www.novemberjuliet.com

I like to think I’m the same me, but I know I’m not. I know I am not, because there is only one constant thing in this entire universe, and that is not me. I change. Not dramatically, but enough to know that there are lots of things about me that are flowing, shaping, moving … the physical things seem to go south as my intellect goes north, burden of age, time, and childbirth, but that really is besides the point! The person I was six years ago on my wedding day has many things in common with the person I am now. I like to think of her as a foundation, a root form. She had a lot of hopes and dreams. The one’s she had for herself are largely the same - law school, writing, saving the world, being and living happily. The one’s she had for her family, her partner, the children she won’t have with him, they are sadly gone. Where do dreams go when they go?

The eighties seemed to be a period of personal redefinition. Remember how many times Madonna modified herself - she went from trampy almost-punk to svelte dance phenom with a few variations in between. I know there are times in my life when I sought to actively redefine myself. I recall starting every year of university off the same way - seated keen and sharp in the very front row hoping that my presence, my posture, my attentiveness would give off the air of smartness. It generally lasted a week before I realized I would have far more fun a few rows back - the quest for higher learning should never get in the way of fun. Nerdification is my only solid recollection at a deliberate attempt to redefine myself. It was too much effort really.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time in university - I don’t know why exactly. It was run very much like an elite private school, and as a chronic over-achiever, the institution was a pretty good fit. It was the perfect blend of structure and repetition - once I mastered the pattern, I could get away with doing the minimum and still stand-out. I graduated very confident in my abilities and secure in myself. I don’t know when that changed … it may have started well before university, well before my wedding day, but somehow, someway, one day I discovered that I sucked. Nothing seemed to work, everything seemed hard, and nobody seemed to understand me. Every conversation was either awkward or superficial. I misunderstood. I felt misunderstood. I felt like a foreigner in my own life. I didn’t notice it happening. Things happened. Suddenly there were walls all around and closing in, and I was in a dark dark place. I made many bad choices in the dark, and those choices cost me my marriage and gained me myself. Many have said in comfort that bad choices only cost a marriage that is already lost. Who knows. I wanted to be my husband’s friend, I really wanted him to like me, I really wanted to be able to tell him anything and everything … even the scary things. I couldn’t tell him the scary things, and yet I think he was always a little bit scared of me, scared of me being unwell, scared of his inability to fix me. He couldn’t understand me and just wanted me to be a certain way, I’m not sure what way exactly … I wish I had known what way exactly.

I left first. I was not right. Not rational. Departing, I shaped my actions and conversations in a way that would show him I was strong, good, solid, and considerate of him and what was right for his life, his future. I gave him everything just so he couldn’t take it. I was really really incredibly stupid. I was lost. I had mistaken him for someone different, I suppose just the same as he had done of me. Who knows why this happens. It just does. In some ways it feels like a lifetime ago, and in others it’s a blip. The transformation over the past year seems drastic in many ways - comparing how I feel now to how I felt then is overwhelming. That person, she is the foreigner. Hindsight.

A year ago I would not have thought that I would ever return to my maiden name. On some level I think I craved and longed for my husband to rescue me, for him to see me as his damsel in distress - his wounds were deep though, and he went a different direction. I won’t deny my anger, my sadness, nor my regret. I also can’t deny that it has happened. Divorce is imminent. I never sought to re-define myself, it just sort of happened … wounds I had hidden, wounds I didn’t realize I even had were exposed, dealt with, healed. I got to the bottom of it, to the bottom of me … one day I woke up and realized I was ready. Ready to be completely alone, single, just me. It only seemed fitting to go back, back to the name I started with, not as a redefinition, but just as a fresh start. Still me … but refreshed.