Free Sleeping Solo: One Woman's Journey into Life after Marriage by Audrey Faye

An introduction of sorts.   On December 2, 2013, my marriage of
twelve years exploded.   It left little
bits of brain and heart matter all over the walls, and the certain, irrevocable
knowledge that my life had just radically changed shape forever.
    So I did what all courageous, independent, strong women do
when such things happen—I curled up into a tiny ball in a corner of my
couch and wished piteously for it to all go away.
    It didn’t, and eight months later, I don’t assume the fetal
position all that much anymore.   I’ve made peace with some of what happened and kicked some of it to the
curb.   I’ve figured out how to step
around and over marital debris without tripping every time, and learned some
new definitions for what it means to be strong and courageous.
    And because I am a writer, I feel a need to commit this
journey to the black-and-white page.
    I could have waited until I arrived at some kind of
destination to begin the writing, and I’m sure the neat-and-tidy part of my
soul would have preferred that.   But
that’s not the message that the words knocking at my door are delivering.   They’re telling me that the power lies
in speaking now, in writing now while all of this feels very immediate and real
and the frothing waters of this particular river are still flowing around my
legs.  
    I can do that because this isn’t advice.   I’m not trying to tell anyone else how
to move on after their marriage ends, gracefully or otherwise.   I’m offering up the very personal
brushstrokes of my own experience while the painting is still underway.   Partly because the words are gushing from
my fingertips, insisting on being heard.   Partly because it is exactly these intimate bits from
other travelers on the road that I most appreciate reading right now.
    And partly because what I’ve found in this stream is too
good to keep to myself.  
    On the 2nd of December, I knew only that I’d been
unceremoniously dumped out onto the road of a new journey.   I expected it to be dusty and hard and
short on food and water, a gut-wrenching endurance test that would take a long
time to wind its way to ease and peace and a modicum of happiness.
    That’s not what happened at all.
    Even as I write that sentence, I am so damn grateful.
    That’s not what
happened at all.
    There have been hard days and dusty ones, and I’ll do my
best, in this missive from the road, to speak the truth of those moments
too.   But the words clamoring at my
door aren’t the dusty ones—they’re the ones full of surprised pride in
the journey that has actually happened instead.   The ones full of abundance and purpose
and happiness and the wild, bubbling need to dance.
    Yeah.   Not what I
expected from my post-marriage apocalypse either.  
    This isn’t one of those organized tales with a purpose and a
coherent message with lots of supporting facts.   Which is ironic, because I’m actually
pretty good at writing those.
    This is a trail of little jewels hidden in the grass.   Or chocolate bread crumbs.   The nuggets that smile
at me and ask to be written, and the less polite ones that wake me up at night
and insist at their turn on the page.   Some of them are about my bed and my
kids and some are about the importance of the right word and at least one is
apparently going to be about my sex life.  
    All of them are honest, and all of them say something that
seems to matter to me as I stand here in this particular part of this
particular stream.
    There are so many of us on variations of this journey,
picking ourselves and our various battered pieces up after a crash and taking
the steps that walk us to the rest of our lives.
    And I bet I’m not the only one who is really surprised by
where those steps have gone.
    So have fun meandering through my breadcrumbs.   See if anything in the dusty bits or the
dancing ones speaks to your heart, or simply walk with me a while and enjoy the
glimpse of someone else’s