Without realizing it, I had forgotten that after my divorce was final in a few months, I would finally be single. I would no longer have to check married or separated on forms anymore. I wouldn’t sit in the doctor’s office thinking, “If I critically ill today, he can say what happens to my world.” Finally, the little black cloud with my ex’s name on would stop following me around just to remind me it could rain on my parade if it wanted to.

Yes, this seems fairly dramatic, but I was smacked in the face with the realization that I wanted to live a single life for a while. That the thought of being committed to someone else was definitely not what I wanted my next stop to be. Yet, that seems where my heart was taking me.

Pumping the brakes on something good seems so counter-intuitive. This is exactly where my brain wants to take me. It’s not like I wanna go back to my 20s and pretend life is a party. I just don’t want to be committed to anyone.

You can’t express this to your friends because they don’t understand. They immediately call it a sign from the universe that the man in my life is not good enough. That there is something wrong with him. And when I say it’s not him, it’s me. They are just like a man is in a break up start calling bullshit. Honestly, it doesn’t really bother me, except the fact that I think they are saying I don’t know myself well enough to know if it’s his fault I feel this way.

My mother once told me that it takes half as long as the length of the relationship to get over it. And what I realized that grieving a long term relationship is very hard. You have invested in someone else, loved them, supported them and given yourself to them. You can not wave a magic wand to magically be cured of the stages of grief.

What I have come to realize about marriage, separation and divorce is that there is no one way to regain your single life. Many people move from divorce to new marriages. And I say, “Yay, many happy returns.” While others are more like me, they need processing time. Despite being elated at the change in their marital status, being single means a need to be single.

Divorce is a newfound freedom I am soon going to the pleasure of enjoying. It means I can go out and kiss whomever I want. I can stay out late without interrogation. And who I am dating is my business and no one else’s.

Did anyone else have this revelation during a breakup or divorce?