The Weekend Assignment is posted each Friday at Outpost Mâvarin; a roundup of responses goes up the following Thursday, so if you’d like to join in, you’ve still got some time. Karen says: Don’t worry if you don’t get your entry in by the end of the weekend. It’s called the Weekend Assignment because John Scalzi originally designed it to give folks something to write on weekends, but times have changed since then. Now the meme is launched on Thursday nights / Friday mornings, just a little later than Scalzi used to post it, and you have a whole week to respond. Still, I for one am grateful if you don’t all wait until the last minute!

Weekend Assignment #214: Sooner or later, pretty much everyone makes one or more major changes in their lives, sometimes several at once. We leave home, go off to college, get married, get divorced, change jobs, change careers, have kids, move to another house or another state, etc., etc. These things can be very stressful, but we do them in the hope of being better off in some way. Tell us of one change you voluntarily made in your life at some point, that worked out really well.

I’ve done the “several major changes at once” thing – sometimes you just have to go for broke, I guess. Sometimes that’s what it takes to keep it together.

Within a six-month period in 2002, I got divorced, moved to another house and another state, and changed jobs (couldn’t commute to the old one from 1800 miles away, and that’s a shame, because the job I left is still my favorite one). In a way, I also left home for the first time – at the age of 38. Having gotten married while still in university, and stayed in my parents’ house with my (first) husband (and baby) until he and I both finished our undergrad degrees and left for him to start graduate school, I had never really lived on my own. And while I was preparing for all this, my son graduated from high school and prepared to go away (in the opposite direction) to university himself – our nest didn’t just empty, it fell out of the tree and broke.

I wasn’t the one who originated the divorce, but once it became inevitable, I knew that the best thing I could do for myself in the aftermath was to get out of Dodge. I had been with my husband since we were eighteen, and the city where we’d landed and lived for ten years isn’t that big; I really wasn’t prepared for running into him (and his girlfriend, now Wife 2.0) in the grocery store while trying to get used to being on my own. Besides, we were still in frequent contact and had our son; the temptation to call on him first when I hit rough spots would be too strong if he were nearby.

Our son was already accepted to university on the other side of the state, but who knew where he’d be once he finished school? Meanwhile, the rest of my family was on the West Coast, so if I were going to pick up and move, that seemed the most logical place – at least I’d have some support system there. I was at a good point career-wise and reasonably confident I’d find work; I had some money in the bank; and I was bringing my dog with me, which would help me get out of myself (and out of the house) in my new setting.

The first couple of years after my move were challenging. I didn’t do much besides work and commute, and I probably spent too much time on my own; but I did a lot of reading, I made some new friends, and I bonded with my nephews. I turned 40, I lost 20 pounds, and I eventually went into therapy. (I wish I had discovered blogging during that time, but it was an unknown for me back then.) But no matter how difficult it got, I rarely questioned that uprooting myself had been the right thing for me to do; and although I can’t know definitely, I still believe that it would have been a much tougher time if I hadn’t moved.

Supposedly, two years is a benchmark for recovery from a divorce…it took me a bit longer to feel ready to move on, but eventually it happened. It took the understanding that the feelings that I had come to accept as my “new normal” really weren’t so normal, and acting on that understanding in therapy, before it could, though – and that was effectively a fresh start on my fresh start. That one paved the way for one more new beginning, and so far that’s been a much better story…but if I hadn’t made that original reboot six years ago, I wouldn’t be where I am now, and I don’t regret it.

Extra Credit: Tell us of a little tiny change that also went well!

After reading some advice on caring for curly hair, I started applying conditioner both before and after the shampoo, and also cut back on the amount of shampoo I used in the first place. It really has been good for my hair.

Subscribe to Blog via Email