Drop In A Bucket List

The Hapless Adventure Guide Of A Divorced Woman “What do you want?”  It’s a simple question.  Post filing for divorce, a man in a bar asked me that question.  I took a deep breath and exhaled to answer, but nothing came out of my mouth but air.  The sound of silence was deafening. It had been so long since anyone had asked me that question.  I couldn’t even begin to answer.  I stared at him dumbfounded, mouth gaping like a fish out of water.  Floundering divorcee was not the impression I wanted to give people.  “You don’t even know who you are anymore.  Do you?” he said.  Thanks for stating the obvious pal.  Maybe you’d like some salt to rub in the wound you just opened.  He was in the process of a divorce too.  So why did he seem to have the answers I lacked? Anxiety and fear ripped through my body.  He was right.  I really had no clue who I was or what I wanted.  Oh sure, I had a few things figured out, but overall, I was a mess.  I was thirty-one years old.  I have a college degree, and I’ve been successful at every job I’ve ever worked.  How could I not know what I wanted?  How had I gotten here?  Why was a stranger the only person in my life asking me that question?  I was fired from my marriage, I hadn’t worked in five years, and now I’m just expected to figure it all out, and I better do it quick because time’s a wastin’.  No pressure, it’s just the rest of your life.  Oh, by the way, I’m Sam, and I’m living smack dab in the middle of a hurricane otherwise known as divorce.  The sad thing about my situation is how many people can relate to it. Far and away that was the toughest moment of going through divorce for me.  That was the moment I realized I had given up.  I wasn’t living my life.  I was complacent as a mom and housewife, reasonably content with my lot in life, and look where it had gotten me, dumped.  I wish I could say my ex left me for another woman, or that we fought all the time, or that the s*x was terrible, or that we were broke, but none of those problems existed for us.  He just didn’t love me.  For the first time, I could possibly understand why.  I was, and had been for a long time, a character in a play that someone else was writing.  For years I had felt a widening gap between us, and I spent all my time trying to make him happy to close that gap.  The problem with trying to make someone happy is that it’s impossible.  Happiness comes from within.  I had finally figured out that no matter how good my body looked, or how I fixed my hair, or how I dressed, or how many meals I cooked, or how clean I kept the house; he would have still found a way not to love me.  He didn’t want to be happy with me, and I had tied my own happiness to his.  Yeah, that didn’t work out so well for either of us. Maybe, just maybe, the reason for the disconnect was because I was lost.  The confident, exuberant, sure-footed woman he fell in love didn’t exist anymore.  Expectations, responsibilities, and time had robbed me of all the things that made me, me.  Why had I spent so much time trying in vain to make someone else happy, and all the while doing nothing to find happiness for myself?  I felt sick.  Self-awareness is a tough pill to swallow. Over the next few days I spent most of my time trying to figure out the answer to that elusive question.  What do I want?  It’s a slippery slope.  What did I want out of life?  What did I want from a man?  What did I want for dinner?  The snowball effect threatened to engulf me in an avalanche. I could feel depression settling over me like a wool sweater.  It seeped into every part of my being.  The plastic smile I had been wearing since D-day was seriously threatening to c***k.  I needed to do something about my situation, but I was at a loss.  He was gone, he wasn’t coming back, and no amount of clapping was going to bring about a magic fairy to make it all better for me.  Damn it.  I was really going to have to figure all this out on my own, wasn’t I?     Who knew my salvation would come in the form of a text message.  “Will you go horseback riding with me?  It’s on my bucket list of things I want to accomplish this year.”  Lightening bolts, fireworks, flaming mojitos, and habenero peppers.  I wanted to kiss my phone.  A bucket list!  That was exactly what I needed.  Something to challenge myself, and channel all the pain, rage, and sadness I felt into something positive.  I immediately sent back a text saying, “I’m in.  Name the time and place.”  A week later I went horseback riding with some great friends, and I was reborn.