What it would be like to be alone

I have friends who recently divorced after 34 years of marriage, which is just a couple years longer than DWG and I've been married. I have lots of friends who are divorced, after a couple years or many years of marriage. 

I'll actually CW this and break here, if you want to read further, you can. 

CW: Divorce, alone, loneliness, financial issues

They raised two daughters, they have grandchildren. Thirty four years.... They just "weren't getting along anymore," as she explained to me when we all found out. 

A year of therapy plus the pandemic didn't help at all. And they decided it would be a better idea to separate for a while, did, and then decided to divorce after three months of "trial separation."

When they split up for good, they made a financial plan. They refinanced the house or took out a second mortgage or something I forget exactly what. But they had her take the money as a way for her to go buy what she wanted, which was a small 2 bedroom, 1 bath condo.  They were living in a 5 bed, 3 bath farmhouse. He kept the house (more on that later). They live about an hour apart, the kids are nearby to both. They carefully considered each move. Thoughtfully, intentionally. She said that the arranging for separation was almost as friendly and perfect and agreeable as when they bought their first house, planned a move cross country, agreed to everything.

Her mortgage is about $1,000 a month which if you ask me is pretty great. She has a part time work from home deal that pays incredibly well and she has done it for years, since the girls were little. She's able to pay for everything she needs to pay for. He is an electrical engineer, and was planning for retirement at 62, but decided he'll work as long as he can or wants to. Retirement is kind of a thing he thought he'd do, but realizes he loves his job and will just keep on keeping on. 

She told me they both are still the beneficiaries of every possible life insurance plan or whatever money thing the other has. 

She always wanted a cat. He didn't. She has a cat now. 

She loves to travel. He's a homebody who likes fixing things up. So she would go on trips with her daughters (pre grandbabies) or high school friends, or her sister and her mom, or even alone. And she'd come home to a completely remodeled kitchen or painted living room. He built an apartment over the garage once, rented it out to local churches for a small retreat center. And he'd cater their lunch and dinners. She'd serve them, since she was at home. They made nice money off of that arrangement. They thought about building a kind of wing off the house for overnight accommodations for these retreats. 

She went to Iceland, saw the northern lights. Loved it. Cried. And he would have been miserable and cold and complainey. If she hadn't gone, she would have been home, sitting there listening to band saws and hammering and loud music while he was doing a project. He once restored a center fireplace that went from their kitchen to the livingroom and had been walled in by a previous owner. He had a full history of the house from the time it was built in the 1800s, and would study things. Realized the fireplace thing, and one day said to her "hey, I'm going to hit this wall with a sledgehammer. I think there's a fireplace behind this. I want to see. If I'm wrong, I'll just fix it. Is that cool?" 

He and his buddies (these guys were always doing a thing!) would get together, plan the project, buy the stuff, turn on some Grateful Dead at top volume and get to work. Morning until exhausted. Weekend warriors, or using vacation time to do the job if it was longer than a weekend. These were sometimes huge projects with masonry work, electrical, and plumbing. Then they'd kick back, drink some beers, smoke some weed, plan for the next day, do it all again. They'd trade off doing stuff at each others' houses. 

She liked that he had friends and did his things, and he was like "knock yourself out with a trip for the week!" So she was happier away. And he was happier at home. She sent him postcards, like "wish you were here" but actually deeply happy he was not.

They each seemed to be happy with their life. I mean, that house! The house she got to live in. The house that I always perceived he was fixing up for her. It really wasn't for her. It was for him and his buddies. It was his house.

Each of them were in a relationship with something else, and not with each other. That's what it boiled down to. So after 40 years as a couple, 34 years of marriage, they stole from the Bob Dylan line in Tangled Up In Blue,  they "split up on a dark sad night, both agreeing it was best." 

That was about a year ago. I talked to her the other day for the first time really since the split. She loves her cats. She went to Sedona and Phoenix for a long weekend right before Omicron started rising up and will be driving down the Pacific Coast with her sister, starting in Washington and going to California, but they're concerned about rental prices and the cost of gas so they may reconsider. He came over recently, and put in a new cabinet set and sink in her bathroom. He eyeballed the tub saying "that would make a really nice walk in shower. She laughed and said she'd think about it. 

And then I started thinking about alone. What would it be like to be fully and completely alone. For the first time in how many years? 

Don't get me wrong - I love my husband and son, but I'm just wondering what it would be like to be alone alone? 

On my salary, my rent on this house would be 50% of what I bring in so I'd probably totally downsize. Our combined income is really helpful to us not being broke and poor. So while I think I make a lot of money, it wouldn't be enough necessarily to stay in this house, this neighborhood. I'd end up somewhere more affordable most likely but I do like not having neighbors touching walls with me. Am I a 2 bedroom, 1bath condo kind of person? In a free standing building with a couple units, maybe. Not a giant humongous building with shit tons of people. 

Yard care, if I was able to stay in this house, I'd have to farm that out (no pun intended) because I'm so lazy about the yard. I doubt I'd keep a garden. Would I keep a dog? This dog likes to go for long walks but he also loves his fenced in yard. 

We could honestly never leave if I wanted to never leave. Which lately, I'm kind of okay with. I could set up grocery delivery. Beer delivery. Wine delivery. Anything I wanted delivery. Uber to the metro? Okay. 

So I look around me right now. I'm sitting in the livingroom. The dog is snoring on the couch. The Boy is in the kitchen making dinner and the dishwasher is going. Doug is playing a game on his phone. He went for a walk earlier, and I didn't feel like it (I did dinner prep). He went out to a work gathering with me last night, and seemed to enjoy himself, so it wasn't like another example of you go and do that by yourself, like he does with me wanting to go to concerts. We do enjoy time together. I love when he plans a trip for us, and does the research for what we're going to do and see. Where we will hang out, eat, lookieloo at the local googahs. 

Today we went for a walk. We didn't talk about a lot of things, we could hear horns beeping on the beltway as the cross country convoy of vehicles came around to "protest" mask mandates, which don't really exist anymore. We went to look, see the vehicles. There was a handful of people on the bridge waving all sorts of different flags. Doug thought it was cool they were going through and sharing their opinions with their horns. I thought it was excessively wasteful, all that diesel burned and for what. A Sunday drive around the beltway, at incredible expense of time, resources, money. I thought it was shameful. We each stated what we felt, and that was all we needed to do. No fight, no disagreement. (I'm right though, by the way). 

I wouldn't have gone to the overpass if he hadn't suggested. Not that I would have regretted missing seeing the "convoy" but it was nice to be together for a walk. 

The Boy went to the market, started dinner while I napped with the dog. Bought beer and wine. I didn't have to go anywhere and all I had to do was mix all the stuff together that he started for us. 

So I'll keep the family, I guess. They're worth it.