I don’t know that I’ve ever been as overcome with deja vu as I was when we walked down the jetbridge together, toward our plane. I don’t know how to explain the certainty of that moment, the certainty I have always felt at that moment when we receive our boarding passes and fall into step together, our luggage rolling into alignment behind us to form a rumbling procession, but I will try: it felt less like what we used to do and more like who we had always been. It didn’t feel nostalgic, but it did feel profoundly true. It felt like that little bit of home that you recognize even more readily when you are exploring somewhere else entirely.

This isn’t to say that we don’t experience the occasional culture shock. “I feel like I’m on the wrong side of the bed,” Jeff joked from his side of the room as we were falling asleep; he had always slept on my right, and we had accidentally claimed our beds backward. Likewise, when he is at my elbow, I am embarrassed to admit that I sometimes forget to pay for little things that I’m buying, like my own latte; he was always the one who carried our money.

Mostly, though, we just laugh, because if you don’t insist on getting all schmaltzy about it, it really is sort of funny, the way everything is the same and yet not at all the same, in this foreign country we find ourselves navigating.

Here is the thing I feel strange admitting in a culture hellbent on convincing everyone that divorce is some kind of cultural poison: I love having an ex-husband. It’s a shame I don’t have several more of them, really, in case the first one is too busy to go out to dinner or one of them gets hit by a bus or something, or maybe we just decide we want to play a more complex round of Monopoly than two people can allow for.

(Though, I suppose if I had several, I would have to change my plans to get a “#1 Ex-Husband” mug made for Jeff for his birthday, which would be a shame, because I think he’s going to get a kick out of it.)

Sometimes I don’t see him for months, but when I do, he always knows what sorts of restaurants I will like and which movies I’ll want to see. Awhile ago, we stood out in the cold so he could teach me to change my car headlight, and I met him at the coffee shop a few weeks ago to help him write a letter. He kept borrowing my snowboard, so eventually I just gave it to him; we’ve passed our DLP projector back and forth a few times now, depending on which of us is less busy and more in the mood to watch movies. I’ve told him he can have my car when I get around to getting another one (he still has the keys, and has been known to re-park it in the event that he sees a space closer to my door, which is nice except when it makes me feel as if I am going senile), and if/when I sell my book, some of that money (all four dollars of it) will be his, for supporting me as avidly as he did, both emotionally and financially, while I wrote most of it.

I married very well, it turns out. I am even more sure of that now that it’s over.

People tell me that what we claim to be doing is impossible–that we either did not have big enough problems from the outset or that we have not yet moved on romantically. “Oh, just wait until one of you remarries,” they say, because God forbid we all avoid getting ahead of ourselves and just enjoy some good news for once. (He has a girlfriendish who has far more claim to him than I do at this point, and I would totally go to his next wedding, if he would have me. My love life is even more complicated; frankly, Jeff is the simplest and most platonic thing in it.) There must be some reason, they contend, that we have been spared from animosity or estrangement, and obviously it is through no effort of our own. They list all the reasons that most people could not do what we have done, and they question whether our divorce was even necessary in the first place, forcing me to either explain to them in detail all of the awful things that Jeff and I have done to each other or endure the destruction of my credibility.

And you know what? I think people need to stop it, for their own sake. I think they need to stop assuming that it isn’t possible and start finding ways to make it possible, because not only is divorce not going away, but divorce is not even the problem, or at least it doesn’t necessarily have to be. I am not the only one in the history of divorce to feel that way–nor are such positive outcomes reserved for the childless. Jeff’s parents, for instance, used to move in and out of the family home every six months so that their children wouldn’t have to, and they remain friendly to this day. I grew up living up the street from duplex families who had mommies on the first floor and daddies on the second floor.

Can it always be done? Of course not; it takes two (and sometimes more than two, if new girlfriends and boyfriends and wives and husbands are involved). But I do think that, as a society, we need to learn to divorce better, because staying married is sort of like staying abstinent: the best solution is not the best solution at all if it routinely fails to happen, so perhaps we should stop acting as if life has to be so goddamned ideal all the time and start working with what we have.

Should you ever find yourself ending your marriage, I encourage you to draw solace from the manner in which various people console you. Many married people reacted to my situation with horror; what was happening to me was their worst-case scenario, romantically speaking–their monster under the bed. The smartest and coolest divorced people I know, on the other hand, were both more sympathetic and much less alarmed on my behalf. They didn’t say it, because they didn’t want to patronize me or minimize my pain, but if I had paid attention, I would have seen that, deep down, they never had any doubt that I would be fine, if I wanted to be.

Who are you going to listen to: the well-intentioned but inexperienced people who have never been through it and are nearly panicking on your behalf regarding everything miserable you will surely be required to endure, according to their imagined version of how awful divorce must be, or the people who have been there–the ones who reassure you calmly, discuss the situation without theatrics, and treat your eventual healing as a foregone conclusion, as if you are merely suffering one really epic zinger of a scraped knee?

If you have decided to listen to the latter, and you need to hear it one more time, I am ready to pass along that message, because it’s true: divorce happens, and it can’t erase you, and you will be fine, if you want to be.

This whole thing, this entire trip, has been so us. This is us, this exchange of gleeful expressions while we strap ourselves in. This is us, this passing back and forth across the aisle of headphones, powerbars, sweatshirts, and everything else we share as communal property in an unconscious habit ten years in the making. This is us, this tandem head-scratching over coins and rail passes and signs lettered in a foreign language. We stop, we lean in, we contemplate, we figure it out, and we keep going.

“You Are Here,” the maps tell us, and it’s true: we still are.

Because sometimes, you will split up with your husband and get the cat you always wanted but couldn’t have, because he’s severely allergic. And then, when he comes to see your rabbit (NOT A EUPHEMISM OF ANY KIND), he will hang out with the cat anyway. Wearing a mask.

Not only will Nito take any pettings he can get, but Hugh was happy to see him.

Oh, the things in life that no one makes a Hallmark card for.

For instance, there is no such thing as a happy ending. For anyone. There are happy times and sad times, but each of us only gets one ending, and I’m willing to bet that most of us won’t find it to be all that pleasant. SPOILER ALERT: The main character dies. The fact that so many people would likely accuse me of being grim, cynical, or depressing for pointing out this incredibly basic and universal truth only strengthens my argument that we have abandoned reality in favor of an idealized narrative—one that doesn’t end with our own deaths but with a nice wedding or, you know, retirement party or something. (Gold watches for everyone! Yaaaay!)

And this manner of thinking is fine. You could even argue that it’s a reasonable approach to allowing yourself to enjoy your life despite its harsher realities—the same type of suspension of disbelief that allows you to enjoy the movies you are now attempting to cast yourself in. But this manner of thinking is also potentially disastrous, if you are the sort of person who reads your lines and plays your part whether it’s a good idea or not.

Some people have children even when parenting is not something they’ll particularly enjoy. Some people buy houses they can’t afford. Some people get married when they would be happier single. Why? Because that is what happens next, of course. Some people will spend an unbelievable amount of money on clothes, because these are the clothes called for in the script; this is simply what their character looks like. This is the luxury car their character drives; this is the dumbfoundingly expensive engagement ring their character wears. These props are necessary for identification purposes; how will their audience recognize them otherwise? Which character would they be otherwise?

Some people wait around for plot twists, unaware that, without a concerted effort on their part, very little about their lives is likely to change for the better. Some women cast men into predetermined roles and then experience surprise and disappointment when that commitment-phobic philanderer turns out to be … well, exactly that. But he accepted the role of husband! they might protest, as if that could really be expected to change anything. This wasn’t supposed to happen.

I don’t mean to be overly contrary here, but really: according to whom? Is there a script somewhere?

Go ahead, dress up like the bride, and play your role. Say the words you’ve had memorized since you were six. Film the whole thing. Post pictures on your blog. There’s nothing wrong with any of it, if it’s really what you want, what will make you happy—if you’re doing it for yourself, not your audience. Be careful, with that audience: the more you cater to them, offering up cinematic special effects as quickly as your digital SLR and photo-editing program can pump them out, the more you will feel you owe them when it all falls apart. When you realize there’s no movie called It’s Been Years Since Our Really Pretty Wedding and We Have Exhausted All Potential Avenues of Conversation That Two Human Beings Could Possibly Explore, So Nothing Is Really Going On Except for That Part Where We Both Get More and More Bored and Resentful Regarding the Ways In Which We Confine One Another to Our 2002 Personas, and Oh My God You ALWAYS Interrupt Me Like That When I’m Talking and Come to Think of It, I Kind of Hate Your Stupid Face.* When you realize you ran out of script quite a long time ago, and come to think of it, you actually don’t have any idea what the fuck you’re doing or why you’re here. Cut! Cut!

[*If someone made an independent film with this title, I would be so excited to watch it.]

One of the most stressful parts of divorce is this sense that this is not the ending your audience was promised; this is not what they came to see. This notion is, of course, utterly ridiculous, but listen to any friend struggling with the decision to divorce, and you will hear it: I don’t want to be that person. I am not that person. As if they had simply been assigned the wrong trailer on a movie set by mistake.

The saddest thing about all of this effort, the most profoundly disturbing truth about all of this bending over backward for centerpieces and birth stories and decorating schemes, is that no one else ever even really cared that much. With the possible exception of your mother and your best friend, everyone in your audience has fallen asleep, or gotten up to pee, or is busy trying to open their smuggled bag of Skittles without crinkling the packaging too loudly. We look at wedding pictures, baby pictures; we smile; we feel happy for our friends. But five minutes later, we’ve moved on to worrying about whether getting our bangs trimmed this short was a mistake. We have our own productions to star in, after all.

The random and unintentionally hurtful comment we made about your divorce—or your job loss, or your shoes, or God knows what—is already forgotten by us, if not by you. Even the intentionally disapproving ones, the ones who will tell you that people like you are the reason no one takes marriage seriously, the ones who imply that you are selfish and irresponsible, the ones who openly pat themselves on the back for not being you, the ones who say quite earnestly that they really hope they never become you, are thinking about something else entirely not more than thirty seconds after the conversation is over, even if their words sting you for days. So if I were you, I would avoid constructing a sizable portion of your decisionmaking around pleasing a group of critics who have already forgotten you in favor of this ham sandwich they’re eating for lunch.

Unfortunately, it is not that simple, because even if you manage to ignore those people entirely (and then teach me how, which should absolutely be your next step), you still have an even bigger problem. To make this whole metaphor even more confusing, a part of you is sitting in your own audience, and that part of you might just be the one person in your theater who finds the whole production utterly fascinating. Who loves to watch. Who collects scenes and moments with hands clasped and eyes wide, who sobs openly at your tragedies, caught completely in the moment as she clutches her tissues in that darkened theater, as if tomorrow is not a new day entirely. Be careful, oh so careful, what you choose to do for this part of yourself, because I have this sneaking suspicion that this part of yourself is flat-out insane.

This part of yourself is in love with the character you have created. This part of yourself sets your photoshopped face as her avatar and writes fan fiction about you and would probably (facetiously, ironically) wear a “Team You” shirt if the Twilight people decided to make one. You can’t trust someone like that, or at least you shouldn’t. This part of you sweats over your every move and will be devastated if you gain weight, or announce to People magazine that you are gay, or are photographed without your makeup on, or in any way ruin the illusion. This part of you is convinced that everything you do matters, that everyone is watching as fervently as she is. This part of you is arrogant enough to think you are the center of the universe and insecure enough to let that make you afraid.

This is the part of the post where I would make a point, if I had one, but to tell you the truth, I’m still deciding what, exactly, any of this means. The script is unavoidable, I think, but I’m hoping to at least incorporate some ad-libbed elements. I’m hoping that I can, at least sometimes, behave as if no one is watching. I’m hoping to resist the urge to sell anyone a “happily ever after” where none exists. I’m hoping to at least remember not to take any of this too seriously, if I can.

In a brilliant commencement speech that you should absolutely read before it disappears from the Internet entirely, David Foster Wallace opens with a joke:

There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?”

And then, after blowing everyone’s mind like nine times, he concludes his speech by advising these new graduates to remember a seemingly simple truth, repeating it to themselves when necessary: This is water. This is water.

And I guess that right now, that’s all I’m trying to do: write a new script, make a new character, but do it all while remembering that I am even doing it in the first place, in hopes that it will save me, somehow, from living according to the expectations of anyone else and the expectations of that part of me that is convinced that I am hot shit and should continue to prove it.

And when I look up, squint into the spotlights above the stage, and say “line, please,” I am trying to remember to ask myself exactly who it is I think I am talking to, because the truth my ego keeps trying to ignore is that I am the only one here.

To be fair, Jeff did get me a nice divorce-themed present: a Blackberry, a separate phone plan, and the first month of service, as a sort of celebration of my singletude. The process of splitting up with someone you still care about comes with its own odd brand of romance, I guess, though the girl at the Verizon counter seemed a little confused by the fact that Jeff was simultaneously kicking me off his phone plan and buying me a smartphone to squee over. (She was barely old enough to drink, newly engaged, and starry-eyed as all hell about it; my marriage was quite obviously in its final death-twitches. I’m not sure which one of us felt more unsettled by the other, so we will just call it a draw.)

But I didn’t intend to spend my birthday with Jeff. In the spirit of new beginnings, it seemed more appropriate to do something different, and by “more appropriate” I actually mean “less pathetic.” How depressing would it be to start my 29th year by going on the dating equivalent of a funeral? Happy birthday to me! May we rest in peace.

The lack of general fanfare regarding my birthday was my fault, as Facebook is now the nation’s trusted authority for birthdays, and I had failed to list mine for anyone’s reference. I hold no one responsible for failing to remember my birthday on their own. That’s like remembering someone’s phone number these days. Honestly, who does that? I’m lucky if I know my OWN birthday and phone number half the time.

At any rate, deeply depressed at the notion of sitting home alone on my birthday, I decided to take matters into my own hands and throw myself a party. The great thing about belonging to a derby league is that throwing oneself a party essentially just amounts to e-mailing everyone and telling them to meet you at the bar, which is exactly what I did. I took a breath, swallowed my pride, ignored the imagined sounds of my well-mannered mother clucking her tongue at my tackiness, and wrote the following message:

—–

I will be turning 29 at midnight on Friday night and have no plans whatsoever. I don’t even have a husband. Or any non-derby friends. And none of my family will be in town. All I have is a cat who has no choice but to hang out with me. I’ll probably spend Friday night in my tiny, underfurnished apartment, staring into space and petting this poor captive animal as he attempts to squirm out of my grasp and longs for the days when he was safe behind bars at the Humane Society.

But … you know … some of you could step up and offer to get drunk with me. That would be one way to avert such a pitiful scene … hypothetically speaking, of course.

—–

Yes, I have the decency to be ashamed that I appealed to everyone’s sympathies. But I was going through A Difficult Time, and if you can’t play the pity card then, when can you?

Even with Official Hard Times on my side, I expected maybe ten people to show up; I’m not particularly socially assertive, being the sort of person who prefers to make three or four good friends in any given large group and then call it a day. You can imagine my surprise when ten o’ clock rolled around and I found myself in bar that was packed with familiar faces. Everyone bought me drinks, clapped me on the back, and indulged my famous love for Bon Jovi on the jukebox. I had a truly marvelous time getting completely hammered, opening sexually suggestive presents (giant phallic bubble wand, anyone?), and basking more or less unapologetically in all of the attention, something I have not been able to do sober since I was about six years old. (Even drunk, I believe I still turned beet-red and put both hands over my face when everyone sang “Happy Birthday” to me. Once an introvert, always an introvert.) Then my friends drove my inebriated self to a diner, put some food in my face, and put me to bed. (On the way home, I got the hiccups, and mournfully told my patient driver that I was a hobo. “Listen to that,” I kept saying plaintively, every time I hiccuped. “JUST LIKE A HOBO.” Not only did she not dump me out of the car in annoyance and leave me for dead, but she also politely ignored any misinformed hobo stereotypes I seemed hellbent on perpetuating.)

The next day, I woke up grinning, which sounds precious but was frankly kind of weird. Despite returning to consciousness as the proud owner of both a hangover and a decidedly loony expression, I felt energized and excited. Despite the personal tragedy I still felt embroiled in, I had managed to kick-start the year in style, with a little (OK, a lot of) help from my friends, many of whom I hadn’t realized I had. All of my social failures and laziness had seemingly been forgotten, replaced with genuine kindness and enthusiasm from a group of people who were glad to help me back onto my feet (both figuratively and literally, seeing as there was rum involved). We should all be so lucky, to find ourselves surrounded by people who so sincerely wish us well, despite our failings, whether we deserve it or not.

I have not forgotten that gift, and only partly because I had nearly illegal amounts of fun singing to “Living on a Prayer.” Mostly, I have not forgotten it because May 1 marked the first really good day of 2009, the sort of day that makes you feel not just lucky to be alive, but lucky to be this particular person inhabiting this particular body at this particular time, free of jealousy or despondence or desire or regret. That party was a revelation, and it wouldn’t be my last.

I am telling you about that day now because it marked a shift in this year’s trajectory. Looking back, I can plainly see 2009 changing its course, the way you can feel a plane adjust its angle once takeoff is completed. Before then, I had feared that this year might be the first year of my life that I quite honestly could have done without. You see people say that all the time: “2009 can suck it,” or “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, 2009.” Previous to 2009, I had been lucky enough to have never felt that particular sentiment, but when everything fell apart at the beginning of this year, I remember being flooded with fear at the certainty that this, this would be my throwaway year, one big twelve-month-long black mark that would stand out among my collection of happy annos. It would be my throwaway year, and I would have to live it anyway, and that arrangement seemed a bit harsh on the universe’s part, as far as I was concerned.

It’s not that I felt entitled to a string of shiny, untarnished years, an unbroken and gracious lifetime of pearls. It’s just that I secretly hoped to save my unfortunate year(s) until right at the end—perhaps as I languished in my mansion, bedridden, ailing from some kind of terminal and debilitating but mostly painless disease, at the approximate age of 138.

I hadn’t been intentionally UNREASONABLE, is what I’m saying, just rather optimistic, and when it appeared that my perfect record of good years was in danger, that possibility scared me.

It is a profound understatement to say that I needn’t have worried. 2009, it turned out, would be one of the best years of my life, full of discovery and adventure and even love, in all of its overlooked and unexpected forms. I admit that I might even be a little sad to leave 2009, despite my redoubled efforts to face the challenges of the future with an enthusiastic sort of dignity. Despite all its trials (or more than likely because of them, though admitting that causes me to make a face akin to that of a toddler who just bit experimentally into a lemon wedge), this year is touching down on the runway to deliver a more empathetic, powerful, confident, passionate, and independent me to a decidedly surprising destination.

2010 promises to bring its own set of challenges—some of which I can already identify, and some of which, I am sorry to say, I will have never seen coming—and something tells me that this is going to be a very, very complicated year in a lot of ways. I have a lot of decisions to make and a lot of conflicts to tackle, both external and internal. But if I can clamber off a year like 2009 waxing eloquent (or perhaps just magniloquent? shh) about my trip, I figure there’s hope for every year, and 2010 finds me a little more willing to enjoy the ride.

Dear 2009: Holy crap, you kicked my ass. But I like to think that I kicked yours, too. Because you offered so many great memories, I have decided that I am willing to overlook That Other Thing. (Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about.) All of our troubles aside, I’m glad that I am disembarking as a friend.

Dear 2010: Is this seat taken?

Dear 2118: MOSTLY PAINLESS DISEASE, I said. IN A MANSION. Thank you in advance.

Dear Everybody: Happy new year, and I hope 2009 gave you something good to remember it by. If it did, I’d love to hear about it.

My family is quite large, so we rent out a hall every Christmas in which to get our party on. This year will be much like the last one: I, my grandparents, my aunts, my uncles, my cousins, and myriad other relatives will all stuff ourselves until we feel sick, a suspiciously skinny and rather poorly dressed “Santa” (who happens to resemble one of my uncles) will pop in to give gifts to the little ones, and then we will all engage in a merry round of “Screw Your Neighbor,” that gift game in which we all fight over which one of us will be stuck with a light-up snowman throw pillow.

This year, however, will be the first one in a long time that I don’t have a proper husband.

Oh, don’t worry … he’s coming to Christmas anyway.

But wait! I can explain! Also, if you’re ever looking for a surefire way to alienate almost everyone you know, including any potential love interests, might I recommend staying friends with your ex?

When Jeff and I said that we were going to be friends, I’m not sure anyone really believed us. I’m not sure we even believed ourselves, or at least trusted ourselves to have any idea what the hell we were really saying. I had never lost a spouse before, so I wasn’t entirely sure how the whole thing would proceed, and he was no more experienced in this arena. Thus far, however, we have been true to our word. Not only do we trade occasional texts, but we also go to dinner when he’s in town (after he has stopped by to fuss over Hugh, of course, whom he misses terribly, and even Nito, who makes him wheeze like a dying man even as he gasps to Nito that he is a very good cat, oh yes, a good cat). Hell, Jeff and my FATHER go to dinner when he’s in town.

My father and Jeff had always enjoyed a father-pseudoson relationship, and when the marital poo hit the proverbial spinning blade, I took care to inform them both that I saw no reason for either of them to end that association. They had always gone to dinner without me just fine before; I didn’t see what difference my absence from Jeff’s overall picture would make now. It would be an exaggeration to say that upon hearing that I had no objections, they skipped out the door toward their favorite seafood restaurant, holding hands and giggling like schoolgirls, but … not … much of an exaggeration. I can’t complain, as one of them will still usually bring me dessert.

Some habits die hard, I guess, though I have no doubt that as the years pass, my friendship with Jeff will evolve—likely toward the mellower end of the spectrum. For now, he still pesters me about whether I paid the car insurance bill that only has my name on it, with money he didn’t make, for a car he no longer owns. He can be a little overbearing in a dad-type way (I have no doubt that the dinners he shares with my father involve a hearty amount of discussion regarding exactly what is best for me and how to get me to do it for once), and I roll my eyes at him once in a while, but his heart is in the right place. And you can bet that those rolling eyes start batting their lashes with gratitude when he puts air in the tires in order to fix an almost-flat that I never would have noticed, at least not until it exploded on the highway and killed me and a van full of church kids on their way to some kind of church-kid camp that teaches them to help old ladies across the street safely.

If this eyelash-batting seems anti-feminist, it isn’t. It’s about survival. Wait, is it anti-feminist to survive by being pretty? Ha, ha, okay, wow, don’t punch me, at least not before I get the chance to tell you that I made my dad teach me about air and tires the next time I saw him, crouching down next to him in his freezing-ass garage next to the air compressor so that he could show me the proper way to inflate my tires. Listen, I’m sorry that I got married so young that I have to get all remedial on my own ass like this, but here we are, and I’m doing the best I can. When you consider that at this time last year, I was the kept woman of a commercial airline pilot who paid all my bills and invisibly kept me in an abundant supply of wiper fluid, fresh motor oil, and dish soap like some sort of benevolent household maintenance elf, I’d say I’m doing all right on account of I haven’t even killed anyone in an electrical fire yet.

But until I know that I have the hang of everything, including those license-plate tags that I don’t entirely understand yet, it comforts me to have Jeff on my side, annoying me to death over fan-belt maintenance. And he is on my side, as weird as it is to say in this situation. He’s in my corner; he wants me to do well. And I think that’s really nice. In order to display my gratitude while also making our friendship even more inappropriate and uncomfortable for outside parties, I have offered him many pointers on his game, like “Pay for dinner, so she doesn’t think you’re cheap.” (Him: “But I am cheap!” Me: “… I don’t think you’re getting how this works.”)

Oh, I know, I know. Now we’re just showing off. What can I say? It’s been damn near a year, and we’re getting pretty good at this. If it makes you feel better, it really wasn’t easy in the beginning. At all. I would tell you about that first dinner after I moved out, a very terse and nasty one conducted over a large vat of mashed potatoes, but I won’t. It doesn’t make either of us look very good. I much prefer us as superheroes, so I’ll just go ahead and keep selling you our finest moments, if you don’t mind.

My parents are okay with our friendship. Anyone who made sure to tell me all about how they had never liked Jeff are less okay with it, and by “less okay” I mean “visibly sweating.” (Etiquette tip: Do not bash someone’s ex unless it is made abundantly clear that such bashing is welcome. I cannot stress this enough.) Some people seem almost angry or impatient with us for reasons I do not entirely understand, as if we should stop irritating them with our hippy-dippy shit and start litigating at one another like real grownups. Some people are convinced that we’re getting back together. Some people will indicate to me that if Jeff and I can still be friends, whatever happened between us wasn’t that bad, and we shouldn’t have split up in the first place. (I find that last notion hilarious. Have these people ever BEEN married? Because it’s exactly like swapping texts once a week and going out to dinner once a month, except, you know, more … intense.) Some divorced people think that Jeff and I are remaining friends for the sole purpose of silently pointing out just how woefully petty and inferior we find their bitter divorce to be. Some people seem eager to deflate our friendly little balloon by pointing out that our friendship is so over once one of us begins to date. (When I respond that, actually, we BOTH are dating other people steadily and have been for some time, they skip all the small talk and just kick me in the shins directly, which they find more efficient but somehow less satisfying, you can tell.)

People will be people, and frankly, I’ve given up on pleasing most of them. The only person I really worry about is the Next Guy I wind up with. Poor Next Guy. I can’t say I’m not sympathetic on this issue, or even deeply and stutteringly neurotic and apologetic on this issue. But in the end, Jeff is family now; I have the last name to prove it. If that’s inconvenient or even terribly off-putting, no one is sorrier than I am, but the right thing is never particularly easy, and to me, the right thing is to avoid completely torching a valuable relationship that I spent over a decade building. Life is messy sometimes, and not every relationship or situation fits into a neat little box. Anyone I’m with in the future needs to understand that, especially since my plans only get weirder from here on out. (One possible scenario involves shaving my head. You really don’t want to know.)

While I admit that Jeff and I are partly driven toward amiability by our conspiratorial tendency toward mischief and all the delicious goat-getting potential this whole “let’s be friends” thing involves (and your grandma is going to gape at us so hard that her dentures fall out onto the table in 3 … 2 … 1 …), and while I admit that we sometimes indulge in unflattering feelings of pride about our ability to avoid throwing the love-baby out with the marriage-water, what it comes down to is that he was once a pretty big deal to me, and I still respect that bond, even if it no longer exists as it once did.

The Catch-22 of dating me now is that I’m a really, really (really) loving person. When I care about someone, I care about them for-evvv-errrr, as that kid in The Sandlot would say. In theory, this is an admirable quality, but you can’t find that in someone and then expect to keep it all to yourself. That’s just not how it works.

(Fortunately, there are SOME things you do get to keep to yourself. Here, let me distract you with some of them!)

(Wait, is that anti-feminist too? GODDAMMIT. Are you people allergic to strategy, or do you just hate to win?)

The Christmas thing, though. Even I admit that this is a little much, but here’s how it happened: Jeff’s mother has always been invited to Christmas, because all of her family goes to Indiana for the holiday to be with relatives who are not hers. Seeing as I apparently already had a divorce policy of grandfathering people in, I saw no reason to uninvite her this year. She is, in fact, a sweet lady, and I feel a little awkward about that one time I couldn’t make things work with her son, so it seemed like a nice gesture. As it turned out, however, Jeff (who is usually working) will be in town for the first Christmas Eve in, oh, ever. Now, how awkward is it to invite your ex’s mother to Christmas, but not your ex, who will be dining alone that evening because you totally stole his mother away with your fun party games? Miss Manners would not approve. Thus, after I quickly checked with my mother to make sure the subsequent frenzy of family gossip would not make her head explode (My mom, brightly: “Oh, so Jeff’s mom is just going to hang out with him this year instead?” My sister, dryly: “Mom, I don’t think that’s what she’s saying …”), Jeff was added to the list as well.

It’s not traditional, exactly, but what can you do? If this year has taught me anything, it’s that life becomes pretty interesting and rewarding when I stop listening to everyone else and just follow my heart. I know one thing: this year’s Christmas picture is going to be amazing. I’m thinking of holding the cat in front of the tree while staring off into the distance while Jeff sits dejected and unshaven in the corner, flipping through a porn magazine and swigging from a flask.

You can disagree with my life choices all you want, but don’t act like that wouldn’t be funny. Rumor has it that even the shoddy Uncle Bob version of Santa does not put liars on his Nice list.

When Jeff and I moved to St. Louis, he knew I was unhappy with the decor of our house, but money, of course, did not grow on trees. Except that year, it did, because he cashed in some investments and spent hours twist-tying money to a festive little potted tree. Then he gave it to me for Christmas and told me to make the house we lived in ours. He wanted me to have everything; it was almost an obsession. There wasn’t one minute of the years and years we spent together that he wasn’t striving to put the world on a string and loop it around my little finger. I learned to avoid wishing aloud, lest the poor man collapse in exhaustion from his determination to fulfill whatever request I had just absentmindedly uttered.

Case in point: he once rethrew an entire birthday party for my father because I had accidentally deleted pictures of my father and his birthday cake, then wept to the point of hiccups, like a small child, because I had so few good pictures of my dad (and also I was possibly hormonal as all hell). At any rate: Jeff duplicated the entire thing, right down to the cake and the mylar balloons. He invited everyone, and believe it or not, they came. Again. He warned me beforehand because he knows that even wonderful surprises tend to fluster me beyond repair. One of the pictures I took that day is my favorite picture of my parents; it sits above their fireplace.

Every night he was home, as he was falling asleep, he would ask if the rabbits could come sleep with us. They couldn’t, of course, but he was always trying to talk me into it. “Just for a minute,” he would plead, his eyes already closed, smiling into his pillow. He called Maisie his little princess; he would rabidly defend her when I implied she was fat (though he would, when pressed, grudgingly admit that she was “curvy” or “a little portly”). Before he left town, he would put on his hat and coat and then tell Hugh to take care of the house while he was gone. He snuck extra treats to both of them when I wasn’t looking; I feigned exasperation, but the truth is that the sight of him trying to conspire with them always made me laugh.

He made me breakfast. He put gas in the car. He always left my train tickets under my keys. He did damn near every dish I made for seven years. He automatically bought tickets to any concert he knew I would be interested in going to, then stuck them to the fridge. He never forgot an anniversary of anything, even the more obscure ones. He supported me financially without resentment, without even really thinking about it. He told me that he knew I was a good writer, because he wasn’t a reader but he loved everything I ever wrote. He called me “J.H.,” a play off J.K. Rowling’s name.

When we were splitting up our stuff, we had enough wedding pictures for both of us, thanks to duplicate sets. At one point, while we were arranging the pictures in little piles, we both started laughing. Because isn’t this crazy? Isn’t this flat-out RIDICULOUS? And yet my relationship with this man, he of the clean dishes and the endless encouragement, had become damaged beyond repair. Can you believe that? I couldn’t either; some people still can’t.

I don’t blame them, but I know what I know—even if, for a little while there, it was impossible to believe. It’s over. And the minute those two brutal words sink in, you can move on to … well, an even worse stage! Yay!

THE BLACK HOLE SUN STAGE

Everything stood still, Hiroshima style. Batteries went dead; unanswered texts and e-mails piled up like dead leaves on the doorstep of an abandoned house. There had been a Before, and as inconceivable as it might have seemed at the time, there would be an After, too. But this was the in-between. This was the space where nothing existed but a blank and oddly numb sort of pain. Even the sorrow was static; it didn’t budge or flow, but calcified in my chest and limbs, weighing me down and keeping me still. I didn’t know anything; I didn’t want anything. I was inanimate, a sunken stone.

Everything in the refrigerator stayed where it was (but not AS it was, unfortunately for my gag reflex about three weeks later). Scooted-out chairs collected dust while silently emphasizing spaces now pointedly unoccupied. Mail kept arriving, addressed to an entity that no longer existed. This was odd; hadn’t they heard? Hadn’t the entire world heard? It had been deafening, which made the ensuing quiet all the more unnerving.

THE GROUNDHOG STAGE

But, as it turned out, people had no idea. When I finally crawled out of my hole and looked around a bit, I discovered that the sun was still doing its thing, along with everyone else. They would smile at me, ask how I was, ask how Jeff was. Did we have any travel plans coming up?

This was unfathomable. I felt sodden with what had happened, like I’d been physically dunked in it, like I squished when I walked. I still wore makeup and sported shiny hair, of course, but so do dead people; it’s just protocol. But as I put one foot in front of the other on the sidewalk, buses passed by me and stirred the air, just like always.

It appeared the buses were still running, then. Huh.

THE CRAZY PENDULUM STAGE

Negotiations and random tasks had worn me down to my last nerve, which, in its unprotected state, seemed to resonate wildly with whatever was going on at the time. A stranger just smiled at me for no reason? HUMANITY IS SO BREATHTAKINGLY AND TOUCHINGLY BEAUTIFUL! It started to rain? THE UNIVERSE SEIZES ITS EVERY OPPORTUNITY TO SHIT ON ME JUST FOR THE PLEASURE OF WATCHING ME SUFFER!

I had discovered the outside world still existed, but I had no idea where I belonged in it. And since everything in my zinging and abrasive Technicolor hyper-existence was marked extremely urgent, I felt a great deal of pressure to figure this out immediately—even if I had yet to regain the rationality required to do so. At one point, and I am not even kidding you, I thought I might get a motorcycle and become a forest ranger. Even though I am famously risk-averse (not to mention uncoordinated) and I loathe the outdoors.

This stage is likely to drive your poor friends crazy. One day, you’re explaining to them quite earnestly why you have nothing to look forward to and your life is over. The next day, you’re exuberant about your new chosen career of astronaut. “The FINAL frontier,” you will say to them, jabbing your finger toward the sky. (If you have very good friends, they won’t remind you that you passed the maximum age for military aviators three years ago and that you failed basic algebra. Twice.) The day after that: black despair. The day after that: a sudden and very enthusiastic obsession with the art of marionette puppetmastering, or God only knows what. Et cetera, et cetera.

This might go on for an embarrassingly long time. But it won’t be forever, so don’t bother wasting several hours a day wondering if you’re just going to be crazy like this from now on. I know I spent way too much time musing dejectedly that I had once been so SANE and trying to come up with scientific explanations for how mundane divorce tasks like the splitting of a cell phone plan could somehow be linked to actual brain damage.

THE HEALING STAGE

For me, this overlapped with the crazy pendulum stage, but it may not for everyone. In between fits of complete crazy-pendulum insanity (the darkest of which, for some reason, seemed to happen at the supermarket, which seems weird, but others have described similar incidents occurring at Target), I was rebuilding. Some of this was conscious—there is a REASON my apartment is decorated to the nines—and some of it was unconscious.

I read a lot of poetry. I read about science. I read about human achievements and human disasters. I read articles on crazy inexplicable particle behavior (quantum entanglement ftw!), on the development of human flight, on Chernobyl, on World War II. I related, I identified, I processed. I read about Jews crucified because they were blamed for the plague. I read about the turn of the earth and the replication of DNA. I read about despair and discovery in equal amounts. I completed a giant volume of world history and a giant volume of scientific history; I forgot most of it, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was that sense of an expanding world, that instinctive seeking out of anything and everything I had not known as my old self.

There was something healing about awe. I turned pages in order to invoke that therapeutic awe in myself, the way someone will run miles to achieve a runner’s high. There was so much out there; the world was so massive in its ideas and nooks and customs and memories. After thinking so intensely and involuntarily of myself, of ME ME ME, it felt so good to stretch, to reach … and to realize that there is so much more to everything than who I am or how I have failed. And to realize that so many possibilities still remain.

As I picked up speed and regained the energy I had been devoting to my own personal tragedy, it started to feel as if my neurons were at a goddamn RAVE or something. Had I been hesitant to walk out into this crazy, amazing, messed-up world before? Had I been afraid to get my hands dirty, to touch and be touched?

If I had been hesitant before, now I couldn’t wait.

THE SUPERHERO STAGE

The superhero stage is my favorite divorce stage so far. (Perhaps more accurately, Kerri calls it the superherOINE stage.) I’m honestly not sure I have ever felt this powerful in my life. I think I could whip my index fingers out of imaginary holsters slung across my hips and shoot you dead with them. (Not that I would do that! You seem nice!) I am genuinely surprised at the lack of booming KAPOW! noise every time I flex my thumb in this scenario.

I belong to myself. I can do whatever I want. I can go wherever I want. I don’t have to take shit from anyone. “Compromise” is not a necessary component of my vocabulary. It sounds selfish, but it isn’t, necessarily; I’ve actually been doing more volunteering than ever before, because I can—because every hour of every day is mine to spend as I like.

I became convinced that I could do good for myself by doing good for others. My resume lacks diversity, so I called a children’s organization and told them I wanted to do their marketing and write their grants, as long as they were willing to teach me. As an unexpected perk, I now have access to a fantastic workspace. I have been frustrated by my inability to build things and fix things on my own; I signed up for Habitat for Humanity with the idea that I might learn a thing or two, only to discover that they had partnered with the community college to offer free classes on everything from reading blueprints to installing flooring.

I can tell you exactly when my superhero phase started. I was reading my bajillionth book on my Kindle when I suddenly thought, I wish I had my typewriter. For months I hadn’t been able to string a sentence together; I had stared at my manuscript, confounded at the idea that I had managed to produce ANY of this, much less that I would ever feel moved to revise it. For months I had felt inert, dependent on the words of others to pull me along. Suddenly, I wanted those keys under my hands again. Hell, I wanted to BLOG again, something I hadn’t thought about in so long that I had forgotten how to use Wordpress. I wanted to tell you about all of this, share all of it with you, breathlessly, at a rate you can barely keep up with, like Amelie dragging a blind man by the hand.

Not that you’re blind, of course, but you were unaware of what was going on with me. Which is pretty much the same thing, seeing as I am the center of the universe.

You would not believe how quickly these posts pour out; I have never written faster, and I was not a slow writer to begin with. I am inspired. I am the patron saint of divorce redemption. I am a phoenix. I am made of magic. I will change your life. I will change my life. I could strangle Chuck Norris with my bare hands. I won’t, because he has done nothing to deserve it, but I am just saying. Flowers pop up in my fucking FOOTPRINTS right now, all right?

I’m sure it won’t last. I’m sure there will be setbacks; that’s okay. But I intend to enjoy it while it lasts.

I had lunch with Jeff recently and talked a blue streak at the poor man, my soup untouched while I explained that I loved my job and I was going to build HOUSES and help the CHILDREN and have an amazing RESUME. Our past get-togethers have gone well enough, but he could tell there was something different about me this time; he kept having to pull on one of my arms in order to keep me from floating up into the sky, for instance.

“Are you happier now?” he asked. He wasn’t being maudlin; he just honestly wanted to know.

That question gave me pause like none other. My God, AM I happier now? The idea had enormous implications for both of us. But when I stopped to think about it, I knew it wasn’t true.

“No,” I finally said, after setting a Guinness World Record for bread-chewing. “I’m not happier than I was back then. I’m just finally ME again, and I’m so excited about it that I’m kicking some extra ass.”

And that’s why I wrote this post: because I have gotten so many heartbreaking e-mails since I wrote that list of divorce advice. I really didn’t expect that, considering that I’ve been blogging for about four minutes, but people like Loralee and Moosh and Avitable have been kind enough to spread the word. The response has been … humbling, and sad, because so many people separated yesterday, or the day before, or last week, and holy crap life is so wrenchingly hard sometimes.

I wrote this post because I want to tell all of those people that they will come back, and it will be amazing, and I am so excited for them. When they get there, I hope they let me know, because it will make my day. I’m thinking of all of you, future superheroes. Hang in there.

2. She has no game whatsoever. This girl not only fails to remember to wear hot underwear, but she will also strike up a conversation while perched on your toilet (just to PEE, of course—she’s still a lady). She may also discuss her cycles with you, regardless of whether you happen to be trying to eat lunch at the time. Come to think of it, this girl is not really for the faint of heart.

3. She doesn’t want to get married. She doesn’t want to get married. She doesn’t want to get married. Do you hear her? Because she doesn’t. And if you want to, like ever, like even when everyone involved is ninety-eight years old and a marriage would be really beneficial purely for estate distribution purposes, you can just move along, buddy. You may think you don’t want to get married. But deep down, you might. You might. Don’t you go getting all mushy in the eyes, because she’s watching you as one watches that possibly zombie-bitten, expendable character in the mall, waiting for you to turn.

4. Every story she tells involves this one guy who occupies her every mental diorama in a neutral but persistent manner. It’s like that game where you add “in bed” to everything, except you add “with my ex” to everything. “This one time, in Iceland (with my ex) …” “So I was at Baskin Robbins (with my ex) …” “And anyway, so there I was, wearing my wedding dress and standing in front of a pastor, ready to exchange eternal, lifelong vows (with my ex) …” Sorry. It’s not intentional. You’ll probably have to get used to it. If it helps, pretend that [FILL IN EX'S NAME HERE] was a … I don’t know, a golden retriever or something. Doesn’t that make it more fun? “This one time, I was at a bar, making out (with a golden retriever) …” Okay, so it doesn’t work in every context. Or maybe it does, depending on the bar.

5. She loves her cat. Listen, that cat may be a dumb little critter incapable of actual emotion, but that cat was THERE for her. Don’t judge. Bonus points if you feign affection for the cat even when the cat is clearly resentful of your very existence. Oh, man, the divorced ladies love their cats. If you have any idea what you’re messing with, and if you value this relationship at all, you’re a cat person now. Aren’t you. AREN’T YOU. Are you sure? Because if not, she could just shut the cat in the bathroom so he doesn’t bother you … No? Good answer. Goooood answer. Now lie still … very still … shhhhh. The cat doesn’t like it when you interrupt the nap he’s taking on your face.

(She loves her rabbit, too, but he is not the resentful type and he does not nap on faces, so it’s not really an issue.)

6. Did she mention she doesn’t want to get married? She is just checking.

7. She hesitates to admit to you. The next time she and you run into someone out in public that she knows, could you crawl under the dinner table a little faster? And next time make sure the toe of your shoe isn’t sticking out under the edge of the tablecloth, will you? Otherwise, people will think you’re her boyfriend, and then they will ask questions, and honestly, she can barely ask herself those questions right now, much less field them from someone else. How are you at imitating a potted plant when cornered? Fantastic!

8. She’s … a little oversensitive to domestic conflict, and possibly somewhat paranoid. Did you just look at the wet towel she left on the floor in a disparaging manner? Did your nostrils flutter slightly with disdain? What do you mean, you don’t know what she’s talking about? Your eyes definitely shifted toward it a little. More like a twitch, really. Your eyes TWITCHED toward it. And your nostrils, they flared … or at least they opened slightly, oh so very slightly, just one tiny and almost undetectable step in a time-lapse photo collection of a flower blooming. And she saw. SHE SAW.

9. She is highly averse to planning for the future. What do you mean, what does she want for lunch? Are the two of you even going to be dating by lunch? It’s only ten-thirty. You want her to be your date to a wedding in two months? Oh, that’s precious. She could be eating monkey brains out of a bowl in some third-world country in two months for all she knows. Life is unpredictable! You never know! Just trust her on this one!

10. Her expectations can be a little … unreasonable. What, you didn’t know that you’re supposed to bring her a fork with her grilled cheese? You didn’t even MAKE her a grilled cheese? You keep forgetting that she doesn’t watch television? You don’t stick her keys in the fridge next to her lunch so she doesn’t forget her food in the morning? You didn’t realize she can’t sleep under a mere SHEET like some kind of … an animal … in the woods … who has found a sheet and is sleeping under it? You didn’t realize that she vastly prefers Cherry Coke to plain old Coke? Good grief, you are TERRIBLE at this game. What’s your name again? Actually, scratch the “again,” just … what’s your name in the first place? Nevermind–the two of you can talk about this later, once you’ve run to the store for tampons.

I think you will agree that there is never a better time to make such a decision than when you are romantically heartbroken, with an utterly uncertain future and nowhere to live. This is truly the ideal time for a visit the Humane Society; it says so right in their pamphlet. When Jeff and I were negotiating everything, I actually ASKED, as in, on my LIST OF DEMANDS, if I could get a cat, because having a cat to snuggle with would make me “feel better about this whole divorce thing,” especially since I was leaving the bunnies behind for the foreseeable future. No red flags there! Carry on!

Technically, I did have somewhere to live; it just didn’t have anything in it yet, seeing as I had just received the keys from my landlord about two hours prior. Jeff by no means had pressured me to leave, especially considering that he was never home anyway, but at some point in the proceedings, I had locked onto the idea that I would find a sunny studio somewhere with hardwood floors. You know the kind–with crown molding and crystal doorknobs and darling little keyholes. I had always wanted to live somewhere like that, with a cat.

And guess what? I totally made it happen! I’m … just not sure it turned out to be the hottest idea to fulfill both aspects of that fantasy in the same day.

I walked into the Humane Society, completely dazed. You know that beginning to a movie, the one where some disheveled girl who’s been through some as-yet-unrevealed zombie-invasion hell wanders into a charming little gas station with the tinkling of a doorbell, and you can tell she’s not quite right? That something has clearly Happened, even before the cute gum-cracking cashier with the Southern accent recognizes the severity of the situation? I think that was probably me. I was all, “I am here to get a cat,” as if this was the only English sentence I knew. (Come to think of it, there’s another dead giveaway that you’re about to watch an unpleasant killer-cyborg type of plot unfold: a stranger who quite suspiciously appears to be programmed to just say a few key sentences over and over again while trying to act normal.)

In my defense, I am famous (some would say notorious) for spoiling my pets, and I don’t think any of the friends who were too polite to argue with me at the time really expected me to do any harm to some poor homeless animal by, like, squeezing it too hard while staring blankly into the distance, JUST AS AN EXAMPLE, HA HA HA HA. Also in my defense, I HAD asked a Humane Society employee, over the phone, whether I was required to take the cat home that same day. I was reassured that this was not the case.

I was given a number and directed to the cat area. I studied each animal in turn, looking for signs of hardiness. After all, this poor feline would be expected to serve as the sole emotional outlet for a woman who was still crying at stoplights, so “rugged” seemed like a fairly key adjective. Not to hate on the available cats of the Humane Society, but frankly, none of them seemed like sidekick material. Most of them were sleeping, for instance; I think you will agree that this was not exemplary of the kind of roll-up-your-sleeves gusto required of a divorce sidekick.

Crushing disappointment had already set in by the time I turned around and saw him. He was the only cat I hadn’t seen yet, and you guys, he was PERFECT:

This gigantic cuddly tabby won me over in about a second. He was strong; he was handsome; he had personality. People, he was cat-boyfriend material—we’re talking the kind of cat-boyfriend who will don a varsity letter sweater in order to put a corsage on your wrist and take you to the dance. There was alert gazing! There was purring! There was the kneading of my sweater! I immediately had the most mature and well-adjusted reaction possible, which was to plonk down in a chair right in front of his cage and glare at everyone while clutching my paper number in one hand and petting him through the bars with the other. “You really … like that one, don’t you?” people would ask politely. And I was all, “What was your first clue? MOVE ALONG, PLEASE.”

By the time my number came up and I jabbed my finger in his direction rapidly and repeatedly, like, THAT ONE, I WANT THAT ONE, AND YOU BETTER GO GET HIM FOR ME NOW, RIGHT NOW, BEFORE SOMEONE TAKES HIM AWAY, the getting-to-know-you process was really more of a formality. They handed him to me, he head-butted me hello and then commenced kneading my shoulder with his paws, and I said, “I’ll be back for him on Wednesday.”

“Oh, no, I’m sorry,” the attendant responded. “We don’t allow anyone to reserve an animal.”

Alarmed, I explained that I had called and asked beforehand. She repeated their policy and politely explained that whoever I had talked to obviously had their head up their ass (though not in so many words). After a moment of back-and-forth, it became obvious that I had to decide whether I could live with the possibility that he might be gone when I came back in a few days. And really, since I was quite objectively aware that he was the most perfect and wonderful cat that had ever existed on this earth, that outcome seemed like a strong possibility.

“Well … I … guess I’ll take him now!” I said brightly, as if I had so much as a piece of furniture back home. Or, you know, a litterbox, even. About three seconds later, they took my picture, standing there, holding him. I don’t know how it turned out, but I’m sure I looked terrified. Very newly single girl clutches the cat that she is utterly unprepared to take home and stares into the lens with a tremulous smile: yet another successful adoption story in which a cat finds its forever family!

Lest you think I’m exaggerating my state of mind, I give you this: once they put him in a box and handed him to me, I just walked right out the door with him, without paying a dime. You guys, I actually STOLE a CAT. (Please join me in my childish delight when I observe that one might call this … catnapping.)

I walked out to the parking lot, put him in the front seat, and sat behind the wheel without moving for a good seven minutes. Then I drove to PetSmart. You haven’t lived until you’re dragging a box with a cat in it around the pet store, flinging litter liners and cat food and cat toys and cat litter into an overflowing cart. At some point, I realized I had not adopted the cat in question, but stolen one, but by then it was way too late to go back. Who knew when this thing was going to poop? I WAS IN A DESPERATE RACE AGAINST THE POOP.

Inconveniently (and rather cinematically, if I do say so myself), it began to pour down rain, which is how I found myself soaking wet in front of my building with two armloads of cat accoutrements and a meowing cardboard box. I learned a lot that day: mainly, to never, ever buy the forty-pound tub of litter, as someone who lives in a third-floor walkup. I walked into my utterly empty (and by utterly empty, I mean devoid of so much as a roll of toilet paper) apartment, threw everything down, let my new and horrified cat-boyfriend out of the box, and started apologizing profusely.

Did I mention I was going out of town that weekend, and was in fact already late?

I poured him like nine bowls of cat food to tide him over for the next two days and got ready to leave; he kept cowering and trying to climb into my lap. Finally, I just called my parents, told them I was going to be late getting home, and sat against the wall, on the floor, with him curled up in a lap that was too small for him. We sat like that for a long time, both new here, both thoroughly freaked out. In a flash of inspiration, after taking in my empty surroundings, I named him Finito Garante, which is really terrible Italian for “guaranteed to be over.” (Jeff, may I remind you, is severely allergic to cats.) The whole day just had that feel: There’s no going back now, is there. “I’ll call you Nito!” I told my cat-boyfriend. Then I headed to my hometown to see my family for the first time since the Decision had been made, in order to reassure them that I was all right.

When I returned home about forty-eight hours later, I had about nine messages from the Humane Society telling me I had stolen a cat and—I am not making this up—THREATENING TO SEND AN OFFICER TO THE PREMISES if I did not contact them immediately and turn myself in. And I was all, listen, if you took your job that seriously, you wouldn’t have given someone like me a cat in the first place.

But that cat has slept in the crook of my arm ever since then, so I’m glad they did.

He can, at times, be convinced to sleep away from me, on his side of the bed, like so:

Good night, Nito.

Yet … somehow … in the morning, when I wake up, it’s more like this:

Oh, good MORNING, Nito. I don’t even know how we wind up like that without me waking up.

He also loves to help me work. Sometimes, he can be cajoled into a reasonable helping position, from which he can review manuscripts and offer creative input. (Well, when he actually has his eyes open … which is never.)

Most of the time, though, he is … rather unhelpful.

No, Nito, that’s perfect. You’re not in the way at all.

Usually I just give up and work around him, which is why my workspace looks like this a lot of the time:

Not that he’s, uh, a spoiled little cat-prince or anything.

It’s ridiculous, how much having him has helped me. I would slog through a confusing day of realtors and insurance papers and God knows what else, and then I would crawl into bed and hug on his big furry self like a little kid lost in the woods with a teddy bear. And he would start purring immediately, and his tail would start patting me in a slow, sleepy rhythm, and we would fall asleep like that, content if not always particularly victorious. Even now, he greets me when I come home every day, and there is something profoundly healing about that, even if he is just a grubby little parasite when you get right down to it. Hey, who isn’t?

Anyway, it’s a good thing I don’t send out Christmas cards, or I would have some choice words for you: Nito, me, Olan Mills, matching sweater vests. Don’t act like that wouldn’t be awesome.

Don’t marry anyone you wouldn’t feel comfortable divorcing. If the love of your life plays the victim, if they hate all of their exes, if they say nasty things about people they used to date, there is a very good chance that person will do the same to you someday, should you find yourselves on the wrong side of some very alarming statistics. As you walk down the aisle, if you can’t count on a romantic future together, you can at least count on a romantic future that doesn’t involve property damage, the spiteful withholding of pets and/or children, and restraining orders filed on behalf of the overdramatic.

Plus, anytime anyone asks about your ex and how it’s going, you can say, “Oh, he/she is great. A++++++++, would divorce again.” Oh, come on, that’s funny.

Because it’s like eBay? Get it? Nevermind.

FOR THE HAPPILY MARRIED

Have your own friends. Have your own bank account. Have your own life. Investing in your marriage does not mean you can’t continue to invest in yourself as well. The people in your own individual social circle, the ones who belong to you as an individual, may very well wind up carrying your couch up three flights of stairs. Couches are heavy, man. Make some friends.

Don’t ditch your family just because you’re working on your own family now. If things don’t work out, your family will assemble a mean kitchen island for you, and your dad will hang your shelves. (If you did ignore them, say you’re sorry and that you’re so thankful they’re here. If you do it sincerely enough, they might buy you something. I’m just saying.)

FOR THE UNHAPPILY MARRIED

Do what you can to fix it, obviously. Obviously.

FYI: Your horror at the idea of “becoming a statistic” reveals your perception that you are somehow better than everyone else—that you assumed yourself immune to the sorts of problems that have plagued half the married population. Your desire to not become THAT PERSON, the person who gets divorced, is revealing an elitism in you that you still don’t see, not yet.

Guess what? Turns out that you are not that special, and neither was your relationship, no matter how much you enjoyed conceptualizing it as a fairy tale (I’m looking at you, psychobrides). Mmmm, humble pie! It’s delicious! When you’re done chewing, decide what you would do if everyone you knew died of the swine flu tomorrow and thus there was no one around to see what happened next. Then do that.

FOR THE DIVORCING

It’s no one’s business; feel free to tell them so. This doesn’t make you rude; they were rude to ask. Well, unless “So, are you guys still sleeping together?” doesn’t count as a rude question in your book even when it comes from your smarmy boss—in which case, I have some likeminded people I’d like to introduce you to. Maybe they’ll start conversing with you instead of me.

Cheesy music can really cheer you up. The cheesier, the better, really. Let Destiny’s Child offer you a strong moral message while also providing a beat to dance to in your new apartment. Note that your pets will not, in fact, throw their hands up at you, even if you entreat them to do so. Technically, they are not independent women, so I suppose this makes sense.

Try to let people help you, if they’re able. You have your pride, yes, but you are only one person, and there is a lot to do. Don’t worry—divorce is really common. Surely you’ll have your chance to pay it back in some way, for someone, later on down the road.

You have to do what’s best for you, as an individual. Nothing I’m about to say trumps that. Don’t lose sight of what you need. Don’t compromise your future out of guilt or a sense of obligation. Your greatest responsibility is to yourself (along with any children you might have). The ability to look out for yourself is not something admirable or special. It is your basic duty and yours alone. There is a difference between caring and vulnerability. Focus on the former.

Don’t let anyone tell you that you’re weak if you still love your ex. Hate is weak—and, paradoxically, hate is also exhausting and consuming. If you choose to do it this way, if you choose to love, be aware that some activities, like yelling your heart out to fuck-you anthems on the radio, will lose their fun. But the ability to give your ex a heartfelt hug the next time you see them will be worth it. No one is suggesting that the two of you become golf partners, but any civility you can manage is only going to help you in the future.

Don’t let anyone shame you for maintaining a friendship with your ex. If people handled rejection better and learned to stop butthurt in its tracks before they slashed anyone’s tires, maybe they would grasp that it’s a little absurd to become mortal enemies with someone you once called your best friend. This is your life; this person was once your most important thing; the two of you are adults and may do as you please. Don’t follow social protocol just because the inability to fit the two of you into a box makes everyone else uncomfortable. They’ll get over it. Upon saying hello to the two of you at a party, they’ll also get a sort of deer-in-the-headlights look as they mentally review how the extent to which they trashed your ex to everyone you know. It’s probably a little wrong to visibly savor this, so at least try to feign ignorance.

If you left them, have some patience. That probably hurt. A lot. No one in that kind of pain can be expected to behave well all the time. Maintain your boundaries, but do it as gently as you’re able.

If they left you, think about whether you really would have wanted them to continue the relationship out of guilt or obligation. Contemplate the far-out notion that they are rejecting what happens when the two of you combine your strengths and weaknesses, not rejecting you in your entirety as a human being. Blasphemy, I know.

It takes two, of course. Be the bigger person, but grasp that you can’t keep this situation friendly by yourself. Practice due diligence, turn the other cheek, and then drag the asshole to court if that’s what you have to do. (I hope for your sake that it isn’t; I have worked at a law firm, and I can tell you with certainty that no one will win.) If your ex is hateful toward you, do your best not to escalate the situation. You would be surprised how often, if you offer the benefit of the doubt, the other person will say, “I’m sorry. I’m just feeling hurt and upset right now, and I’m not thinking clearly.” If they don’t, perhaps you failed to follow the first piece of advice in this post. Ah well. Just do what you can.

No matter how you play it, the two of you will have bad days. You had bad days when you were together, too. It happens.

Even if you wish no further contact with your ex, treating them maliciously is a waste of everyone’s time. You won’t feel better, and they won’t miraculously develop an appreciation for your side of the story. That whole maxim about the flies and the honey? Remember it. Even if you’re motivated entirely by your own self-interests, cruelty is a poor choice; it’s honestly just lousy strategy.

Don’t let anyone reduce your marriage to a mistake. People want it to have been a mistake because they have determined their own current marriages to be not-mistakes. The concept of a marriage that was doomed from the start is designed to protect them, not you; in precious few cases is it really that simple. Tell anyone who tries to wave off an entire era of your life with one dismissive gesture that you wouldn’t change a thing. It might help to point out that you used to ride around in first-class suites to places like Bangkok and New Zealand (and, in fact, thanks to a generous ex, still CAN ride around in first-class suites to places like Bangkok and New Zealand). If such privileges were not in your marriage arsenal, I assume you’ll come up with something.

If you can’t say that you wouldn’t change a thing because it’s not really true, try to get to a point where you realize that it actually is true. The past few months or years are a part of who you are. Surely you learned SOMETHING, accomplished SOMETHING, experienced SOMETHING worthwhile during that time. Don’t wish yourself away.

You could always just not say anything, of course. Don’t feel pressured to defend yourself or your marriage. People can think what they want; what you think is more important. If you have a little time, though, it would be nice if you could share some insights, if only for the benefit of the next divorcing person to come along.

Resist the temptation to reduce your own marriage to a mistake. Hindsight is not, in fact, 20/20, and I can cite research to prove it. Your demise as a couple will seem so obvious in retrospect; recognize that this is false, a cognitive trick designed to protect your ego. Celebrate what was good. Don’t cling to it, but celebrate it. Perfection is not a prerequisite for something to be real and true in its own way. Nor is longevity.

While you’re celebrating all that good, don’t forget that it ended for a reason. This stuff generally doesn’t happen on its own. People don’t get into a fight over something inconsequential, like who ate the last bagel, get carried away, and oops, they’re divorced. Rejoice the good parts all you want, but don’t forget why you’re where you are. I mean, you’re going to feel like a total jackass if you have to divorce the same person twice.

Recognize that appreciating the good will make the whole deal a little sadder. Tossing aside your emotional armor can be painful, but some wounds need to hurt longer to heal well. If you wait a little longer to climb back onto your feet, it may save you years of limping around. Hot damn, that’s profound. Write that shit down.

Feel free to claim that you were a victim from the first date onward, as long as you don’t mind having this exact same relationship over again with someone else. If you’re looking for something a little different though, if only for the sake of variety, it might be best to acknowledge your role as a willing participant in the partnership. If you married your father/mother and your father/mother sucked, or if the two of you exhibited codependent behaviors of any kind, now would be a fantastic time to look into that.

Say you’re sorry. Ask to be forgiven. Forgive the other person if you can. Forgive yourself while you’re at it.

You will feel better sooner than you think. I promise.

FOR PEOPLE WHO KNOW A DIVORCING PERSON

Say it with me: “I will not assume.”

Don’t take anything personally, even if “anything” includes nine unanswered e-mails and the forgetting of your birthday. Sorry.

Be supportive. Let them decide whether they want to talk about it. Forgive wild fluctuations in emotion and opinion. One day your divorcing friend will want to be a forest ranger! The next day, a nun! One day, your divorcing friend is totally fine, and over the whole thing! The next day, whoops, still depressed. Nod, smile, and be patient. Let them work it out.

This will probably take longer than you think it should. Don’t make a sad person feel guilty or self-indulgent for being sad after whichever calendar date you have deemed appropriate. Otherwise, remorse will bite you in the ass when it’s your turn. Lo, trust this blogger regarding that of which she speaks, for she has learned the hard way.

FOR COMPLETE STRANGERS WHO MAY BE UNFORTUNATE ENOUGH TO ENCOUNTER A DIVORCING PERSON

Sometimes people kick things in public while cursing under their breath. Try not to judge them.

FOR THE HAPPILY DIVORCED

First of all, congratulations. That certainly wasn’t easy, was it?

Invest in yourself. Think. Read. Learn. You stand at a joint in your trajectory; flex it, experiment. Take advantage; you have little to lose. If you need a little courage or inspiration, read this book. Get excited; you now have the keys to an entire realm of possibility. Who are you? Who do you want to be?

If you want to meet somebody, be somebody worth meeting. Burn that wick at both ends by following your own interests and doing something with yourself: not only will you meet people who share your common traits, but you will also care less about whether you meet someone in the first place … seeing as how you went out and got yourself a fulfilling life and all.

There’s a reason you find a relationship the moment you stop looking for one; being okay on your own is the best way to attract healthy people.

Feel free to have a whore phase. I salute you! Please use a condom, though. You aren’t in Kansas anymore, and some of the flying monkeys, while in possession of an enviable level of energy, flexibility, and skill, also have herpes. Other than that, knock yourself out. You’ll probably learn something, and if you don’t, I assure you that once or twice, something will happen that is hilarious enough to cause at least one of your girlfriends to shoot beer out of her nose.

Speaking of which, be patient with your parents. They’re adjusting too, mostly to the fact that you’re a slut.

When the REAL dating begins, take it slow. You’re in no hurry. Avoid the impatient, the aggressive. Be honest with yourself and with the other person in terms of what you can handle. If they decide they want more than you can offer, don’t take it personally, and resist the urge to make promises you can’t keep.

If you do meet someone special, via sluttery or otherwise, go back to the beginning of this post. I can’t promise it’s going to work out any better this time, but it can still be okay. In fact, it can still be better than okay. No future is certain, but the fact remains that there are still countries you haven’t visited. There is still so much to see. Enjoy your life, and do it with someone you care about, and the regret you’re so afraid of will be impossible, even if you wind up getting divorced nine times. Which … okay, you should probably try not to do that, but, you know, whatever. It’s not a contest, and it’s not the end of the world.

FOR EVERYONE

Be brave. Be kind. Take care. Good luck.

We’re still good friends. I call him now and again; when he’s in town, he stops by to visit his rabbit. Sometimes, he takes me to dinner, or we see a movie. It isn’t always a simple friendship, for obvious reasons, but it’s a real one. There is a part of what we once were that still feels deliciously true; after all, we routinely discuss how awesome it would be if we both wore this shirt to any upcoming court dates. When I told him that I had named my new cat Finito Garante (or Nito for short), he laughed rather heartily, especially for a severely allergic man who had just separated from the cat owner in question. At times during this process, I have found him wildly exasperating, and I’m sure he could say the same, but we do still care about each other, and the grim, irreverent humor that once made us such a good married couple has made us a good divorced couple as well, even now that we’re both dating other people.

It’s complicated, but the official explanation for our breakup (an explanation that we agreed upon during an emergency meeting held over pizza, a fact that still makes me perversely proud of both of us) is this: We had our problems, just like any couple. In the end, they got the better of us. We naively thought that people would accept this as long as it was delivered in a firm tone, not because they found it satisfactory but because they were astute and/or polite enough to recognize when a topic was off-limits.

We were wrong, of course.

“But … what HAPPENED?” people would press, and I guess their sense of entitlement to the most personal details of my existence shouldn’t have shocked me, but it did, over and over. As the months passed, “What happened?” quickly became my least favorite question of all time. I would receive it at insanely inopportune moments; people think nothing of asking such a question over dinner at a restaurant, for example, as if describing one of the most traumatic transitions of my life would come naturally to me between spoonfuls of mashed potatoes. Their tone would be friendly and casual; you could tell they thought nothing of it. To them, this was a blurb in a magazine, the sort of factoid that People might print under a cute little icon of a broken heart. To me, it was my entire existence. It was a suffocating, heavy medium I was dragging myself through a day at a time. I learned to sneak in a few tears while I bent to tie my shoes or while I looked down at my tea to stir it, the way one involuntarily steals a second or two of sleep in between thoughts while driving down the highway at night. It felt like leaking, like I was so full of emotions that they had no choice but to spill out around my edges occasionally. I had no idea how to explain this experience in the time it might take a server to fetch an appetizer. I didn’t really understand why I was expected to try.

For your future social reference, the only appropriate response to “I’m getting divorced” is “Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that!” The divorcing person will then say, “Thank you,” at which point the two of you will stare a bit awkwardly at one another for a beat or two as you wait for the divorcing person to guide you from there. It’s their show, you see. It’s their show, because they’re the one in pain, and that means that they get to decide what they need, and that means that what they need is far more important than your morbid curiosity. Often, at the time, what I needed was to move on from the subject altogether, which I would do, breezily and perhaps a little too rapidly. If my conversational partner was socially competent, he or she would immediately follow suit, rather than somewhat belligerently insisting that SOMETHING must have happened, or telling me how upset or betrayed or confused my divorce was making them feel, as if it was my job to console them about the demise of my own relationship.

I don’t care how close you think you are to the person in question; I don’t care how good a friend you assume yourself to be. It still never hurts to follow that protocol, just in case you’re overestimating your own importance in the scenario, or in case the divorcing person in question simply don’t feel like talking about it. Getting divorced is a lot like getting married: everyone fancies themselves deserving of an invitation. Don’t be that office acquaintance who doesn’t realize they’re just an office acquaintance, because that’s awkward for everybody involved. Even if you are a good friend, remember that this poor person has had to tell this story literally hundreds of times. Be patient; it’s not about you. (I’m thinking of my dear friend Alexa, here, and saluting her downright heroic devotion to etiquette. She is the farthest thing possible from an unwelcome guest at the divorce party; in fact, I would love nothing more than to discuss the whole thing with her at some point, if only to take advantage of her keen insight. But at the time I broke the news to her, I was too exhausted to do so. And in the months since, throughout her supportive e-mails and encouraging messages, she has never asked, not once, because that woman is classy as all hell. Watch and learn, people.)

God bless those of you who did this right; in humanity’s defense, many of you did, and you made me so grateful that I wanted to kiss you. And to those who told me they felt betrayed, that they had BELIEVED in my marriage, that they feel as if everything I’ve ever said about the love that my husband and I shared has now been invalidated: I’m sorry. I really am. All I can say is that life is not a movie, and love is not always forever, at least not in its original form. It’s a marriage, not the tooth fairy; you may believe in it if you like, but understand that there is no foolproof magic involved. Jen Mattern said it best, here: “If you are one of two happy parts loving and living together as a one, I ask you to count your blessings, to reserve judgment, and to put aside speculation about those who have lost their way. You are fortunate in what you know, and in what you do not know.” Amen. Oh God, amen.

At any rate, I’m fine now. Better than fine, even. Immediately after it happened, I was overtaken by that part of yourself that you always hope will be there, the part that pries off its shoes, flips over onto its back, and starts kicking not three seconds after you lurch unexpectedly overboard into shark-infested waters with a gasp and a splash. From there, it was just a matter of time until I came out here, where I am now, happy again. Sometimes, when I’m walking down the sidewalk, a breeze kicks up in the leaves of the trees all around me, and I catch myself smiling at nothing like a complete and total asshole, filled with a glee that I can’t explain. Or maybe I can explain it: It’s a beautiful day, and not only I am here to see it, but I can do whatever the hell I want with it. The first time since the breakup that I felt that giddy happiness for no reason at all, I was both delighted and shocked—I had honestly forgotten that such a feeling existed, the one where you feel as if the tiniest leap into the air would free you of any gravity whatsoever and you could sail up over everything like a helium balloon. After some time had passed, that feeling became a more frequent visitor. And after even more time had passed, it finally came home.

Now what? Well, I don’t know, really. I can’t promise it’ll even be interesting. But I’m ready to try this whole blogging thing again, for a while. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you forgive me for pulling that stunt where one Batman movie ends with a nice convincing love story involving Kim Basinger and then all of a sudden the next Batman movie opens and you’re all, “Wait, where the hell is Kim Basinger?” That made me rather angry when I was twelve, so I am truly sorry if I’ve inspired such ire in you as a reader. I certainly didn’t plan it that way, but I promise to redeem myself with … uh, whatever the metaphorical equivalent to Michelle Pfeiffer in a catsuit might be. (I’ll keep working on that.)

Meanwhile, welcome! I’ve missed you, friends.