and put on a good face for Katy when I met the school bus.  I was empty, and last night I felt more alone than I have ever felt in my life  when I crawled into bed.

This morning a different woman stepped out of that bed.  OK, OK, so I'm not done, but I do know that I can take steps to help myself once I recognize what is crippling me.  What a relief to be out of the spy business! 

I felt so much more capable today I signed up for two online art classes this fall.  More about that later.

Thanks for "listening". 

Just A Note

I'm not going to write much tonight.  It's early. Not even eight yet.  But this was one of those days when I felt like I was riding the waves.  Up and down, Up and down.  Actually, up in the morning then way down, then just plain dog tired.  That's what I am right now. Dog tired. (I wonder where in the world that phrase came from?) 

I believe today I identified the reason why for the past couple of weeks I've felt like I'm stalled. And this afternoon I took an important step and put an end to the problem.  But it was emotional and I'm tired from it.  I'm going to write a little about it tomorrow because this is my journal and I believe today's action, once the emotional smoke clears will spring board me on my way forward again.  At the core I'm an optimistic woman. A glass half full kind of person.  I just had to figure out what was causing the strain and do something about it. 

Sleep tight...I know I will tonight. 

A Change In The Air

If you read this post early today you might have noticed  I was a little too free with the foul language.  From the sound of it, I must have still been pissed off when I wrote it. Not that I  won't occasionally  talk in a similar  manner because in real life I do that sometimes, but I may have stepped over the line for some of my brand new readers.  I don't want to scare any body off yet!

Tonight is the end of an era.  The summer era.  Tomorrow is the first day of school.  Goodbye sleeping till eight in the morning...hello four long days to myself every week!  Yea!  Not that I'm completely ready to say good bye to no schedule, sleeping late, lazing around getting nothing done, not cooking much, and staying up till midnight.  Yeah...I'm gonna miss all that.  But, for a woman who relished her aloneness for a long time, the four glorious days are quite highly anticipated.

Autumn has always been my favorite part of the year, partly because my birthday is in September. It's also the season of the county and state fairs and as a girl I  loved those events.  Probably as a result of being in school throughout my formative years, autumn feels like a new beginning and the time to get down to business and get some things done.  That yearly feeling really resonates with me this year. I've accomplished nothing this summer other than getting a divorce.  I did take a month long trip to Oregon, but that was running away from home when I couldn't stand to be here another minute. Well, I guess I did accomplish something because that was a great escape.  When I came home, I was ready to be here. Thank goodness I got divorced in the summer when I could  run away.

 I don't feel badly about doing nothing more this summer.  I wanted to coddle myself.  Give myself room to try and come to terms with my new reality without any other pressures intruding. Be a little gentle with myself like I was a recovering mental patient just reentering the real world. And pat myself on the back for getting through it with a little grace  at least. That's not to say I didn't have my moments and I still  have them. 

Just yesterday after I dropped Kendall off at friends so she could go to the state fair, I completely lost it when I drove the car into my huge, filled to the brim, filthy, mousy, spidery garage. Standing on the five inch layer of dried mud that FH didn't clean up for the last two winters and surrounded by so much stuff  that I've got to get rid of ( but it's too good to give away and where  in the world can I sell it) I  found myself screaming at the top of my lungs every curse word I could think of along with some really nasty curses too. And I do mean screaming. It felt so good I kept it up a minute or so.

Then I carefully closed the garage door and walked to the house feeling a little shaky but sated. 
I'll tell you, there's something about that garage that sets me off and just makes me mad.   This wasn't the first time it has kicked off a fit although I'm pretty sure these rages are healthy, and of course I never have one when Katy is home.  Thank heavens I don't have neighbors.

Well, I'd better be off to bed.  This is the hard part of switching over to the new era.  I'm an eight hour girl.  If I don't sleep eight hours I don't function that well. That means I have to go to bed at the ridiculous hour of ten to get the eight hours by six.  Actually I should be asleep at ten. Yikes!  I'm already late on the first night.

Ciao.

62 Screws

I bought gorgeous new knobs and handles for all my kitchen cabinets yesterday.  I should have done it when we bought the house four years ago.  But for a long time I toyed with the idea of completely remodeling the kitchen; and even when I realized I didn't have the stamina for that, I thought maybe I'd  paint the cabinets, change the counter tops and then get new hardware.

Now in the wake of the divorce and in the presence of the novel sensation of owning a house alone (all mine! mine! mine! ) I'm thinking smaller.  Make that cheaper. Some big, beefy, faux antique copper knobs and handles will accomplish all the sprucing I need to spend money on.

So, I get home with them and admire them up against the cabinets and then I just freeze in my tracks.  How in the bloody hell am I going to get these things put on? 

There are 62 screws to be removed. There are 62 more screws to be screwed in.  That's 124 screws!  I don't screw! 

In addition to the house, I got this big guy in the divorce. I wanted him bad and bargained for him hard because I was always impressed with the way he got the job done.  The De Walt XR2, 18 volt, cordless drill. I imagined me and the De Walt drilling and screwing ourselves right into an exalted state of independence.

Now, however,  I understand that the "big guy" is impressive only when he is being wielded by a man on a mission and there ain't no man here anymore.  No way am I going to risk stripping out the screws or punching extra holes in the cabinet.  So what to do?  It's too much to ask of a friend's husband (They've all sweetly offered their help. "Just call" they say.) And it's too little a job to entice some working man to travel up here into the wild unless I pay double which of course I ultimately will.

I could really use a man right about now.

A temporary man.  Or maybe a little man robot. That's what I need:   A little man-around- the-house robot who would rush to meet all my demands with an adoring smile plastered on his little metal face while making no demands himself.

Deja Vu

Yesterday I took Katy to "Meet Your Teacher" day at the school.  Sometimes I'll be in the middle of doing something that is the exact same thing I did twenty-eight years ago when my son was 10 and I was 32, and a strong feeling of surreality shakes me up for a minute, leaving behind a  feeling of deja vu.   Yes, yes, yes.  Been there, done that. Only now I'm doing it all over again. 

Is it weird?   Yes.

Has she changed my entire world?  Yes.

Do I mind?  NO.

I always wanted a daughter to go along with my son, but it just never happened.  So now I've got one...or something very much like one. 

I've read articles about how too many of life's major occurrences happening to a person within a fairly short period of time can be dangerously stressful. Things like loss of a parent, moving, life threatening illness in the family, a new job, getting fired from a job,  divorce, loss of a child, etc. etc. I  have experienced an old marriage divorce, loss of two beloved dogs, and the arrival of a grand daughter to raise decades after I thought I'd finished up with all of that.  All within a two year span. WOW!  I ought to be ready for the rest home.  But it's interesting how this has worked out with me.  Of course the loss of the pups was traumatic in the extreme.  It's been a year and a half since the loss of one and two years since I lost the other and I am still overcome with grief occasionally. They were old dogs with the family for a long time.

 But, regarding the other two events one, though quite stressful at times, challenging, and life changing, has bled off a lot of the stress and angst from the other one.  What I mean by that is I'm so thankful to the Universe that I have received the gift of this complex little person at a time in my life when I might have plummeted into an orgy of self pity and retreated into myself wrapped in a dark cloak of shock and sadness.  But no retreating allowed here now!

I've had to step up to the plate.  For her.  I am maintaining a happy household full of laughter and fun and love.  Just for her.  I  am having to stretch myself daily to once again do all those things I did so many years ago. For Katy. I  haven't had the luxury of much down time to wallow in the implications of the divorce.  And the miraculous thing that I've discovered is that in doing it all for her, I've done it all for me too.

What a marvel she is!

And so I sacrifice freedom, wake up at 6 to make the school bus, cook more than I want to, live in a noisy, messy world when I once treasured the quiet. Worry about doing the wrong thing, work school parties, hang out at the park and the swimming pool when I could be hanging out in my studio, haul her around to see girlfriends who live 30 miles on the other side of the mountain, make doctor's appointments, hire tutors since I suck at math, and all of a sudden, I've got the hang of it again.

We never know what the Universe has in store for us.

But that's probably a good thing.

An Autumn Chill

I'm a little melancholy tonight.  I think that's the right word....let me look in the dictionary: a depression of spirit.  No, that's not really it. That's a little strong.  I don't know, just a little shitty I'd have to say because I can't identify the actual emotion.  I had a lovely, fun day.  Took Katy and her best friend to a play with all kid actors, then poked around town and finished up with an ice cream cone. Kind of an idyllic summer day.  The mountains were shrouded in dramatic clouds that occasionally drifted apart in the high mountain winds, offering flirtatious peeks of fresh snow caps. It's the time of year I love most up here. Just before autumn when the air is cool and the snow makes its early arrival on the highest peaks.

But then later at home the phone rang.  It was FH (former husband).  I saw that on the caller ID and I knew he was calling Katy. I've been careful not to answer the phone when he has called her.  I pass it to her to answer, or tell her later he called and have her return his call.  I hadn't heard his voice in four or five months after hearing it daily for 40 years. I didn't have to answer. She was out playing. But I did. It seemed silly not to. We had a nice chat about Katy, the rain here (that's why there is snow in the highest areas), my new car which he was nice enough to help me buy before he left.  It was going quite well, but just before hanging up, he said "It's nice to hear your voice, honey." And I heard tears in his sentence.  I said "It's nice to hear yours too." And I felt tears in my sentence. And we hung up.  We've exchanged plenty of emails, but a  voice carries impact an email can't. I was a little choked up for a while and I still feel a trace of those emotions clouding my evening. 

You think you've got everything under control and you're feeling good. Even happy. And then you hear a voice that once was the sound of your whole world and you realize: I still have a ways to go before I get there.
.....................................

Oh well, as Scarlett O'Hara would have said...tomorrow's another day.

Girlfriends

 

I never had real friends...girlfriends...until four years ago.  In my late 20's I had a close friend, but we moved to another town and I lost touch.  I didn't value the friendship of a woman then. Later, throughout the years, I had friends that were also employees.  Employees can be very good friends as long as everything at work goes well.  But when there's trouble at work, there's trouble in the friendship, and often you discover it wasn't a very solid friendship at all.  I didn't stay connected to my best friend from high school even though over the years she tried; and I didn't keep in touch with my best friend at college and she was my distant cousin for heaven's sake!  I honestly thought I didn't need women friends as an adult.  My husband was my best friend. And we were such good friends. He didn't have other friends either. We were an insular couple finding everything we needed in each other for many, many years.

It wasn't until much later in life that I began to feel a hint of longing, seeing women in couples and groups laughing and talking confidentially. Shopping together. Traveling together. Movies often portrayed deep friendships between women and I vaguely wondered what I had missed.  But I really had no idea. Just a suspicion. Once, for some weird reason, I got just obsessed with this certain 1940's style fashion doll. The Gene doll. I must have had a hole that needed to be filled at the time and Gene filled it.  I bought 30 or 40 of them over a year or so, and I logged into the Gene forums most nights where hundreds of women were chatting and forming friendships based on a common interest. Mostly I just lurked.  When I read about the big Gene convention in New York, I had to go.  My family could not   believe I was going to travel to Denver to catch a plane, fly to New York, and navigate my way all alone.  Apparently it seemed quite out of character to them even though I frequently traveled alone  for work. But I did it. On the plane I consciously thought about how I didn't make friends very easily and pledged to myself that I'd be open and friendly and truly make an effort.  After all, I had something in common with hundreds of women: Gene!  But it never happened.  Standing in lines for one thing or another I'd  chit chat, make warm eye contact, look approachable, but apparently that wasn't the vibe  I projected.  At round table classes or dinner, I'd ask questions, be a good listener, look engaged etc. etc.  (This is beginning to sound pathetic, but wait...I haven't gotten to the good part yet.)

Anyway, you get the picture. I was a dud in the friendship department. As a dud I just quit trying, and to say my relationships were surface relationships would be an understatement.  I wasn't all that concerned  about it. I had my husband. My best friend. Then, four years ago, we moved here to this tiny little town in the mountains. Around that time some weak points were showing up in my marriage. There were still good times, but there was a frightening emptiness stealthily creeping into our relationship.   We bought a house in a neighborhood full of 35 to 100 acre country homes. The houses here aren't close together, and most of us can't even see the homes of neighbors. There are dozens of these neighborhoods here in the valley; but when we chose this particular one, my life changed or was changed by a group of funny, irreverent,  sincere, passionate, women who  snatched me up by the nape of the neck like a new puppy and dragged me, if not kicking and screaming, then certainly shyly and anxiously dragging my feet into their warm circle. 

There were six of them, but there were three who stood out from the pack and amazingly, an intimate rapport developed between us. Now I know what it's all about:  the friendship of women.  Now I have girlfriends.  We laugh together, we shop together, and we make jewelery and knit things together.  We eat together, and we drink good wine together. We travel together. We talk on the phone. We run errands for each other. We give each other things, and we cook for one another. Sometimes we rant together. When one of us hurts or endures a heartache, all our hearts break.  When one of us scores a victory we all cheer to beat the band.  What a wonderful thing this is to have happened to me this late in life, well, it's not that late, but when I had no hope or expectations for such a thing.  How lucky am I?

 Sometimes my friend Linda calls and says  "Hey girlfriend, what are you doin?" and I have such a heady  feeling of belonging I just smile. 

Ms. Computer Geek and Other Accomplishments

Hello there.  Please notice this line is written in italics, bold italics, bold, underlined, italics!  WOO HOO!  Such a simple little thing really, but what a thrill.  I've been trying to figure out how to make this happen since Oregon.  Typepad is wonderful.  It is reportedly simple for the simplest minds, and I'm sure I'm going to love it.  But it isn't all that compatible with Safari and that is the server I have (had). Typepad recommends Foxfire for those on a MAC, and so I had to work all that out and finally today I had a $40 phone consultation with my "computer guy" in Sedona, and voila! Things are starting to look up. 

You might ask why I waited so long to call my "computer guy". I have never talked to him. My FH (former husband) always did that. So I had cold feet.  Anxiety about sounding stupid and feeling stupid, too. Fueling the anxiety was the fact that my  "computer guy" has a slight accent, German?, and I speak Southern, so I was worried he wouldn't understand me all that well.  Sometimes I talk too fast and people look at me with such a blank face I know they didn't understand a word I said. So, I promised myself to talk slowly, bit the bullet and called. Wow...he was a dear, and it didn't hurt a bit, and he was so patient and gentle I didn't feel stupid at all.

My email was malfunctioning too. Brave now, I spent 20 minutes on the phone with another patient, lovely man at Go Daddy, my domain host, and now my email is behaving just fine! I actually have a domain, but it doesn't do anything.  But if I ever do something, I have that nice domain to do it in.

In another realm, my "mower guy" started last night and today I was giddy with the smell of mown weeds.  This place is finally visible.  Funny how bringing order to my property is making me feel more in control in every other way.

In another burst of action, last night my friend Paula came over and we made bracelets. I finished a bracelet that's been languishing on my work table for months. I would put a photo of it on the blog, but it is night time and no natural light.  It seems difficult to me to get a pretty photo of beads in the best light. Someone at a bead show suggested using a light box.  I'll think about that later along with eight million other things.

So, I retire to my boudoir tonight a little more light hearted.  Not because I got so much done, it was just a drop in my big heavy bucket. But because I am beginning to believe that I can do anything, figure out anything, or find someone that can.

Sweet Dreams

Where I Live

View from Main Street

I live up here high in the Rocky Mountains in what feels like the middle of nowhere.  In Colorado, so many of the old ranches were broken up into 35 acre plots and I think there’s a law or something that says unless an area is zoned for less acreage, then 35 acres is the minimum size.  I love the 35 acre rule.  I’ve lived in the country a long, long, time; and when you’re in the middle of your 35 or 60 acre place and all the guys around you are in the middle of theirs, you get quite an exhilarating feeling of living in a big space.  To quote Bonnie Rait, I’m in “a small house under a big sky”. I love that line from one of her songs. Living under a Colorado mountain sky where star light is the only light, the milky way feels so close, so reachable I could just reach up and grab soft twinkling handfuls of it and drape it around my shoulders like a feather weight lace shawl.  Living up here is serene, quiet, awesomely beautiful, exciting, free feeling, adventuresome.  Like I said the other day, you can just walk out on your deck and scream bloody murder if you get the urge to.  And, you can do it in your underwear. You can verbally castrate some son of a bitch at the top of your lungs (guess who that might be); sing in your loudest, worst voice without a care in the world, or stand naked under a full moon soaking up moonbeams. I’ve done more than one of those activities! I am physically, emotionally and mentally bonded to the mountains, to the privacy, to the remoteness, to the beauty. 

But I have to move.  I have to.  I came out fine in the financial department, but the house is a hunk of my money.  I feel the need to downsize and invest the money I save by doing it.  That’s one reason.  I guess it’s a big reason, although right now just tell me of an investment any better than a good house.

 

Sunset from my deck

But that’s just one reason.  I’m thinking it might be good to live  in a town while I’m raising Katy, though her ties to the mountains are strong too.  To go to a good grocery store from here is a three hour round trip.  For me it’s a chore to drive that trip, do errands and get home before Katy steps off the school bus.  

I’m thinking that now, without a helpmate here at home, I will never have opportunities to leave for two or three days for an art class in Fort Collins or spend 12 hours traveling to and attending a bead show in Denver, long, chatty dinner with girlfriends included. If I just move to Fort Collins, my sister is there and she loves spending time with Katy.

I want Katy to get involved with one special thing after school or on weekends: swimming, theater, bowling, singing, or something. But it’s a 35 mile round trip to our little town to do that.  In the winter that drive is a little challenging for me.  

A town's better than this?

Those kinds of things make me think it is time for a change, though my heart isn’t so sure.  My friend Paula tells me I’m too young to stay up here in the wilderness.  That this is a really MARRIED town and I will have more opportunities in a larger town. (Opportunities for what?)  I don’t know.  Sometimes I think, “Well my god. Everything else in my life has changed. Does this have to change too?”

  

But I know it does.  And I’ll be ok with that too.

How Do I Put It?

I am a divorced woman now. I repeat that several times a day to myself in an attempt to convince myself that this is my new reality. So now I’m trying to figure out how I should answer when asked my marital status which is a question that actually comes up alarmingly often. I was thinking about this and trying my options out loud while I was driving the 17 miles to town today.

Will I say with a defiantly arched eyebrow or maybe a poker face, “single”. Hmmm. See, that sounds like a younger woman’s mantle to me. I know it can refer to never-marrieds or used-to-be-marrieds, but it feels like a never-married label to me. Do I say, “unmarried”? I don’t know. That one sounds like something an unmarried mother might say. A never-married one. I could say matter of factly, “divorced”, but that one reveals too much personal information I think, and at my age attracts too much sympathy. I might say “unattached” but that one might be viewed as an invitation. I sound like I’m kidding, but I’m not. Nothing sounds right after 40 years of marriage except.....“married”.

“Single?” Are you talking to me?

Yeah. Ok. I'll go with "single".

A "free" Woman

I really got my blog off to a roaring start. Writing three journal entries nearly a month ago and then nothing. I’m not sure why I did that because I pledged to myself that I would be a dedicated, frequent journaler. I suspect it had to do with my self sabotaging trait of not wanting to do something until I can do it perfectly and since I can never do it perfectly I don’t do it. But I do have a big handful of technical issues I must learn before I’ll have this blog looking like I want it. For example:

How to use italics in my writing (I’m on a MAC)
How to put a live link to another blog into the body of my copy
Design an appealing sidebar then figure out how to get it there
What to say about myself in the bio blurb in the sidebar
I want a photo or some interesting sketch attached to that bio
I have to learn to scan on the printer then send to the computer
Study my camera and improve my photo taking

And that is a partial list! To top it off my printer started printing in magenta only; my phone service is changing my voice mail system and I have to learn it; order wood; call a chimney sweep; put the tractor which I got in the divorce up for sale then try to answer multitudes of questions from farm guys; hire a road guy to plow my steep eroded lane; hire another guy to mow my pastures; finish my guest house; replace the railings on my two decks as they have split and are falling apart; pay bills; learn about how my money is invested; get the house ready to put on the market, get the car serviced; get Katy ready to go back to school; deal with that damn dumpster lid that must weigh fifty pounds every day etc. etc. etc.

I only mention all of that because it leads into my telling you what my least favorite part of being newly divorced is:

I HAVE TO DO EVERYTHING BY MYSELF
I DON’T WANT TO DO EVERYTHING BY MYSELF

My lord. Occasionally...only if Katy isn’t here...it makes me scream and curse in the loudest voice I can muster through the tears. Thats a perk of living in the country. You can scream.

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My divorce was final on July 31. I didn’t feel much emotion when I read the “decree of dissolution of marriage” on my email. It sadly said the marriage is “irretrievably broken”. My reaction surprised me. Kind of, “Oh. Ho Hum. Glad that’s over.” Didn’t shed a tear. I wasn’t gleeful. I wasn’t pathetic. I felt slightly delicate. Like a baby bird just emerging from the pile of broken shells and feeling the cool air on his thin skin for the first time. A little shiver. I did shop a little, but really, not that much. Then my sister and I went out for a drink, and frankly, even before the drink, I felt kind of light on my feet.
That’s good.