I got divorced on a day just like today in January of 2005 - four years ago this month. The divorce was really the final step in a really long, agonizing process that began about four months earlier. I think that is what made it so difficult is that it really was the last step and was so final. I woke up that morning and went for my first walk ever - not sure what prompted me to do that. I just needed to get out and get some fresh air. I needed to think about what was going on in my life. As I walked, I looked at the flowers, noticed things about the trail that I drove by every day but had never really seen. And I thought of a quote that I loved but had never really had any meaning until that day...
"How sweet the roadside flowers would be, if they did not mean goodbye to you old friend."
After my walk, I got really dressed up - as if to say - look what you will be missing. I drove to the divorce place - the place where all the non-magic happens. It was a small office in Orange located on the second floor of a two-story building. The bottom floor was a paintball store. Derek and I had decided to meet there and sign the paperwork together. I actually insisted that we do it that way. Mostly because I really just wanted to see him one last time. And because I wanted him to see the pain this whole process had caused.
Signing divorce papers is like someone handing you a paper that says "I screwed up" with a big x at the bottom. It felt like that then and in so many ways, it still does. I don't remember much about the process exept that I asked for tissue becaue I was crying and they didn't have any. I remember being so shocked that a place that specialized in divorce paperwork wouldn't have tissues. Like I was the first person who had ever cried there. In my mind, they should have it set up and stocked with things to make you feel better - like tissues, and chocolate, and cute single men who wouldn't break your heart. They had none of these things.
Four years later, in my new life with my amazing fiancee, it is not every day that I think about things like this. But I still do, and it still stings. Not the way it did then, but in the way that this was my life, and I have scars from my past.
As I was walking today, I thought about it and reflected a little. Four years later, I have the scars. I also have my walks which I have been taking ever since that day. And I still stop and smell the flowers, or at least notice them.
So, when people ask when Tim and I are getting married, this is why I don't have a date planned. Or at least part of the reason. I love Tim and want to get married again. I really do. But it is difficult to jump in - again - knowing what the first time looked like. It is also challenging because Tim wants a big wedding and well, that is traumatic for me too, for obvious reasons. Instead, when people ask, so I don't have to expose my poor struggles to the world, I say "Oh, we've just been so busy."
Listening to Big Band music and humming along. 
Homemade beef stroganoff was just the icing on the cake.
As I was hanging it (and consequently admiring it), I could hear my neighbor's son and his girlfriend having a break up talk. She said she needed space and that she was having a hard time trusting people. Not that I was listening or anything.
And when I watched the inauguration today, I cried two times. Once when I saw the soldiers marching in tune to "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and felt so connected to my country's history and so proud to be an American. And once watching Michelle Obama look at her husband with wonder as they danced. As though, their lives and their hopes had come to full fruition in that instant. 
Who wouldn't be proud to be an American on such a day as this.
And remembered that his fiancee loves herself a good dessert. So, this is all mine. 
and then run those slimy old skins down your garbage disposal, right?
2. Then pour a bottle of this down there
3. Run some hot water.
After my walk, I got really dressed up - as if to say - look what you will be missing. I drove to the divorce place - the place where all the non-magic happens. It was a small office in Orange located on the second floor of a two-story building. The bottom floor was a paintball store. Derek and I had decided to meet there and sign the paperwork together. I actually insisted that we do it that way. Mostly because I really just wanted to see him one last time. And because I wanted him to see the pain this whole process had caused.
So, this is mine. I took this picture when Tim and I visited Boston last year. He is a lifelong Boston fan and had never been to Fenway. It was a really fun evening (even though Boston lost). I loved this picture so much that I had it blown up in black and white and framed it for Tim for Christmas last year. I love the way the sun sort of glows through the windows - it looks so cool in black and white. 
I am saying NO - to over doing, to putting so much into things that don't give much back, to saying yes to things that I really don't feel much like doing. For example, on New Year's Eve, we went to a party and everyone was asked to bring an appetizer. Kristin in 2008 would have made something fancy from scratch and expended a lot of time and energy. Kristin in 2009 ordered some take out from a local restaurant and put it on a pretty platter. No one noticed that I hadn't labored over the food and it saved me time and trouble. Amazing, isn't it? I feel really relieved by not putting so much pressure on myself.
