I Had Sworn Off Love After A Brutal Divorce. An Unexpected DM Changed Everything

The useful part

"Are you going to start dating soon, or what?" Chris and I leaned against our still-hot cars in the school pickup line. "Tien's fully back on the horse," she said of our mutual friend whose divorce unleashed a wildness in her. "Anyway, I have no time for that nonsense." "Everyone has time for that nonsense," she yelled.

How it works

• How could I possibly engage in a new relationship when I didn't trust my own judgment – when I no longer knew where I was in space?
• While it's true that time was tight, my unwillingness to even consider dating again was about something deeper, and I knew it.
• He had been part of the architecture of my life, and when his infidelities were revealed through the divorce process, I lost trust in everything, including myself.
• When I threw a one and a half pike, I'd brush my toes against the end of the board on my way into the water.
• I start my approach, but as I near the end, the board warps toward the water.

What to take from it

Around the time of that parking lot conversation, I went to a memorial for an old high school friend. During the program, a classmate sang a song he'd written about our mutual friend, som...

Details worth keeping

"She's back on every horse," I said, getting in my car. At 45, I was a single mother of two teenagers and a seven-year-old. I always knew where my body was in space, and I never got hurt.