“I am older now. I know the rise and gradual fall of a daily victory.”
–Poignant, Yet Pointless, Crisis of a Co-ed, Dar Williams

Beneath my high school senior yearbook portrait read my future plans, “College, Psychology, Fall in love and get married.” And so I did. What I incidentally left out of that fortune-telling was “be incredibly lonely in marriage, fight for years to get attention, give up and throw it all away in one incredibly desperate attempt to save self.”

Two years ago, after 26 years of, competing with one another for who could be more right (and therefore less happy,) who could outlast the other (refraining from affection the longest,) who could simply ignore the other (without revealing any pain it caused) my husband and I called it quits. Well, called a “time-out,” actually. A “90-Therapeutic Separation.” We had a structure set up by our therapists, how much money I’d receive to maintain my standard of living, (albeit now in a two-bedroom apartment); how often I could see the kids (I’d previously stayed home to raise); which of my high school and college friends/lovers I could keep in touch with (and who I’d be disallowed to call or text.)

It was all a naive attempt to save what was, since its inception, a doomed relationship. Because you can’t build a relationship on contract. You can’t promise to stay together and never talk, never hug, never once in over 20 years shower together…Enmeshment, sure. Entanglement, absolutely. Even the two most wonderful children ever created, absolutely. But a relationship? No. Not even close.

So that’s what landed me here. In a “temporary” separation.

Only, it’s been two years since I left. Ten months ago the divorce was finalized. And now, this nest of an apartment, with it’s high white walls and open floor plan has cradled me through my infancy of living alone, adolescence of rebounding sexual mama, to now–this fully fledged adult woman, single. And so it’s time to move on.

And that, it turns out, is why I’ve been so sad about moving into the cute, backing to trees, little townhouse, only one mile from my kids’ school. I should have been jumping for joy. But I have not been.

I realized tonight, washing dishes I never purchased, that it’s truly the end of the 90-day Therapeutic Separation. It’s really over. And, no Dorothy, I’m not going back to Kansas.

Instead I’m taking on a property, a house, leased in my name from the get-go. Filled with my belongings. My domain. The woman of the house is me. Like that time so many years ago, pregnant for the first time, when it suddenly occurred to me, “Oh, shit. I’M the MAMA.” This house, this next step is MINE. And my marriage, that other life, it really and truly is done. I am not sure what to feel. Relief? Excitement? Sadness? Terror? Yes. All of the above and more. My knees are shaky now, but they’ll learn how to steady themselves in this new terrain. I will plant basil. Hang fairy lights. I will call it home.

These two years, this apartment, has been a flash of light in a very, very dark time. I am grateful. But it’s time, not just to leave this nest and fly, but to land.