I want to learn how to enjoy and sustain this very special and surprising friendship I have with myself; but, to understand and accept the new me, I need to learn where the old me came from.
I was brought up on a set of values, moral, and ethical rules as seen through the prism of my parents who were born in the early 20th century. The proper and the right thing to do always prefaced any decisions and/or actions in our day–to-day lives.
Whenever I was out of step from what they considered proper and right, they reminded me that I needed to get back in step or prepare for the consequences, the worst being the look of disappointment on their faces; I knew that I had messed up, and I would adjust my behavior to avoid upsetting them further.
Part of these moral values instilled in my brain, which make up part of who I am, included the moral rule that a single woman does not live alone. I never lived on my own, ever, not even with a roommate, before I married. The social mores was that a woman moved from her parent’s home to a new home with her husband – period.
So when I married my first husband, I left my parents home to live with him to our new home; our marriage lasted 9 years. After the divorce, when I suggested to my parents that I would be looking for an apartment for myself, they got sick and reminded me that a single woman does not live alone – what would people think; I moved back with my parents.
Of course, having this drummed into my head all of my life, it make sense when you are a divorced 42 years old woman. So I returned to their home. Shortly after my divorce I met my second husband. We married and like the first time, I moved from my parent’s to my new home with my second husband. To me, there was nothing unusual or odd about this course of events – from mom & dad to husband.
Last year after 15 years of marriage, my husband asked me for a divorce. This revelation took me totally by surprise, since there was no indication of trouble to come in my marriage. We had always been happy, and content with each other, we never had an argument of any significanhce the 15 years we were married. I just sat there and pondered on the fact that this man, with whom I had shared the last 15 years of my life, whom I supported and loved, could decide that he no longer wanted to be my husband.
Our entire married life together, my ex-husband took care of every aspect of the household expenses, automobiles and even our vacations and social outings.
Two months before he asked for the divorce, my mother had died. I was still grieving my mother’s death, and now I was going to unexpectedly, grieve the death o f my marriage.
I moved out of the house; as I packed my belongings to leave, I felt like the loneliest human on this planet. I had no parents, to run back to, to nurture me and affirm to me that everything would be fine; I was alone. I moved out of our home and into our condominium.
There I was, a 56 year old woman, no parents, no husband – how was I going to make it on my own?
I made a list of items I needed to take care of, such as transferring the utilities to my name, what and how many expenses I would have in a month and how far I needed to stretch my salary to pay them. I worried about my computer; I had never had to worry about it before. I worried if something went wrong with it that I wouldn’t be able to fix it. Also, how would I connect the wireless modem, would I need to pay to have a computer technician do it for me?
The priority for me was to establish a budget. I was terrified of not having enough money to support myself. I created an Excel Spreadsheet listing all monthly expenses, the monthly amount due, and the date of the month each payment was due.
I have set up all my bills to be paid online through my bank; this is the most stress free and time friendly method of paying bills. I don’t need to worry about stamps or envelopes or due dates.
My self-esteem went the way of the marriage. I blamed myself that the marriage ended because I was unattractive because I was fat. I wanted to do something about getting it back and feeling happy about my body. I knew I had to lose weight, because at 5’2” and 196 lbs., I felt like a billiard ball – round and fat.
I had been suffering with joint pain, I had already had knee surgery, and I felt fatigue and had allergies. I wanted to lose weight as quickly as possible, because I knew that this would help me to survive the pain I felt and I thought that it would make me feel better about myself.
The first thing I did was go to the internet and search for celebrity weight loss secrets. I found many sites that offered a good selection of hits to choose from. I chose many sites and read through all the articles from doctors to personal trainers and nutritionists.
I found articles which emphasized on portion control as an essential element in weight loss. I also learned that many of the foods I was eating had to be eliminated; these foods are not good for the body to assimilate and turn into energy, instead the body turns it into fat. These nutritionists and trainers suggested that a good multivitamin was necessary to maintain good health and the underlying message in almost all articles was to increase water intake.
Along with the research on the various diets to boost my self-esteem, I also researched articles that informed me on how to love myself and that it wasn’t my fault. I read a philosophy book that I have; I concentrated on trust and self-realization for my life. There was a chapter that was very helpful that talked about self-determination and how it was up to me to decide how I was going to handle my situation to bring about the best outcome in the end.
I learned through reading these chapters that I was in control of my destiny as far as how much power I would give the negative forces working against me. I decided that I would give them no power at all. I cannot name the sites I visited because I was distraught at the time and I just wrote done some sentences here and there for future reference in my journal, but I know that all the different articles combined were a great help in my emotional recovery. I can only remember a small bit of information I read online by Tony Robbins called The Edge and a book I purchased called The Purpose Driven Life by Pastor Warren.
When it came time to install the modem, I called my service provider and they talked me through the set up process and everything turned out right; I did it on my own.
I have used the information for losing the excess weight and feeling better about my health. I started by following the suggestions I had read about cutting down on the bad foods and I increased my intake of good foods, such as vegetables, fruits and salads. I substituted refined sugar for raw or unrefined sugar. I eliminated all white starches and replaced them with whole wheat and whole grain starches, and reduced my intake of fats. I ate more chicken, turkey, and fish and reduced the amount of beef to only twice a week and increased the amount of water to eight glasses a day. I take a multivitamin every morning along with other nutritional supplements.
The articles I read on weight loss suggested that along with changing my eating habits, exercise also had to be incorporated into the mix. Being Cuban, I love to dance and salsa is the dance I love the most, along with merengue and the Caribbean Latin dances. I had not been dancing in so many years, that I knew I would need to take some dance lessons. I searched through the internet for salsa lessons in my area; I found a school and enrolled to take lessons three times a week.
Taking dance lessons not only helped me to brush up on my dance moves, I also received two bonuses: I made new friends and it was a great form of exercise. A few months after starting the salsa lessons, Zumba classes were offered at my job and I enrolled and took the six weeks offered.
I noticed that the weight started to come off, gradually, and as the weeks and months passed, people started to comment on how good I was looking. At the end of seven months, I had lost 59 lbs. I went from a Size 16/18 to a size 6/8. I could not believe how beautiful and petite I looked without that excess weight. I am now at my ideal weight, and have a great feeling of satisfaction that I was able to accomplish this. The combination of exercise and good eating habits paid off.
I discovered Facebook through my best friend. She suggested that I open an account and play Farmville, she told me that this would help me through those lonely nights; I did, and I have been playing Farmville ever since; Facebook and Farmville saved my life. I have made many, many friends through Facebook, and enjoy commenting on their walls and reading the myriad of information they post.
I commented to my friend that I had a Facebook friend who had a blog, which I visited regularly, and how I wished I could have a blog too to post my writings and share them with people. She suggested I create my own blog; it never occurred to me that I could do the same. That night, as soon as I was home, I logged in the internet and typed, “How do I create a blog;” bam, the information came up immediately and all I had to do was follow the instructions. Within minutes I had my very own blog. I can’t describe my feeling of elation when I posted my very first poem and saw there – in print – my poem! I spend the rest of that day posting all my writings. Now, I have a place to post my writings and share them; people from all over the world visit my blog.
I have been on my own for almost a year. I have maintained my dignity through it all, even through the toughest times. I learned how to shake off my sorrow and enjoy myself. I thank God for all my wonderful friends who have made this year unforgettable and a wild ride of emotions. My greatest desire is that I have made a positive impact on at least one of them because of what I learned this year. I want to leave behind all the painful memories of this past year and look forward to the unexpected experiences of this New Year.
My greatest and toughest achievement of all, was making friends with a wonderful, awesome, strong and beautiful woman – ME.
