Dating Online In Your (late) 40s; Life In The Discomfort Zone

If you ever want to test your self-confidence, try dating in your late 40s.

The last time I dated was 23 years ago. I was coming off an ill-fated two year marriage to my college sweetheart, all of 23 years old and on the prowl. The dating world was a tad different back then. 

In 1993 we dated the old fashioned way: I would take my nimble, dewy complected self to a bar with a gaggle of my friends, and we'd drink and flirt with guys.  Maybe we'd get a phone number, which we would write on a napkin and stuff in our purse, because cell phones were big clunky things that a few rich people and business executives had installed in their cars. 

Then we'd go home and angst over whether to call him, or wait for him to call. If we were feeling particularly obsessed we'd come home from work and dial *69 to see if we missed his call .  Or we'd call him to see if he was home and hang up, because caller ID had yet enter the scene and foil the plans of stalkers everywhere.

And if he didn't call? Oh, well. We had decades of youth stretching out before us; there was plenty of time and oh-so-many fish in the sea.  We'd simply slip into a little black dress or a cute pair of jeans that hugged our curves in all the right places, take our hopeful visages, toned legs and perky breasts out to the bar and wait for the boys to flock like bees to honey.

For some of us - like me - the mission was to find The Guy. I wasn't a serial dater; I've always been a monogamous type. I sought stability, predictability and loyalty. I was looking for a good future husband and father. Of course he'd have to be hot, though. And tall. And funny. And smart. 

I could afford to be picky, because I was all those things: funny, smart, tall and - although I sure didn't think it at the time - I was hot. 

And, lucky me, I met him by age 24. He hit every single "must-have" on my list. Sure, he was a tad commitment phobic, but I could work with that. I had all the time in the world, remember? And I was patient. I could wait forever for The Guy.  Forever turned out to be seven years, before he looked at me with fear and excitement in his eyes and said, "You're gonna marry me, right?"  The rest, as they say, is history. 

Or so I thought, as I skipped merrily into middle age thinking my dating days were behind me forever.  

Crash landing in the dating world in 2015 felt like time travel, but where the protagonist doesn't simply plunk into the future an adorably befuddled but still-youthful version of herself.  Instead, she wears every inch of the 22 intervening years.

So how does a 46 year single working mother date?  A sober one, at that? Long gone are the bar days. And even if I did go to bars, far in the rear view mirror are the times when all that was required to garner male attention was to walk into the room. 

Dating, nowadays, is (mostly) online. I don't think anyone has scribbled a phone number on a napkin since 2002. 

If you find yourself freshly divorced in your 40s, startled and blinking in the harsh light, I have compiled a timeline for you, so you know what to expect. 

You're welcome.

The first step is to join every single dating site you can find, because you know nothing about anything and casting the widest net possible seems like a good idea (you will live to regret this decision).

Then you create your online profile. You search for pictures that make you look good, but not *too* good because you don't want him to be unpleasantly surprised if you meet in person.  You find that full-body shot that still looks like you, but maybe with an arm or a kid or a chair placed strategically in front of your less desirable parts.

Then comes the dreaded self-description. You answer the basics: height/eye color/lifestyle choices/employment.  Then this: what is your body type?  Are you (a) slim (b) toned (c) athletic (d) average (e) a few extra pounds (f) Overweight?  Was is "average" anyway?  Unless you are decidedly in the first three, everyone picks (d).

Even worse than the photo selections is the dreaded self-summary.  Can you imagine if in order to grab someone's attention in a bar you started with this buzz-kill opener:  "Describe yourself in 1000 characters or less!  Make sure to include who you are and everything you've ever wanted!" 

If you survive the first two with your sanity intact, you get to describe what you're looking for in a mate. This will be a tad depressing, because long gone are the days when you could prattle off this list fully expecting to check every box.  You'll manage to craft an eloquent description nonetheless, but what you're really saying, you'll come to discover, is this:  "Not still married. Not looking for just a hook-up. Not living with his mother. Hair a plus".

You upload all of this information onto about six dating apps, and then obsessively check all of them all the time.  You swipe and click and wink and message your way to a first date. 

The first time you dress for a date you will agonize, try on everything you own, fling yourself on your bed, curse your middle aged body and wonder when it was that your boobs fell about six inches.  It will dawn on you, with horror, that if the relationship progresses someone will see your c-section scar which has evolved into a kind of reverse tummy-tuck (producing a jiggly pocket of skin you can't lose no matter how many sit-ups you do), your love handles and that mole you never had removed (because only your husband saw it, so who cares?). This thought will make you want to die, but you'll persevere. 

You won't want to look too nice (desperate) or too casual (slovenly).  It will take hours to find that outfit that says: "I tried but not too much".  You will then proceed to wear this outfit on every first date. You will wear this outfit a lot, because you will mostly go on first dates. 

You will quickly realize that everyone isn't who they appear to be online. There will be the date where the moderately handsome man, according to his profile pic, turns out to be at least forty pounds overweight and missing a couple of teeth. Oh, and an eye.  There will be the date that starts as a casual stroll in the woods and turns into a hike worthy of its own mini-series, and you are wearing sandals and striving valiantly to appear you aren't slowly dying (after all, you said you like exercise in your profile).  

You will learn most guys say they are looking for a relationship, but what they really want is to hook up.  You won't be able to decide if this horrifies or flatters you.

The first few times you meet someone in person you'll be nervous and coquettish. This will not last. You won't become jaded, exactly, but you will discover you know in about thirty seconds if you're even remotely interested, and become skilled in disengaging quickly (your go-to will become the fake text from home).  

It will take a while, but the day will come when you are totally interested after that first sniff-test coffee date and he isn't. 

Here you will realize how much stalking has progressed since 1993.  You will be able to see when he is on the dating site, presumably chatting with young, supple women who don't have stretch marks. You'll debate how often to check his profile, because of course he can see when you do that. All your messages back and forth are still there, frozen in virtual eternity, mocking you.  You may even find his Facebook page and die a thousand deaths when you see him with his arm around a gorgeous young blond. 

You won't be able to decide if you really like him or if you're just obsessing because he didn't like you.  

This may even happen to you a few times, and you will spend a few dark nights of the soul thinking you will be alone forever, that you're uninteresting and unattractive. You'll curse your ex, who enjoyed the last years of your youthful self and left you with this unrecognizable old-person's body. 

You will delete your online accounts in a snit-fit and curl up with Netflix and ice cream for a while, but eventually you will go back. Perhaps more selectively this time, on the more reputable sites.  You will become more adept at screening out the undesirables. You will no longer answer every message you get because you feel badly if you don't. You won't feel as guilty if you meet someone in person and there is no click.  Instead of lying your way out of it, you'll learn how to disengage with honesty and compassion.

And one day you'll wake up and realize you aren't obsessively checking the sites anymore, and that you are okay whether or not someone likes you back. You will have reached way out of your comfort zone - several times - and emerged okay.  You'll have ample opportunities to work on your boundaries, and will eventually learn not to go on a second date because you feel badly letting someone down.  

You won't spend every minute of every date wondering if he likes you.  Instead, you'll be thinking about whether you like him. 

You will come to embrace your beautiful, battered body, and you won't care as much about your perceived flaws.  You'll realize you're still pretty hot in your own unique way.

When someone doesn't like you for exactly who you are, it will no longer obliterate your self-confidence. You will learn to accept that you don't need to be all things to all people.

Most importantly, perhaps, you will come to know that you don't need everyone to like you. You will believe, for the first time in your adult life, that you don't need to be anyone's other half to be okay. 

This whole excruciating process? It will lead you back to you.

Underbelly

I have a scar on my belly.

It is from the feeding tube I had, at the worst of the cancer treatments, when my throat was so ravaged by radiation even swallowing water was painful.

It's a small, round hole, about four inches above my belly button. It looks like a bullet wound.

Three years ago this hole was punched into my stomach.  It was made to sustain me, to give me life-giving nutrients. Without it the treatment would have been too much for my body to bear.  I hated it then, and I have avoided looking at it ever since.

It's on my soft white underbelly, and it makes me feel exposed, fragile and barely tethered to the world.

So, I ignored it. I filed it away in the mental morass where all the messages my body sends me go, into a dusty, overlooked and overstuffed file cabinet full of uncomfortable truths and feelings.

I prefer to live from the neck up.  I squeeze all experiences through the filter of thought. Emotions - especially the uncomfortable ones - are carefully strained, compared, analyzed and then meticulously explained.

I like my mind. I'm comfortable there. It makes me feel in control.

There are sound reasons to ignore my body. It makes me uncomfortable, what with all its imperfections, cumbersome functions and tendency to betray my carefully constructed illusion of control.

It screams at me to pay attention, particularly my gut. That's where I carry all the really uncomfortable shit: fear, conflict, anxiety, grief and sadness.  My insides curl into a tight, painful ball whenever I experience anything unwanted or uncomfortable, and my brain swoops in and madly begins explaining away.

Turning my focus from the ticker-tape of my mind to my body makes me squirm.

Another uncomfortable truth: the things that make me squirm are the most deserving of attention. My poor, overlooked, ignored body has carried my hardest truths, and it is the gatekeeper to my most vulnerable, authentic self.

And so, with as much compassion as I can muster, I practice turning my attention to the sacred messages it contains.

We are hardwired to protect our soft white underbelly. Exposing it triggers an ancient danger message, which in turn triggers the freeze, fight or flight response.

We aren't running from saber-toothed tigers or woolly mammoths anymore, but our brain doesn't know that, nor does it particularly care.  It responds to any perceived threat like it always has: avoid at all costs.

Addiction, and all forms of escape, are coded into that avoidance message.  There are so many ways to avoid: workaholism, perfectionism, the internet and the numbing effects of alcohol or drugs are but a few of the most beloved ways to hide.

In recovery I can't afford to ignore the woolly mammoths that come lumbering out of the morass. And so, I turn towards instead of away.

In the past, I have turned towards pain with my mind, but not with my body. Facing pain feels a lot safer as a mental exercise.  When I feel the vibrations of hoof beats thundering down the path, the last thing I want to do is unfurl, lie down and feel them come.  I would much, much rather just think about it.

My cancer lived in my body, and the deep fear this experience instilled in me lives there, too. I have written and talked about my cancer experience, but I haven't felt it.  My relapse taught me that what I avoid will, eventually, bring me down.

And so, I place my hand over the scar on my belly. I feel the softness, the vulnerability it contains. I listen to its message.

I feel the truths wash over me: you are deeply, primordially scared, Ellie. You are traumatized by your cancer experience; it plunked your mortality right into your lap, and this made returning to the land of the quotidian very, very hard.  You relapsed over it. You turned and you ran, as hard and as fast as you could.  

And then, this:   You are flawed and imperfect and wondrously alive. This tissue thin skin reminds you of the tenuousness of life, which is a truth whether you had cancer or not. 

I feel a loosening deep inside, a forgiveness, a compassion. I honor what the scar represents, which is another chance, a second umbilical cord that tethers me back to life, instead of away from it.

With one hand over my scar, and one hand on my heart, I feel my strong, steady heartbeat and I let the fear come.  I slip out of the world of the mind, and into my body. Cancer made me feel my body had betrayed me, when in fact the opposite is true. My mind is the only organ capable of betrayal.

That scar? It's not a wound. It's a doorway.

Fail Better - On Divorce and Creating My Own Orbit

Divorce is hard, in ways that I expected and in ways I didn't.  We filed the paperwork, going to the courthouse together, bumping mostly silently along in the car, a long stretch of already-spoken words trailing behind us. I kept waiting for the wham-o of emotions to hit; everything was signed and we were officially putting an end to this twenty two year relationship.

What I mostly felt was numb. There is nothing more to say, and the whole thing was anti-climatic. We didn't even have all the right forms, but we both didn't need to back the next day to drop them off, so he went back alone.

Now we wait for the court date, for the legal end of what has already ended.

I have (mostly) stopped staring at everyone's ring finger. I don't know what I was looking for, really. I still feel a surge of kinship when I see a Mom with no ring on, out and about with her kids and looking happy and whole, but I have stopped searching the faces of the married couples I see and wondering if they are really as happy as they seem.  I no longer look at them and feel that disquieting combination of longing and emptiness.

The tsunamis of rage have subsided. I was so angry, at myself, at the Universe, at him, at his new woman.  She used to be my good friend, this new love of his. They began before he and I had ended. That betrayal blasted a hole through my world, left me shattered and with a shuddering rage that festered and bloomed like an infection in my soul. I don't write about it here, because what could I possibly say?  He has a life to lead, as does she, and it isn't my place to broadcast their business for everyone to see.

That infection has mostly healed, leaving a dull ache. Happy marriages don't fall apart in one explosive event, so I don't blame our demise on her, but it has taken months of licking my wounds, exploring my part in everything and begging the Universe, over and over, for surrender and acceptance to get to this place where I am now.

And where is that, exactly, I ask myself.

The answer surprises me, sometimes, because it's so simple: I'm right here. I am fully present in my skin, in my heart and mind. I didn't realize just how much of myself I had given away until I was forced to find me again.

I have learned that I am good on my own. It wasn't this way at first. A marriage develops grooves, patterns, and those take a long time to smooth out. Five o'clock would roll around and my mind would click into wife mode:  what's for dinner, is the house tidy enough, what do I need to do to make sure he is pleased when he gets home.  

For weeks I heard his voice in my head, both the one that would criticize me for the things I didn't do well enough in his opinion, and the things he would praise me for.  Marriage is a constant stream of compromises, little coming-togethers and moving-aparts. And at the end of each day there was always that marital download; the one that takes place snuggled into bed each night, where we shared our we-are-in-this-together moments.

Without the push-pull of marriage, when it's just me and the kids, I didn't have anyone else's gravitational pull to anchor me.

I had to create my own orbit.

From the perch of hindsight, I can see how I have grown, the ways in which I surprised myself with my resilience, my ability to feel all the hard feelings and come out out stronger, but OH it didn't feel like progress. It felt like a tearing-down from the inside out, because that's what it was.

I started by forgiving myself, bit by bit. I treated myself gently, and slowly changed my inner dialogue from words of worthlessness and shame to those of love and compassion.  I waded through feelings of abandonment and rejection by holding tight to myself and the love of my kids. I leaned - hard - on the people in my life who love me just as I am.

There are recovery slogans I have heard over and over that didn't mean much to me before, but that are mantras to me now. One of them is this:  pain is the touchstone of all spiritual growth.  I have grown and stretched uncomfortably in so many ways, but I am finally in a place where I can say all that discomfort was so, so worth it. Like sore muscles the day after a hard work out, I limped along at first, but with a smile growing slowly wider on my face, because I knew that ache meant I was growing stronger.

My other mantra comes from the Buddhist monk Pema Chodron (she has a book coming out shortly with this as the title):  fail, fail again, fail better.  My life doesn't look anything like I imagined it would, but I have learned that the disconnect there isn't in life itself, but in the imagining, in the expectations of how things are supposed to be. I no longer believe in supposed-to.

I have long said we are not defined by our mistakes, but rather what we make of them. I amend that, now, because I am defined by my mistakes. I used to try to run from them, from the uncomfortable feelings, the anger and shame they evoked in me. I embrace them, now, because without them I could never have been forced to do the hard work it takes to find acceptance and peace of mind.

I look down the road at new milestones, now. It puts to test all this work I've done of self-acceptance. I am going on job interviews, and even on a date here and there.  One interviewer said, "So, if I Google you, what am I going to find?"

I felt a pinch of fear, a panicky feeling that maybe I should just take it all down - the blog, the recovery stuff, all of it.

Then I chuckled, out loud, and said, "well, you'll find me, I guess."

Forty-Six

Why hello there, 46, you sly fox.

I don't know how you managed to surprise me.  It's not like I don't know you're coming.

I think maybe you hid out behind some of your younger siblings, like 28 or 32, and then pounced on me when I wasn't looking.

Speaking of siblings, some of them have been paying me visits. They like to come late at night, as I'm trying to fall asleep.  40 was particularly annoying last night. She wouldn't stop reminding me about the surprise trip to Bermuda I got from the husband I no longer have. 40 wasn't around for the rest of the story, so all she could do was remind me that back then I thought I would be married forever.

I remember being excited for the arrival of 44, because four is my favorite number and I thought this is going to be a great year.  It turned out to be especially sucky.  Back then I didn't know how dangerous expectations truly are, and I spent too much time waiting for life to get better instead of realizing that life was right in front of me, wanting to be appreciated.

50 made a cameo appearance last night, too. She whispered to me that she is right around the corner, that she will be here before I know it.  She kept saying that she is undesirable and decrepit and that I better get moving on finding someone to love me while I still have a chance. She must have been hanging out with 40, what with them both being milestones, and all.

I've been thinking about 16 a lot, too. Perhaps because I am about to get my license reinstated and I have to take the permit test, first. 16 pops up when I'm at the DMV for hours, waiting to talk to a bored employee who holds my fate in their hands, and gazing at the young hopeful drivers. I feel every inch of you, 46, when I'm surrounded by the ghosts of my youth.  It's those damn expectations again. I sit in those hard DMV chairs, surrounded by bright-eyed, tight-skinned teenagers waiting to get their first license, and 16 dances in front of my eyes and cackles, bet you never thought you'd be here at your age.

So, 46, I want to get a few things straight, while you're new here and all eager. Let's set some ground rules.

Feel free to chat with your siblings - both younger and older - but leave me out of it. Please do not disturb my slumber regaling me with memories of how awesome everything used to be, and how perilous the future looks.

I'm middle aged now, 46, and I'm getting wise to your game.  I've earned you, and I intend to wear your battle stripes proudly. Sure, 24 is free from stretch marks and wrinkles and her back doesn't scream at her when she sits too long. When she walks into a room the men turn and stare. That defined her, made her feel loved and worthy, and I'm going to let her have that, and love her for it. She was doing the best she could.

Your younger siblings all had a job to do, 46, and they did it well. They made us who we are today.

46, you will be tempted to tell me who I am not. You will hold me up against the dreams of the past; you will want to tell me what I used to be, and I used to be a lot of things. I used to be a size 8. I used to be someone's wife. I used to believe my parents would live forever. I used to believe in the tooth fairy.

You will think you know who I will become. You hang out with 49, 53 and 67 and you think you know, but you don't. I don't know if it's in your job description or something, but you and your siblings seem to think the past is all shiny and the future is bleak. But, 46, you are exactly who you are supposed to be. Resist the urge to gaze longingly at your younger siblings and wish you were them. They are inside you, 46. You don't need to compare yourself to them, because they are you.

Maybe you can be the first of your siblings to resist the siren call of the past and the tolling bells of the future. Because, 46, you are only going to be here for one year.

You may as well appreciate yourself while you are here. You are so many things, 46. You are funny and compassionate. You can make your kids laugh at the drop of a hat. You are surrounded by friends and family who love you exactly as you are. You wear the scars of your losses proudly, because they remind you that while you stumbled, you did not fall.

You will always look at your reflection in the mirror with a combination of surprise and awe. Surprise at the lines on your face, and awe that you still look damn good.  You know how to love yourself, 46. It took 45 years of hard won lessons to get here, so be proud of yourself.

Do you hear that, 46?  The sound of your kids laughing downstairs? Can you smell the bacon cooking?

That's a good place to start.

Pulling The Plug

Marriages don't just die.

They aren't here one second, and then gone the next, like when someone drops dead of a heart attack, or a plane crash.

It feels like a death, though.  All around me are the shattered remnants of the life I thought I would have.  I'm aching for an answer - like a doctor doing a post-mortem.  I want a body - a victim - to pull apart until I figure out the exact cause of all this pain.

But the source of the pain isn't dead.  It lives on, everywhere.  It shines out from the faces of my children, the little upwards smirk in Finn's smile that he got from my husband.  It grins out at me from photographs.  It slithers into bed next to me every night as I stare at the cold, empty space where the man I thought I would love forever used to lie.

The end of a marriage is like standing at the bedside of someone on life support.  They are there, but they aren't.  You don't want to let them go, but you ache for it to just be over, already.

And then there is the anger.  At him, at myself, at life.  As I madly search for answers, all I come up with are more questions.  A lot of them start with:  what if?

What if I weren't an alcoholic?  What if I had worked full time instead of raising kids?  What if we had gone to more counseling?  What if he hadn't met her?

It's a pointless question, what if. Because the death of my marriage resulted in thousands of tiny events, minuscule decisions I had no way of knowing were nudging me down this path.

What if I had paid more attention? What if I had been a better housekeeper?  Thinner?  Prettier?  Better with money?  More organized? Less preoccupied with the causes I'm so passionate about?

In other words, what if I had been, well, less ME?

That's the heart of it; the thing that is so hard to look at, but that lies at the root of everything.  In a marriage someone has to love you for who you are, not who they thought you would become, or the ways they thought they could change you.  In the end, he didn't love my Ellie-ness enough.

I look at myself in the mirror and listen to those voices having a tug-of-war in my head:  you're not good enough, you're better than this, you didn't do enough, there is nothing more you could do, you are a bad person, you are a good person.  You aren't lovable, yes you are.

I slip on the white gloves, don a mask and apron and root around in the dead body of our marriage.

I play this game with myself.  This "I should have left him when...." game.  I think: it should have been when he started criticizing my housekeeping.  He's neat, I'm not.  Or when he would call me a teenager, tell me I can't handle money like a responsible adult.  Or when he said I was fat, when I was newly sober and had had two of his babies. When I got hurt and angry he told me he was just telling me what everyone was thinking, it's just that he had the guts to say it.  After that fight, I packed a bag.  I even drove down the road, before of course I turned the car around and came back, remorseful that I wasn't skinny enough for him.

So I lost weight.  I cleaned more. I tried to be better with money.  I scrambled to be the person he wanted, and of course in the long run it didn't work.

It would feel really good to paint him as the bad guy. As someone who was too demanding, too unreasonable, too much of a perfectionist.

But, of course, he has is own version of this game.  He could play the "I should have left her when...." game all day with me, and when the sun went down there would be no winner.

So I'm left with me, in the mirror.  I stand with my regret, anger and hurt, and I stare at my own eyes, looking for answers that don't exist.

If I am to survive this with my sanity intact, I have to love my own Ellie-ness.  For so many years, I identified myself as the other half of him.  For twenty four years, in fact. Half my life.  The body on life support isn't really our marriage, it's the version of me that was tied to him.

It's time to pull the plug.  If I don't, I will go crazy.   I will lose myself in the what-if versions of who I was, not who I am becoming.

I don't want to bring a broken person to the next phase of my life. So instead of doing a post mortem on the marriage, I'm doing one on myself.  I have spent the past year getting in touch with my Ellie-ness. This is a first for me.  I have always been someone's other half.

One of the realizations I have had is that it is exhausting to believe that I am omnipotent.  Not in an arrogant way - like I have all the answers if only you would listen to me - but in a self-involved way.  Spending so much time thinking I am somehow flawed, or wrong, is as ego-driven as thinking that I am somehow better than anyone else.  I don't get to be best, but I don't get to be worst, either.

I am embracing my humanity, that sometimes things do not go they way I expect, but that I am not the sole cause all my own heartache anymore than I am the sole cause my own joy.

There are things that just aren't fair.  Or right. Or just.  I have been wronged, and betrayed, and my path has veered sharply in a direction I didn't choose.

But, so what, really?  Who am I to say it's the wrong direction?  If I ask that body on the table, the one who didn't know who she was without seeking someone else's approval, she would tell me I am not going to be okay on my own.  All the voices in her head, the ones that belonged to people who didn't love her Ellie-ness enough - they killed her.

So I am not going to listen to what she would tell me.

I pulled the plug on her. She did the best she could, but it's time to move on.

Why Hello There, Me

I have been separated for six months now.

I was married for fifteen years, and we were together for twenty three.  I can't remember much about my life before him, as a single person.

Perhaps that is because I can't remember a time I have ever truly been single.

In high school, I dated the same guy for five years (one year into college).  We were voted 'class couple'.

I dated consistently in college, and married the guy I was dating my junior and senior year three months after graduation. It wasn't a good marriage, and we were divorced after only a couple of years.  I was already good friends with my next husband-to-be, and we starting dating very shortly after my divorce was final.

I have always had a roommate, even when I wasn't seriously dating anyone.

I have never really been alone.

I'm good at being someone's other half.  I spent most of my life focused outward; trying desperately to make the people who I love, love me back.  It didn't matter how many times they told me they love me, I always felt I had to be doing more, becoming more, to ensure they stuck around.  It's both rewarding and exhausting, living like that.  I would mold to fit the interests of whomever I was with; if he liked mountain biking, so did I.  If he liked classical music, I listened to classical music.  If he liked a neat home, I tried my best to keep it clean.  You get the picture.

When I got sober the first time, in 2007, I remember thinking that first year that I was very grateful to be married, because I was terrified of being alone and knew he was an added layer of security to help me stay sober.  I knew he would leave if I relapsed, and being alone was the only thing more frightening than being newly sober.

My husband and I made it through very, very tough times.  Relapse. Death (my father's).  Cancer.  Another relapse.  I thought we were bulletproof, even though niggling doubts, deep below the surface, were whispering to me that I had lost myself somewhere along the way.

I ignored those whispers, because although maybe I wasn't as happy as I could be, I was way too afraid of the unknown.  Better to be with him and try harder to make it work than to face the world on my own.

And then, a year ago, what became the final straw: another relapse.  A long stay in treatment.  And he asked me for a divorce.

That was last summer, two weeks before I was discharged.  I remember thinking that we'd come around, we'd make it work.  After all, we always had before.  I had been with him more than half my life. I expected to be with him until one of us died. I wanted it to be me who died first, so I wouldn't have to live without him.

Of course that is not how things turned out.  He was done.  He saw our relationship for what it was: two people who were having to work way too hard to be happy together.  I was blasted out of denial, and into reality:  the two of us were over.

Despite all the difficulties of the past few years, the prospect of being without him was the most frightening.  Last time I was in early sobriety, I had his eyes on me at all times, and the threat of his leaving me to keep me on track.  I had his steady presence in my life; a shoulder to cry on, another set of hands and sharp mind to help me navigate the daily waters of parenthood.  A lover and a friend, right there next to me when I needed him.

Gone.

The first couple of months were a blur.  It was surreal, and scary, and I spent a lot of time bargaining with the universe.  The universe listened patiently, sighed, and then went on its merry way, as the universe is prone to do.

Sometime around Christmas, acceptance started to creep in.  Up until then, I would have taken him back in a heartbeat if he had asked, even if I knew it wasn't the right thing to do.  I hated being alone.

I realized, finally, that I was not only okay on my own, I was thriving.   I wouldn't say I was happy - even now happy may be a stretch - but damn if I didn't have more peace of mind.

I was learning to love myself, love my life, just as it is.

God, The Universe, A Higher Power (whatever you want to call it) was doing for me what I couldn't do for myself: clearing my path to make room for an authentic, brutally honest fresh start.

I lost my license a year ago this week.  I haven't sat behind the wheel of a car in over 365 days, and it will be at least July before I get it back.  At the time, the prospect of being without a license was unimaginable, just like being without a husband was unthinkable, too.

Here is what I have learned:  not being able to drive is one of the best lessons I have ever learned.  I have to ask for help.  I have to be super organized, and rely on good friends to get me and my kids where we need to go.  I can't run around like a nut just to avoid being in my own skin.  I have to just, well, BE.

There are moments I ache for grown-up attention.  I crawl under my cold covers at the end of a long day, and there is nobody there to download with me, to affirm my decisions or offer advice.  It is very lonely at times.

But here's the rub: for the first time in my life, I have ME.  I am able to be within my own skin, and be comfortable.  I pray, I meditate.  I sit with myself and feel all the feelings.

And I am far from alone.  I have an amazing support network.  I have people in my life who help me when I'm having a hard time helping myself.  And I ASK for help.  This is new.  I was always an "I'm Fine" girl; I'd rather help you with your stuff than look at mine.

The Universe has shown me that I not only can't do it alone; I don't want to.

I have always had a man in my life to define my self-worth.  That was comfortable for me, and easy.   If our relationship was okay, I was okay.  If he was happy with me, I was happy with me.

I am free from that, now.  It's scary, to be sure, but it is also exciting.

And there is a big difference between being alone, and being lonely.  Lonely for me, I have found, is a choice.  I can now be by myself and be totally content.

And it turns out I hate mountain biking.  I am not a fan of classical music.  My house is in some form of constant disarray, but that doesn't make me a morally corrupt person; it makes me a busy mom of two.

I value my time alone.  I crave it now.  Getting to know me has been a terrifying and wondrous experience, but it turns out I like me.

And importantly - maybe most importantly - I am staying sober not out of the threat of being left alone, but because I am enough of a reason for me to stay sober. Of course I want to be sober for the kids' sake, but I have learned the hard way that recovery is an inside job, and no amount of love from others can keep me sober long term.

I have to be enough of a reason, to myself, to stay sober.

And, finally, I am.

For Rebekah

It's your smile I think about most.  And that giggle.

I have never met anyone who loved to laugh more than you.  It was infectious.  No matter what my mood, you could pull a reluctant smile from my face, and I soon found my self erupting in laughter.

I want to say thank you.  Thank you for the cozy, late-night chats, the two of us snuggled in our beds. The darkened room and hushed corridors brought something out of us; a pure honesty, shared unvarnished truths.

We'd laugh, you and me, about our twenty-three year age difference.  How could someone so young be so wise, I'd ask.  You would pull a face, stick out your tongue.  See?  You'd say.  I'm just a kid.

But you weren't just a kid.  You were a soul sister, one who had been through so much and still with that smile.  OH, that smile.

Remember the two of us, duffel bags perched on our laps, heading to the next chapter of our journey with wide eyes?  Wondering what would happen next?  You grabbed my hand, as I recall, and said I'm glad I'm going with you. 

One time, as I schlepped up all those stairs to our room, I heard beautiful music playing.  I paused outside our door, listening.  I thought you had speakers for your iPod, and was going to chide you for keeping them secret.  But no, I saw as I opened the door, it was you playing your guitar and singing. Ethereal and melodious, your talent came from someplace deep inside you, someplace God-given. You sat up, startled, when I opened the door, and blushed.  I'm no good, you said and abruptly threw your guitar to the side, nobody is supposed to hear me. 

I stood speechless for a moment, awestruck.  That was beautiful, I said.  Please don't stop.  True to form, you picked up your guitar and belted out some crazy made-up tune, twangy and funny, and I jiggled around the room in my own middle-aged funky way.

Every morning you got up early.  Every morning.  You weren't going to miss that morning meeting for anything. While I mumbled and grumbled from the comfort of my blankets, arguing in favor of an evening meeting, you be-bopped around, humming.  Get up, girl, you'd say.  I got us a ride. 

You made fun of how all my shirts had stripes.  Is that some middle-aged Mom thing? Or just an Ellie thing? you'd grin.

Interesting coming from you of the eleventy-seven-hundred LOVE PINK sweatshirts, I'd grin right back.

Of all the girls in the house, you worked hardest at getting to meetings, chasing your recovery.  The minute you were eligible to get rides from other women in the program, you hit that pay phone and called and called and called until you got to a meeting.  You wanted this, badly.

Keeping a clean room, however, not so much.  You bounced into the kitchen one morning chirping about how you made your bed, how proud I should be.  Later that day, I smiled to myself when I saw the comforter pulled up over a pile of clothes, lumped up like a tiger sleeping under the covers.

I could make you bust out laughing by trying to be all hip (nobody says hip anymore, Ellie, you'd say).  I'd tell you I was feeling some kind of way, and you'd clutch your stomach laughing.  Sorry, you'd say, it just doesn't work coming from you.  I had to ask you want a 'snipe' was, which you found endlessly funny.  For those of you wondering, it's also called a 'put-out'.  Yeah, I had to ask, too.

A favorite memory is the day we were told to put on a skit about the counselors.  You picked one of the more colorful counselors, and groaned.  I can't act, you mumbled.  I'm not funny.  But then, your big entrance came, and you clacked in on borrowed  high heels, reading glasses (mine, of course) perched halfway down your nose and gave everyone a stern look before breaking into a dance and belting out "Because I'm happppyyyyy!" - a dead-on imitation.  I glanced over to the counselor you were portraying and she was wiping tears from her eyes she was laughing so hard.

And a proud moment:  when we put on a recovery version of the Wizard of Oz, and you bravely played your guitar and sang to the acoustic version of "Somewhere Over The Rainbow", facing one of your biggest fears:  putting your talent out there for all to see.  You were, of course, amazing.

You made friends everywhere you went. People were drawn to you, to your light.  Always quick with a hug and a smile, you had an eye for someone in pain.   You made people feel special - you made me feel special, the way you'd light up when you saw me.

Even after we were no longer roommates, you encouraged and inspired me.  We'd text inside jokes, check in on each other.  Your bubbly sweetness flowed through your words:

But nothing - NOTHING - compares to the way you loved your child.  Little Madisyn.  The way she would squirm and wiggle and dance when she saw you, then collapse into your arms and stay there for hours, perched on your lap like a queen ruling her subjects.  And just like her Mom, she would giggle and giggle and giggle, for hours.  Her little face so like your own, big eyes staring up at you with unadorned love.

My sweet friend, you left a gaping hole, a dark space devoid of light, when you left.  You are one of the great ones, those rare people I meet who slip into my life like a pair of comfortable slippers.  I owe you a huge debt, sweet girl, for being there for me during such difficult times, for buoying me up when I was sinking, for making me laugh in spite of - and at - myself when I needed it most.

Mere words fall short of how much I love you.  And I always will.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My incredible friend Rebekah died on January 26th of an overdose.  I won't tell her story; it's not mine to tell.  But I know she would want me to say this, because she said it to me over and over:  if you are struggling, please reach out for help.   She posted just those words on her Facebook page only three weeks ago.

It's hard not to stamp our feet and ask why. I get it, because I live in this world.  Addiction is a confounding, baffling and insidious disease.  It doesn't hold back, doesn't discriminate, and it pounces the minute we are weak and alone.  I don't waste time wondering what happened, or why.  I know there isn't any reasoning that will help, or explain.

We have an epidemic in our country.  In my little part of the world - South Shore, Massachusetts - a person dies everyday from an overdose, and countless more are hospitalized, paralyzed, slip into comas.  The more affluent areas are hit the hardest; it starts with pills stolen from medicine cabinets, usually, and it's so addictive it leads people straight to heroin.  And it can be found everywhere.

No child is exempt from its reach: no amount of love, or money, or strict rules can spare a kid from its grip.

What we need is education; parents need to get educated on what is really happening in our middle schools and high schools.  It's so easy to think:  not my kid.  But by the age of 14 or 15 every kid will know someone who has tried opiates or heroin.  They will know where to get it.  They think they are immune from danger, as all teenagers do, and they are vulnerable.

Rebekah's love and light will live on in me and everyone she knew forever.  Her death is so tragic, and it saddens me beyond words, but it fuels my determination to keep on mission, get the word out there that addiction is all around us, and despite all the tragic tales there is so much hope.  But we can't fight something we can't face.

Talk to your kids.  If a friend seems off, ask if they are ok.  If you think someone is struggling with drinking or drugs, they probably are.  Reach out a hand.  If you are struggling yourself, know you aren't alone.

Asking for help isn't weak; it's the strongest thing anyone can do.