Patterns

She looks up online bachelor’s degrees again. Wonders if now would be a good time. Remembers it costs money. She doesn’t know what she would like to do. She hasn’t wanted anything badly enough to go through the trouble. What career would make her feel more alive? She doesn’t know and she doesn’t want to pick one at random. She knows even if it happened, even if she finished a degree, she would still feel unworthy. The wrong degree picked. Anyone could do it. What does it matter? Perhaps business. It would be helpful if she wanted to advance in management at her current employer. Everything feels far away. In two days it will be 8 years since her divorce was final. 8 years matches the amount of time she was married. And yet the healing feels incomplete. How do others move on? Do they ignore their feelings and gut to settle down with someone because they are afraid of being alone? Are they better at healing and ready to form healthy relationships? Are they better at ignoring things that bother them and more able to adapt? The time change is always tough for her. Today is the first day of spring and it might as well be the darkest day of winter. She can tell she has gained weight. She can feel it in her clothes. She feels unattractive and hopeless. But better days will come. They have before and they will again. She believes it is still possible to meet a companion organically. The odds are slim but the odds were slim when her husband took her daughter, the house, her sanity. The odds were slim when she applied for the jobs that taught her lessons instead of providing comfort and security. The odds were slim when she made an offer on the house and even slimmer qualifying for the loan. The odds have always been slim yet she has carried on. There are still good days to be had. And while she waits she will have hope and remember the times she thought were the end, how they were beginnings.