Freedom.  I began this blog about four years after my life led me to an unexpected divorce in my early 40’s with three teenage kids.  Fast forward eight years, after first receiving that “bowl of lemons”…and here’s where I am now.  I am free.  Once I begun turning my “lemons into wine”…I began to actually look forward to the day when my alimony would end – the last piece of financial manipulation and control my ex-husband had over my life, and the choices I made with it.  I installed a countdown app on my phone, and would look at it every so often to remind myself that ..read more

I am blessed to have three “best” girl friends in my life.  My first “best” friend came into my life when we were just two years old.  We lived in the same townhouse complex and she’s the one in all of my childhood birthday party pictures and the one by my side each year in our Halloween pictures; showing off our homemade costumes.  We are as different as two people could be, but I know that if I needed her for anything…she would be there.  When you’ve known someone for over forty years, there is a comfort in the knowledge that they’ve been through all of your seasons with ..read more

People used to look at me strangely when I would describe my life as “BD” and “AD” – as in before my divorce and after.  There are certain things that I come across in my head…and that’s how I classify them in my memory.  Whether it’s a recollection of an event, or a person, or some other milestone in my life…my life has forever been divided into the before and after. I just heard someone on a tv show refer to the same thing in reference to a childhood friend dying and how all of his memories and experiences from that point forward were divided into before his friend died, and after ..read more

It’s difficult to explain the feelings of panic that can overtake you out of nowhere once you’ve been a victim of a narcissist.  Just the mention of their name in reference to you or a loved one can instantly create a pit in your stomach while your brain tries to quickly calculate the actual risk level of the situation. My son tried to call me the other day from college while I was on a Zoom call.  When I hit the auto response that “I can’t talk now – can I call you later”…I immediately got a text saying “Yes.  But please call it’s important!”  That’s never a good sign, but ..read more

I will be the first to admit that I am not political.  I’m really not sure why.  I guess part of it is that I don’t like to express an opinion on something unless I genuinely understand it well…and there’s so much to politics and history – that I don’t think I could ever claim to be an expert on the topic. So…I’ve watched the unfolding of these past few political years from the sidelines.  I had my opinions (of course), but given my job, it would have been unwise for me to profess them publicly, anyways.  No matter which side I am on, there are bound to be clients on the o ..read more

It’s funny how words can have so much meaning built into them to some, yet to others, those same words can be just what they are, at face value. Last week I went to lunch with my significant other and three of his sisters, for one of their birthdays.  Immediately upon our being seated, my SO brought out a document and a pen and explained that he needed two of his sisters to sign it. What was the document?  It was a “Power of Attorney” for him, should something happen to him, and he became unable to act on his own. To the couple of people that I’ve told this story to, they are immedi ..read more

Seventeen.  A number I both fear and await anxiously with each passing day.  Seventeen is the number of alimony payments left before my ex-husband’s financial obligation to me is finished.  At the end of that time, I will no longer be tied to him with my finances, nor restricted by the covenants attached to those payments. Part of me is terrified for that day to come.  For the first time in forty-eight years, I will be solely responsible for my financial well-being and survival.  I will need to cover each of my monthly expenses with my savings or commissions that I br ..read more

Parents who have never raised a child struggling with mental health issues really have no idea the magnitude of how even a small challenge affects the whole family’s life. Combine this with the fact that it’s still considered “taboo” to talk about people’s mental health, as if unlike a physical ailment, it is somehow a character flaw or something that can be prevented, and it surrounds the family with an exhausting and lonely aura. My younger daughter has suffered from various mental health issues since she was about thirteen years old.  The fact that many of them coincided with her narci ..read more

My ex-husband’s childhood home is on the market.  Given that we started dating when I was 17, I spent a lot of time there over the years.  During high school and college, his mom was always making holiday meals or baking m&m cookies for us to eat or take back to school with us.  My ex used to trade them with the girls at his school, so they’d do his laundry.  (In hindsight, I guess his personality was transactional, even back then).  I used to love spending time at their house, though.  He had a brother just a year younger than me, so the house was always fill ..read more

One of my high school girlfriends just filed a suit against our school district for their role in her underage “relationship” with one of our teachers.  It was in our local paper with their yearbook pictures.  Facebook is abuzz with comments from parents in our community and those that went to school with me who were shocked to hear the news. I knew about the affair as an adult.  My girlfriend and I had lost touch after high school, but one of us reached out to the other years ago, and I remember a long conversation where she explained a lot about what had happened.  For so ..read more