Moving Out, Moving On

I wrote this essay for a previous blog many years ago and am sharing the edited version here.

I.

I sit on a box the movers set down at my new apartment. One of them tells me, “Why are you so sad? Your life’s just beginning! I’m divorced, and my life is the happiest ever. Yours will be, too.”

I wonder if he is on crack. Happiest ever? I will never be happy again.

I’m also upset that the movers know too much about me. Ideally, I wouldn’t have told them my personal business, but they did wonder at the condominium I own with my husband why I was moving only half the furniture out. So I spilled the beans about my husband and me splitting up.

A neighbor had watched the movers load my few possessions onto their truck. She finally came up to me and asked what was going on. I said confidently, “I’m leaving my husband.” I’ve heard the fights between her and her husband in the condo next door, so I know all is not well in their relationship. She looked at me with admiration and hope and said, “Maybe I should leave my husband, too.”

She is 80 years old.

After the movers leave, I sit on my couch in shock, but I know I had to leave such an unhealthy marriage. A relationship that grew even more dysfunctional with my breast cancer diagnosis and treatment. My husband did not support me, and I went to medical appointments and treatments alone. He refused to work while I struggled working two jobs while on chemotherapy and radiation simultaneously. And he would remind me, as the treatments made me ill, that he didn’t feel sorry for me.

Within only two years, I reflect, I’ve endured breast cancer and the end of my marriage to the only man I thought I had ever loved.

Adapting to single life is rough. I cry whenever I’m in a grocery store because I know I’m cooking for one. I usually settle for a dinner of Doritos. In fact, I’m not eating healthy at all, opting for fast food, junk food, and anything-but-real food.

I justify my poor food choices by telling myself I got cancer despite a healthy diet, so I might as well throw caution to the wind and eat unhealthy foods now.

I watch a lot of television to escape from the reality that is my life. Everywhere I go, I see reminders of what I once had. Couples walking hand in hand. Elderly couples that remind me that I won’t be growing old with my soon-to-be ex-husband.

I feel like a failure. Divorce is a failed marriage, I reason, and is a type of death. I mourn the man I fell in love with -- though he stopped existing long ago.

II.

Eventually, self-pity gives way to edges of happiness. My friends keep me so busy on weekends, I have much less time to feel sorry for myself. Despite being a proud introvert, I become a bonafide social butterfly, something I need during this lonely period of my life. I’m making new friends and am starting, little by little, to host dinner parties. On weekends, I stay out with friends until the wee hours of the morning.

I am finally learning how to take care of myself.

My friends take me clothing shopping, a foreign concept to me. When I was married, there was no time nor money to purchase clothing. My Aunt Helene would essentially buy me a beautiful wardrobe. Now, for the first time in a long time, I start noticing things like nice shoes, nice clothing, nice purses. Oh, and the beautiful jewelry. I start getting massages regularly. I am eating healthy again. I am exercising regularly and feel great. When I was with my husband, the world seemed painted in black, gray, and white. Now I’m seeing the world in color.

My interest in art is reborn. When I was married, my husband wouldn’t allow me to oil paint. He threw out all my paintings when I wasn’t home. He forgot I was an artist. And, even worse, I forgot.

I hang out at the local Hobby Lobby shop and buy oil paints and canvases. I don’t know what I’m doing, but all of a sudden I’m painting novice apples, vases, flowers, cups and saucers. I grow hungrier for art. And, then, I begin taking oil painting classes and paint several times a week.

I’m taking care of my physical and spiritual needs.

To this day, I wish I had that kind mover’s phone number, so I could tell him that I, too, am experiencing the happiest life ever.

Art

This week I realized that I needed to get out of my comfort zone artwise. Having oil painted for over 20 years, this kind of art is most familiar to me. However, I decided that I should do a watercolor exercise this week, and chose cherries (below) as my subject. Last time I watercolored, I created grapes and now cherries. It’s not because I favor fruit as my subject, but I’m still struggling with watercolor flowers and entire landscapes. One of these days, after a few deep breaths, I will attempt a watercolor landscape.