Over the years, I've talked a little bit here and there about getting divorced. Most people didn't know what was going on, almost until it was over. But it was about 20 years ago that we initially split. That started off a chain reaction of events that eventually led me to remarry, have a child, and move across the country to work for a company that I never thought I'd work for. Stephanie and I are still friends, and I'm grateful for that. The reasons it didn't work out aren't that important to anyone other than us. I will tell you my story, the short version at least, of how things went after that.
I was a total mess for awhile, though I didn't really let on about it. There's just one blog post that implies something bad happened. I was very immature for my age, and I also had several bona fide autism meltdowns, though I didn't know what that looked like at the time. I had just started a contract job that was very flexible, my book just came out, I was coaching volleyball and the sites actually made enough money that I could kind of wing it. Heck, most of the previous year I didn't even work outside of writing the book. Volleyball was the thing that provided the most purpose.
We were doing counseling, but as was the case in my high school and college days, I didn't really know anything about getting into or maintaining a relationship. I was still of the mind that you met someone, made out with them a bit, and she was your girlfriend in a super committed relationship. That's why I was single so much. Later in the year, I got into a separate relationship that was complicated, but it did show me that an attractive woman could be interested in me. That fall I coached high school volleyball, lost a lot of weight and had moments of positivity and independence that I never had before. I don't think I had a choice.
The next year I met Catherine, and I learned from her about how you ease into a relationship. I wasn't proactive, but fortunately she was. We were a strange pairing at first, different in a lot of ways. She was so much more social than I was, whereas I found being that social level to be exhausting. (Again, wish I understood all of this sooner!) I was ready to really dive in, so I asked her to go to Vegas with me right after the divorce was final. Going on a trip with someone reveals a ton about how compatible you are. It was an epic vacation, I'm sure in part because of the newness of it. But we were all-in, with gratuitous PDA and such. I figured out what dating was supposed to be like.
We spent almost a year together, and when we did split, it was not overly dramatic. I think the bottom line is that dating someone in vet/med school is destined to fail, something they even warned her about in orientation. Fortunately, we stayed friends, and now our families vacation together. She helped me reset, and I learned a ton about relationships just by dating her.
After we split (well, mostly, aside from still more mini-trips), I got into a rhythm of dating. A lot. The Internet made it easy to meet people, and I went through a period of time where I think I was going on one date per week. I understood what wasn't working for me, and for the first time in my life declined further dates. It was during this time that I had my one and only one-night stand, which was one of the most bizarre things I've ever experienced. That's probably not a story suitable for a blog post!
Then, a little more than two years after the big split, I met Diana. We were married in under two years, pregnant right after that, and moved to Seattle six months into marriage, all during a serious recession. That period of change was intense, but frankly I needed it. It wasn't that Cleveland sucked, but I definitely needed to get beyond it. Everything has felt mostly fluid since then, in mostly good ways. But after a decade of kind of wandering around without a lot of deliberate direction, the split necessarily triggered a maturing process that I didn't know I needed.
This is where people say things like, "I wouldn't change a thing," and I kind of think that's nonsense. Yes, I am happy about the outcomes, but if I could have the same outcomes without a lot of the pain, hell yes I would accept that situation. The split was only one source of pain. I realized a lot of things about people I thought would be looking out for me that did not even acknowledge what I was going through. I struggled in a lot of ways that had less to do with the failed marriage and more to do with how inexperienced I was in important life stuff. And my therapist at the time was pretty shitty, now that I look back at it.
I can't believe how much time has passed. I could not have imagined any of the current aspects of my life. If this is how it goes for everyone, I have to imagine a lot of Type-A people being borderline suicidal. How do you arrive at a life you couldn't imagine but are so happy to have? I'm not going to pretend to know what things will look like 20 years from now. It'll be wrong.
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