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

big
move, my marriage detonated.
    It’s hard to look at a brand-new, maybe-could-be-a-friend
person over tea and say that your life has exploded.   Especially when you’re a socially
awkward introvert who hasn’t done the best job of connecting with real, live
people in the last five years.
    But this awesome, juicy thing happened when I did.
    I made friends.   Like in an hour, deal done and sealed over tea.   Terrific, honest,
interesting friends.   I
didn’t let it all be about me and my mess of a life
(mostly!), but I didn’t hide it, either.   And the universe gifted me with a tribe.
    Of all the things that have happened in the last eight
months, this is the jazziest miracle.   And the biggest surprise, because I’m just not all that smooth and savvy
at the friend thing.  
    I’m an introvert, so I’m still moving slowly.   Some of my friendships have hit that
comfortable place where we know a fair bit of each other’s stories, and some
are three days old and counting.
    But every single one of these people is heart treasure, and
I’m ridiculously grateful.  
    The message in the cards.   My aromatherapy-massage person had a fun
afternoon gathering a few weeks back.   A bunch of cool people attended, and we got to make custom scent blends
and eat ridiculously good chocolate—and have our tarot cards read.
    By now, I don’t even blink at the woo .   I just laugh.  
    My turn for a reading came late in the afternoon, and the
woman reading the cards was moving fast and furious.   I cut the deck and she began flipping
the cards and flying through what they meant.   It was a waterfall of words, and I
didn’t catch all of them.   Stuff
about change and energy and grief and resurrection—things that made sense
and aligned with my view of where my world was at.
    And the cards held one more very strong, very consistent
message.   Sometime in the next three
months, my life would run headlong into tall, dark, handsome, and male.   Of the romantic kind.  
    My reaction was clear and instantaneous and full of
laughter.
    Nope.
    Not now.   Not any
time soon.   And
maybe not ever.
    I don’t know who those cards were
really for.   It had been a marathon
of quick readings for the woman holding the deck, and my introverted self could
recognize another inward soul approaching exhaustion.   Perhaps someone else in the room was on
a path toward romance, I don’t know.
    I just knew it wasn’t me.
    And I loved, so very much, that six months after my marriage
exploded, the reasons for my certainty were good ones.   Not because I’d been hurt, and not
because I was still working my way through the debris of my last tall, dark,
and handsome, although both those things are very true.   Not because I’d sworn off men and not
because I was born in the unlucky line when the universe was handing out
partners.
    None of those things are why I laughed, although all of them
seem like sensible responses to nuclear meltdown.   Six months ago, I might well have
decided any or all of them were pretty good places to land.
    Before my ribs started knowing things.   Before I started really breathing.   Before my soul found
its drumbeat and its dance.
    There won’t be any tall, dark, and handsome walking through
my door any day soon.
    Because I’m ready to live with me.
    I want to live
with me.
    The land of no name.   The tarot cards and my dancing were a
turning point—one that had me realizing that in a very real way, I’ve
arrived somewhere tangible and good and worth celebrating.   There was only one problem.   I didn’t have any idea what this place
was called.
    I needed a word.   I’m a writer.   Words
matter—and not having one wakes me up at night.
    “Married” was a word I took for granted, right up until it
wasn’t true anymore.   It was one of the easy adjectives that described who I was, made it simple for people to slot me into
the right country on their mental map of humanity.   It was a word I