Divorced.

There are times that this phrase hangs over my head like a guillotine. I patiently wait for the blade to fall and the pain to end, but ultimately, it hangs there. Waiting. For what? I don't know.

After being married to who I now know was the wrong person, I also know loneliness like I had no idea existed. Dark, soul-wrenching loneliness that makes your bones ache and your mind crawl into itself. The nights I'd lie awake, hours after going to bed with a "please come to bed soon," hearing his typing above me, him so lost in thought and work he'd forgotten me. And me so lost in grief I'd cry myself to sleep.

That isn't anything I miss.

I was watching the Dan Ho Show last night on FitTV (?) and he was helping a divorced dad reconnect with his daughter, fix up his house and get out there (i.e. start dating again). Watching the show was interesting in its own way and seeing another person struggle with life changes as I have. Dan revealed that he was divorced too, and he had a hard time not being a hermit as a result.

I have to say, if it weren't for my friends and family, I could have easily holed up and crawled into my ownself, avoiding all people. Divorce changed me in ways I have yet to comprehend and I don't know that I'll ever fully understand all of it. Before I was married, I was much more open to the idea of love and marriage, whereas now I get beyond 'like' and I feel myself seizing up, paranoid to go further, scared to comprehend what might happen 'next.'

It is far easier for me to just 'date' someone or have a short-term fling with them, knowing that nothing will come of it, than for me to delve into someone's life, learning of him, meeting his friends, neighbors, family. While I know this doesn't put me any closer to the end goal of marriage/kids someday, it does provide a kind of cold comfort on long nights when I contemplate my life as of late.

I can't say that I don't harbor hermit-like tendencies still, but I'm trying. Slowly.