Day One. Probably actually something like day eighty-something, but it's the first day I'm blogging. After the Fall refers to "The Big D - and I don't mean Dallas" watch as the great middle American Marriage transforms into the newer, more creative life of a divorce with two kids. Like magic - don't look now but the earth is shifting under your feet! So, perhaps I thought that I knew what to expect of my life. Perhaps I created a nice neat and tidy plan a long time ago that ended in an RV somewhere in Arizona with a short guy, some retirement funds, and a little dog. Well, I was wrong. I was so very very wrong. Not only did I never want the little dog, but that wasn't the guy I wanted to retire with. Some of the finer gems: since moving out he stopped by the other morning to drive the kids to school and handed me his stinky spandex shorts and said "When I have spinning class, I can only really wear these once, are you doing laundry? Could you throw these in?"

And, by the way, how ios it that I went from no therapist to four of them? There is my individual, our couples, the consultant, and now the family. That's right, I now have four professionals looking me in th eye and asking, "how the hell did you end up with him?"

Granted, he wants to do the right thing. He wants to take be present and take care of the kids, and be at the teacher conferences, and pay the bills, and point out what needs to be cleaned, and then go on vacation with his girlfriend. He actually complaine dto me th eother day about how he was struggling with having commitments to two women, and he meant his girlfriend and our daughter. Needless to say, I just smiled and nodded. Let me point out, this blog, this last five minutes of ranting, that's my "boyfriend". This is it folks. It's me, learning to take care of me, and learning that it's OK for someone to be angry at me, and it's OK for me NOT to try and make it up to them.

So I'll have my beer, eat my tortilla chips and watch a movie.