"There are so many variables in the coming months that I don't know what to hope for, so I'm just hoping for luck," I said to a friend. Thinking out loud works well for me.
Possibilities are swirling around. Will I get into a grad program? Will my daughter M.? Where will each of us go? If I do get in and have to move out of L.A., how will the man who loves me and I sustain our love affair? Will M. need to live here in my house if she goes to grad school in southern California? If not, should I sell this place even if the market is still in a downturn? Should I buy a tiny place or a bigger place in a cheaper area with more room for my adult children and their families so we can all get together a bit more comfortably, and so my mom could move in with me if she wants/ needs too.  These are, I realize, "problems of the 1%," but they're big decisions nonetheless.

In a way, I want to leave this house. The house where the dogs shook in my arms for hours after the move. Where I couldn't sleep for days. Where I stood at the kitchen counter depositing the anti-depressants into what my daughter C. called the "old lady" pillbox because otherwise I was never sure I'd taken my pill. But it's also the house where I healed, where I sat on my couch in the candlelight with a man I barely knew and began to feel something in my chest other than ache.

I picture my little car crammed with books driving off to a new abode, but will it be temporary or permanent?

Well...everything is temporary. 


I love fresh starts. It's a new year, and with the last loose ends of the divorce being trimmed away one by one, all this possibility seems lucky.

Tomorrow, 41/2 years after my marriage ended, I will close the joint checking accounts. There's money in there, but not mine. I will have the bank make out a check to The Someone. I will arrange a meeting and give it to him. Another loose end gone.