The Spring of My Life

Every once in a while, I hear someone refer to their early adulthood as the Spring of their lives, their middle age as the Fall of their lives and aged as the Winter of their Discontent (swiped that one from Shakespeare). But the Spring of someone's life always seems to refer to when they were anywhere from eighteen to twenty-nine years old.

I am past my twenties, I won't say how far past, but those days are gone. Thank God. And I am in the Spring of my life, maybe for the first time. I'm sitting in my home, looking out over the horizon of the city, seeing green life poke its nose into Toronto. It's still cool and windy, but Spring is shyly poking it's head out of the trees and ground. Taking a look around to see if it's safe to bloom into riotous life, to see if Winter is over. The Winter of my discontent is finally over, but it took a long time for it to happen.

I think I am aging backwards, if that makes any sense. Youth brings with it so many unknowns and firsts and excitements, middle age can bring dissatisfaction to many, old age can bring despair to others. I think I started off middle aged, Fall, moved into old age, Winter, and have now moved into Spring with the possibilities of my future hanging just barely within my reach from the trees ready to bloom.

All things are possible now, freed from the restraints of the past. I have a brand-spanking new writing career, I have a new home, I have new friends, I am meeting new people, experiencing new things and, for the most part, have left the crippling shyness of my childhood and early adulthood behind. I wouldn't want to be in my twenties again. Too much confusion. Too little confidence in my own abilities.

But now, in the first Spring of my life, I know where I stand. I know myself better, understand myself better, than ever before. And although I am no Spring chicken in years, I am in my life. For the most part, I am enjoying myself and exploring the possibilities revealing themselves almost daily to me. I know what I want, what I don't want, what is possible and what is not possible for me. But the impossibilities dwindle as the days pass.  And I am made new again because of the choices I've made. Hellish choices which turned out so much better than I could ever have imagined a year and a half ago. Things that didn't happen in the past which I regretted at the time, devastated me at the time, have worked out for the best.

Would I change some of my past? Maybe. Probably. But at the same time, my past experiences have made me who I am today. And I like me, just as I am. Perfection would be boring and leave me with nothing to accomplish. I have many things I want to accomplish and in the next few years, I will achieve want I want to achieve, even if I end up taking a circuitous path to my destination. And it will still be Spring when I get to where I go. 

Whenever or where-ever that may be. 

It's Better to Have Loved and Lost than to Live with the Psycho for the Rest of Your Life

Well, it finally, FINALLY happened - yesterday, I dragged my flu-ridden body down to my mail box and, lo-and-behold, my divorce order was sitting in my cubby-hole. I've been waiting for it for what seemed forever - the para-legal said I'd have the order in three to four weeks which turned into five and a half weeks. Yes, I was counting days.

The title of this blog came from a fridge magnet that a friend of mine gave to me a few years ago before I decided to divorce my husband. Hmmmm. Apparently she knew before I did. LOL. My friend knows me pretty well, I'd say. 

It was not an easy marriage, not even in the beginning, but like so many other people, I thought I could make it work.  I made a vow to this man, which I had every intention of keeping. During the ten years we were married, the marriage deteriorated to the point where we could barely tolerate each other. It's amazing that something that started out with such hope and promise swirled down the toilet with such stunning speed. Counseling didn't save the marriage - it just clarified what I needed to do for me, in the end.

I can honestly say now that I should have left the marriage three weeks after we were married. Something happened before the marriage that I did not find out about until after the marriage. I thought I could forgive and forget, but I couldn't. I know now that I never really trusted him again. But at three weeks into marriage, the thought of divorce seemed outrageous. All that money, all that fuss, all those people who saw us take marriage vows. And I didn't want to fail in such a spectacular way - I mean, who gets divorced after three weeks unless you're a screwed up Hollywood-type?

If I had been more pragmatic and more realistic, I would have left three weeks into the marriage. I should have known myself better. I should have known that I couldn't forgive this type of betrayal. I should have tossed him out the door and let his butt bounce off the curb. Shoulda, woulda, coulda. I can do nothing about it now. I have done the only thing I could - I divorced him.  I have closed, finally, the door to that miserable period of my life.

My reaction yesterday, holding the divorce order, ran the gambit from a very few tears for what had been lost to an overwhelmingly immense sense of relief. I was OUT. It was finally OVER. And now, I have my whole life ahead of me to do with as I please.

I am myself again.

Hi, my name is Brooke. I'm pleased to meet you.