Originally drafted November 5, 2025 and January 29-30, 2026.

One of the most poignant and hilarious things I found while going through some of my old papers while packing up my house that I had to sell due to my divorce was this very short essay I wrote, probably sometime in late elementary school, about how I did not want to get married. Sometimes our younger selves are often smarter than we give them credit for. The older I get the more I marvel at what an amazing rebel I was as a kid (and occasionally mourn about how risk averse I am in other areas of my life).

When my ex-husband and I got engaged, I felt strongly that I did not want to get married before I turned 30. In my head, 30 represented a milestone that signified I was not getting married too young, that most of my prefrontal cortex had developed, that I had thought long and hard about wanting to cross the threshold into getting married, and that I was definitely a thoughtful and serious adult making an informed decision. Perhaps I thought that by waiting to get married until I was 30, I could inoculate myself against my marriage ever falling apart. My own parents had been divorced, and even though I was quite relieved when they split up, I still had no wish to repeat the experience in adulthood.

When my ex and I first dated, we were initially together about nine months. I wanted things to be serious, I wanted to ride the relationship escalator with him. He didn’t, and as a result we broke up. We were apart for about a year and during that time he made several overtures of friendship which I always rejected because I didn’t feel ready to be friends with someone who I still had complicated feelings for. By the time I was ready to be his friend again, he confessed wanting to get back together with me. I said we wouldn’t get back together unless he was serious about building a life together and marrying me.

And yet the fear that my ex-husband would leave me a second time lingered throughout our marriage. Ironically, I thought getting through some really rough stuff towards the end of our relationship had solidified us; if we could get through eldercare and health scares and job transitions, surely we could handle whatever else life threw at us. I had even processed a lot of my fear about him leaving me again in therapy in the months before he dropped the bomb.

When I was younger I think I would have told you I wasn’t afraid to be single. I was always judgmental of friends who jumped out of one relationship and into another. But in going back and looking at my relationships and dating patterns, I’m not really sure I ever embraced being as single as much as I might have thought I did. Based on what I can recall around the timing of all the men I was involved with from 18-39, I don't think I ever went more than maybe six months at the most without either having a boyfriend or what the kids would now call a situationship. And in most cases, I was usually the one who was dumped.

The weird liminal period between when the paperwork was being finalized for our marriage dissolution, and the hearing from the court, took place shortly before I turned 40. I told my attorney and my close friends that while I know you can’t control the timing of the courts, my only wish for my big milestone birthday was to have my decree of dissolution (i.e. the official divorce) issued by the end of the year so I could enter my forties as free as I had entered my thirties committed.

I got my birthday wish. My dissolution was issued a couple of weeks before I turned 40. I told my local friends I wanted a cake to celebrate that said HOT DIVORCEE ERA which they graciously got for me, and then shortly after that I flew to New York City to spend a few days in a city that I’ve loved dearly since I was an awkward weird arty Midwestern kid sad that I had missed riotgrrl by several years.

Looking back at what I wrote as a kid, it’s so striking to me that even at that age I was totally cognizant of concepts like household labor and resource sharing. Going back to singlehood has been a shock to the system, in ways both good and bad. My ex-husband and I actually had a relatively well distributed system of household labor (I did most of the cooking and meal planning, he did most of the grocery shopping and dish washing). We used a house cleaning service when we were married, and I can’t really justify or afford that right now with my small 1 BR apartment. So being single again has actually meant an increase in household labor that I hadn’t experienced in years.

But the one thing I got really right from this childhood essay, and that has been a massive revelation, is that true feeling of independence. I didn’t ask for my divorce but as an only child who has always enjoyed my own company and doing my own thing, attaining this level of independence has been a welcome and relatively comfortable shift. I suspect that I don’t actually do quite as much spontaneous stuff as I could or should, but it is amazing to not have to check with a spouse about calendars. A friend texted me earlier today about going to see a favorite band in New York later this year and I’m like, hell yeah why not? I don’t have to ask anyone. I don’t have to check anyone’s calendar except my own.

That independence also comes with the ongoing pulsing awareness that in turn, no one is really keeping track of me either. I’ve traveled on my own since I was a teenager, I feel relatively street smart, and yet I am still cognizant that single women encounter risks in the world that other women don’t face. In my married days, I’d often travel on my own and my husband would have probably registered some concern if I disappeared entirely for a few days. But now there isn’t really anyone keeping tabs on my whereabouts. So for the first time in my life a few weeks ago, I permanently shared my phone location with another family member.

And that’s another big singlehood stumbling block I’m facing now: who do I put in charge of major life decisions if something serious happens to me? I’m navigating that process now with a few trusted people in my life, but once you are no longer married, the answer is not obvious. There are no clear scripts, there is no obvious pathway, there is no prescribed path. The independence is the stage, but as the director, the casting is still up to you.

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