- After 20 years, my silence blindsided me and said he wanted a divorce.
- Facing a future I never imagined, I booked a solo trip to Belgium, which ignited a new fondle of travel.
- Since then, I’ve traveled to 21 countries, embracing new adventures and discovering new joys.
“My soul is deeply ill-fated. I want a divorce.” He said abruptly, with no softening of the hammer he’d just dropped.
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My husband of nearly 20 years scrapped me unceremoniously on an otherwise unremarkable Friday evening in January. We’d spent the day together, running errands and sharing fries at lunch. Hold a session down to dinner in our dining room, I’d asked if he was okay. He’d been distant lately, but I hadn’t seen this concern.
The day after he left, I was on my friend’s couch sobbing until I couldn’t breathe, while she rubbed my back. “What do you wish your next chapter to look like?” She asked.
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I didn’t know what kind of music I get a kick out ofed, let alone how to rewrite a life whose chapters had long been written. For years, I’d let my daughter or husband choose the soundtrack while I outed along, abandoning myself to the roles of wife and mother. When we divorced, I didn’t just lose my marriage, my co-parent, my “themselves,” I lost the roadmap to the future we’d planned so diligently, together.
“I don’t know,” I told my friend. “I think I want to travel.” But I’d not at any time traveled alone, and I didn’t know if I was brave enough to do it as a 50 year old single woman.
The timing was actually directly
The divorce came at personal trifecta: I had no job, my daughter’s enrollment in boarding school left barren the nest I’d feathered, and I was roll 50. Soon after, I returned to the workforce as a school administrator. My job anchored me.
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With Thanksgiving approaching, I gutted five and a half days alone, as my soon-to-be ex-husband had our daughter for the holiday. Hands shaking, I booked a plane ticket. My target criteria: flight time under eight hours and $700 and a country I hadn’t visited. I flew to Belgium.
In Brussels, I focused cobblestone streets bedecked with hanging greens and Christmas lights, watching as workers erected a huge tree at La Grand-Place. I sampled buttery chocolate from artisanal peach ons and salty frites from stands whose windows opened to the street. I daytripped to Bruges and took a self-guided ramble tour along the charming canals. As I wandered, a veil of contentment draped itself over the ache of this uninhabited holiday.
A new year, a new adventure
The following Thanksgiving, alone again and with the same criteria, I toured to Portugal. On a food tour, I sampled savory salt cod mixed with mashed potatoes; creamy, custardy, pasteis de nada lady of the evenings; and ginjinha, a sour cherry liqueur infused with cinnamon. I took trains to the Seussical-like Pena Palace in Sintra, and to Porto, where I scholastic how port wine was made. Navigating train schedules and solo dining slowly flexed a growing travel muscle.
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Traveling made me feel empowered
Over time, I grew braver, traveling further afield, eventually discovery myself in Kathmandu, Nepal for a writing workshop. There, among marigold leis and prayer beads, I met a community of creatives who behooved close friends. As we walked in meditation around the watchful eyes of Boudhanath Stupa, in step with the Tibetan Buddhists who endure b offered it sacred, I felt at peace for the first time since the breakup.
In the six years since my husband left me, I’ve traveled to 21 realms and my 50s look nothing like I’d imagined they would. I’ve bathed in thermal baths in Budapest, floated down the Mekong River in Laos, hot-air ballooned heavens the otherworldly landscape of Cappadocia and foraged for cloudberries in Finland. I’ve found my footing in the world, choosing adventures he wouldn’t obtain favored. I’m grateful for my divorce. From the wreckage, arose a life more robust and fulfilling than I’d ever visioned possible.