In September 2015, I began my divorce mediation and figured I’d better get a therapist. I will never forget the question she asked me when I told her I wanted to paint my new bedroom (because that’s the kind of deep thing I talk about in therapy).
“What is your favorite color?”
<ummmmmm>
My immediate thought was that she had somehow sensed my inner Monty Python fan. My rational, second thought was, How the heck should I know?
It’s easy—what do you like?
I think I sat silent for five minutes. It was the most complicated question I had ever been asked in my life.
I had been thinking of myself as a Unit Of Four for so long, that I no longer remembered the individual I had left behind at the altar 17 years prior. Did I have a favorite color? What if I figured that out, and painted my bedroom that color, and the kids didn’t like it? What if my spouse didn’t like it (super weird question)? And if those three people didn’t like it, was I even capable of liking it?
I’m too sexy for my tastes 🎶
Turns out, that color is red. Let’s agree, it’s an “interesting” color for a newly single, middle-aged woman’s bedroom, so I deployed it in a rarely used bathroom in the basement. But I used it!
I spent a lot of time trying to answer the question behind the question. Who was I, as an individual? What was my identity before, and what was it going to be now? Would that be the same? Could it be the same? Would those be two mutually exclusive identities, or would there be overlap?
Turning back time
The first thing I thought I should do was try to get a handle on who that twentysomething had been. Sure enough, the memories came back….
I had liked bright spaces, reading myself to sleep, animals, stick shifts, new things, having guy friends, and international travel. Many of these things I had attempted to hold onto for some amount of time in my marriage. Eventually, some of them seemed easier relegated to my past, and others didn’t feel compatible with keeping my spouse happy. But this was a good place to start.
Bringing back baby!
I decided I would resurrect that little cutie and try her on for size. I wasn’t sure she would still fit in my 40s (or go the way of the rest of my closet), but if she was in there I wanted to tip her a nod.
Maybe apologize for having killed her.
I did that, and the results were amazing! I’ll be sprinkling them out in the Stories and Inspiration pages for weeks to come. (If you find yourself hitting a “members-only” roadblock, it’s because I don’t think my kids need to muddle through Mom’s Journey In Moving On From Dad. Ewwww.)
All those people in there are lovely
I hope you go through your own similar journey because it is such a treasure. Rediscovering your “original” self, shaping her to account for the years of growth in between, and polishing her for the future can result in the most fascinating metamorphosis. You don’t really have to decide! You can be several people at once.
Like Sybil, or Viki from One Life to Live, or me.
Be the third you
So here’s my advice.
Take this time to unshackle yourself from the ties that bind—loosen the ones that were put on you by others, and snap off the ones you put on yourself. Now is a time for reflection, growth, and new beginnings. It’s a time for release, and a time for connection.
Today, you hold all the cards. You can be who you want to be. More importantly, you can be who you need to be.
When you find that person, you can share her with the world.
