Divorced Before 30

I turned thirty on a glorious spring day—the kind where one should really sit in the grass barefoot with a good book, watching puffy clouds cruise by. Alas, I had a desk job, so no dallying in the sun for me, but my spirits were high nonetheless. To celebrate my big three-o, I gathered with friends and family for dinner at the Happy Gnome, a St. Paul restaurant with food to satisfy the snobs among us, lots of craft beers, and the best name ever.

Turning thirty had been a big deal for me. It had me thinking a lot about where I expected to be at thirty, versus where I actually was. Naturally, that got me thinking a lot about where I wanted to go next. A few months before, I’d set a few goals for myself, including a writing class, a marathon, and a new job. I was on track to follow through on all of them, and this had given me the sense of control that I’d lacked in my marriage.

In addition to working toward the three goals, I’d also managed to move out of my parents’ basement. Living there had been instrumental to my healing, but moving out had given me proof that the healing had indeed occurred. My time in the basement had definitely served its purpose. On top of the psychological rewards, I’d paid off about 75% of the debt from my marriage, and symbolically, that meant detaching myself even further from my former life.

Getting out of debt meant that I could really move forward, and Josh and I had been talking about buying a place together. Yes, that’s right. I was recently divorced and was seriously contemplating buying a place with my boyfriend of six months. It sounds crazy, but it just felt right.

My birthday dinner was a delightful mix of the important people in my life: Josh, my parents, some of the Picnic Leaguers, my running buddies, my roommate, and even one my brothers. It felt like the perfect day, and the birthday love continued. A couple weeks later, Josh gave me a belated gift that he hadn’t had time to finish. It was a beautiful pencil drawing that he’d titled “Besar,” which means “to kiss” in Spanish.

It was me and Josh—softly sketched organic shapes—sweetly intertwined. It was hard to tell where one body ended and another began, and that was perfect, because that’s exactly how I felt when we were together. He wrote a beautiful card that explained the drawing—words that expressed things I already knew, but which felt wonderful to have affirmed. He wrote of the comfort he felt with me and how happy I made him, and my heart felt all gooey when I read it. I knew what painstaking care he took with his drawings, most of which were incredible likenesses of photographs that inspired him. This was a much more abstract piece, and I loved that he had taken a risk on it.

Maybe I was a complete loon to be contemplating a commitment as large as a shared mortgage so soon after my divorce. I probably was. But I had a good feeling about my thirties, and I thought it was high time that I started trusting my gut. After all, the key to happiness is not chasing after what you’re supposed to want. It’s realizing what you do want and making it your own.

You can look to your family, your friends, and your religion for guidance, but in the end, you also need to reach into the wisdom located between your own ears and within your own chest. Now, I don’t know much about gnome mythology, but if I had to guess, I’d posit that the happiest gnomes trust their tubby little guts. So as I entered my thirties, I gave myself permission—orders, even—to do the same.