Cracked Pots




Single Again: Cracked Pots
By Lucy Connor
Today is a new day. The weather is perfect, it is Saturday and I did not wake up until 7:30. For the first time in a week, the ache in my head is so faint that I just barely know it is there and I feel pretty good.
I have become a working machine. I work 12-14 hours a day every day, before I come home, grab a LATE dinner and start working again. I have no clue what movies are playing, what bands are coming to town or what any of my friends are up to. I do nothing but work. It may or may not surprise you to know that I teach public school…middle school to be exact.
Today, I stood on the scale. Bad move. I literally have gained 5 pounds since school has started and I am starting to feel the wheels coming off the cart. The last walk I “mapped” was …hmmmm….probably in the first week of school, almost 3 months ago. I definitely am the living, breathing representation of the saying “All work and no play makes Jane a dull girl.”
Today, I took a long look in the mirror. The lady looking back is not the one that stood there just a few short months ago. This one is haggard, smile dim and face noticeably heavier. But there is something else too…that something that made her “alive” is just barely creeping out of those tired eyes.
Today, I cancelled my subscription to “Chemistry”, made an honest effort to get some exercise, to not subsist totally on fast food and to hob-nob with some people other than the ones I see every day at school. They say every day is the first day of the rest of your life. I truly hope this is so, because, really who wants to be nothing more than a machine until they just fall over some day?
What does this have to do with being single again? As far as I can see, it is all about being single again. I heard a story on the news today about how single people have a much harder time preparing for retirement. They may be happier, but percentage wise, life costs more when you are single. You know, my mortgage is the same if I am the only one in the house or if six people live here. The burden of my life is entirely on my shoulders and I take it very seriously, maybe too seriously.
Here then, is the dilemma. I am in great health and look relatively youngish for my age. I own my own home and have a good job that pays pretty well. I have a great family with no drama. I have a second job so I occasionally have some spending money. What I do not have is time or energy to put into a relationship. The men I meet want it all, but they just don’t seem to want a woman that actually has it all. The woman who has it all has to keep working to maintain it. 
In this arena of life after divorce, I have yet to meet a man that is not struggling just as I am, if not harder to keep body and soul together. Most of the divorced men I have met have given all of their worldly possessions to their exes, have child support due to their progeny and many are without jobs or a struggling to rebuild a career that was destroyed in the recent recession. As if this were not enough, many have health issues to deal with as well. The combination of a woman who seems to have it all together but has to work 24-7 to maintain it and a man who is unhealthy, unemployed and trying to rebuild, has thus far left me with a feeling that this single again situation may eventually lead to single forever.
If there was one thing I could say to a potential “forever” it would be this. I am not perfect, I have baggage and I am no longer as youthful and physically attractive as I once was. But, I have so many other things now, gratitude, appreciation, wisdom and peace with life…even in its broken state. Please know that when you see me a little heavier than I was, more exhausted and caught up in work, and worried about things that I have no control over I am allowing you to see the cracks in my otherwise solid life. I am showing you my imperfections and am full of hope that you will see them as badges of honor, rather than reasons to toss me out for a more “perfect” model.  Please understand, I like you, am a cracked pot, struggling to keep everything inside safe and secure. Maybe, just maybe, if we could both just surrender to our broken and rigid states, we could re-build together as one strong vessel made from the strongest, most beautiful parts of both of us.

--
Dana
Danaharrellphotography.com
678-656-6340

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