Possibility

I think I'm reverse aging.

Getting divorced is enough to give anyone gray hair, it's true, but it also makes me feel surprisingly young.  I feel an awful lot right now like I did in my early 20s as I was graduating college, trying to establish a career and looking for a mate.  Only now I'm divorcing, trying to establish a career, and looking for a mate (sort of).

Right now, the future is very uncertain, and while that could age me a couple of decades (and on some days it seems to), mostly it makes feel young, in ways good and bad.  I feel like I'm on the edge of a giant precipice, and while I know I could fall and break on the rocks below, I feel certain that I could also fly and see new worlds.  It's terrifying and exhilerating.  I've already taken the leap of faith that good things are ahead: I did that when I asked for a divorce, uncertain as to my own ability to withstand singledom, uncertain as to its effects on Katherine, and utterly lacking in the career department.  So far, two of three have sprouted wings....and the career is happening, albeit slower than I'd wish.

Anything is possible.  And just like when I was 23, it seems that the world is at my feet, and that there are grand adventures possible.  I could learn a foreign language, I could travel the world, I could write a book, I could make pottery, I could meet The One, and I could have the beautiful life I always dreamed of.  At 23, I refused to believe any differently, and I was determined to make my dreams come true.  By 40, it all seemed flat....but not much later, and it all seems possible again.

I'm getting a do-over, and I like it.

It's funny how divorce has changed some of the little things in my life.  When we started to divide up furniture into his and mine, I suddenly realized that I didn't like the straight, heavy lines of the furniture that we had purchased together - it was his style, not mine, and I liked curvy graceful lines.  Suddenly, I am eating vegetarian food three quarters of the time, instead of the meat heavy diet we'd shared due to his preference.  I'm spending more time on my self care like make-up, because he's not saying "what's the point of that?" behind me, or rushing me out of the bathroom.

But little things add up, and little things make big things. I like the way the house looks better than I did.  I like the way I look better than I did.  My body feels healthier.

So all that stuff adds up to reverse aging.  It comes at a high cost - gone is certainty, gone is stability(such as it was!).  But in its place is possibility and hope, and how I have missed living a life so full of possibility and hope!  I literally feel younger than I did, and I like that feeling, even with all of its uncomfortableness.