Life after divorce has presented some challenges. Challenges such as living on my own; supporting myself on a fixed income;  and dating.  Challenge number one, living on my own. It has taken me two years of living on my own to finally adjust to being alone and making all the decisions on my own and this has not been easy. The loneliness is very real so I try to stay busy, visit my siblings at least once a week, go for a drive, or write my blog. I have not mastered going out in public alone just yet. I have no motivation to do so because there is no fun in it and I feel embarrassed and pathetic because I am a party of one. Getting out alone on a regular basis is hard for me. I live in a small town that does not offer much in the way of activities or even volunteering to get me out of the house meeting new people. The feelings I have going out alone and the lack of activities to get involved in are only part of the problem of getting out on a regular basis. The other issue is being able to afford it and this brings us to challenge number two, financially supporting myself.

My finances have always been tight even when I was married but at least there were two incomes. I was working full time so my finances were not as tight as they are now but because of the expenses involved with my divorce and the repairs that I have had to make in my home, I have not been able to save any money. Now, due to health issues, I am not working on a regular basis and for all intents and purposes I am retired. Now money is really tight! Retirement always sounded wonderful to me because it would free up time to spend with my children and grandchildren and allow me to travel a bit more. Boy was I wrong. If I could do it over again there would be no new cars, a retirement account, and no credit card use. But I was young, stupid, and had no one to give me good financial advice. But since I cannot go back in time I just move forward learning from my mistakes and making better choices. I take one day at a time and put my trust in God. God has made sure that the money was there for me when I needed it most and for that I am grateful. Now if God would only help me out with my third challenge, dating.

In my younger years when I was old enough to date, I really didn’t date due to being bashful and a recluse. I had only dated a few guys before I met my husband and got married. Maybe I should have dated a bit more! When I got married it was to stay married and grow old with my husband. I was married for thirty plus years and I never imagined I would be single in my fifties and in the dating seen again. I did not do the dating scene well the first time so what the heck?  My husband knew all of my bad habits and had seen all of my physical flaws. I was comfortable and used to the physical things with my husband and now I have to start over again old, wrinkled, gray hairs, sagging body parts, uncontrollable body noises, and fat! Of course you would think that the single men my age would not be fairing any better and would not be so picking, you have thought wrong. Men my age and in my shape think they are in their twenties again and want a women with twenty year old bodies. And, these men have also come out of bad marriages and would rather not waste their time in niceties, chivalry, or even conversation and skip right to the good stuff. The dating apps are a waste of time and money and are full of scammers looking to steal lonely, desperate women’s’ money. I ran into a couple of those and is pissed me off to no end. My hope in finding a mate is being snuffed out slowly but surely because the pond from which I have to fish from is small and the selection is not great. At times I feel that the reason I have not met my knight in shining armor yet is not due to the area I live in but the fact that I am still figuring out life after divorce.

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