Ending your marriage means the end of “us,” “we,” and “our” and the start of “me,” “I,” and “mine:”
I’ve always had somebody taking care of me. I’ve always had somebody sort of following my every whim, everything I needed. All of a sudden it was just me and I had to be the person who did that. It was very challenging and emotionally trying. ~ Student Mama
StudentMama was in her mid-twenties when she and I talked. She’d been separated for about six months from her husband of five and a half years and together they had a five-year-old daughter. Learning to live on your own is not just about not having that emotional connection to someone special. It’s also about figuring out all the logistics of daily living. It means taking up the slack because there is no one else.
I’ve been living on my own now for six years but I remember clearly how the home maintenance felt like an almost daily obstacle course in the first year. That’s my Achilles heal. Most of the time I don’t think about being single but the home maintenance is what I find the hardest and when the unexpected happens it makes me FEEL very alone. Still. Perhaps it always will.