And the Three-Year Hiatus Is Over

*Note from the actual date of posting, which is 12/8/2014: How adorably optimistic I was 18 months ago! Still, it's better just to post it than to write something that covers all that and then the last year and a half as well. So.

It turns out a lot happens in three years. What I'm really interested in is the last 10 months, during which time I moved from the LA area to Colorado Springs, started a teaching job, and filed for divorce.

This is what it looks like when you drive through the night from LA to Colorado. Blur is accurate.
 

Moving to an unfamiliar place is overwhelming, starting an unfamiliar job is overwhelming, carving out a social life from scratch is overwhelming, trying to push a divorce uphill (long distance, no less) is overwhelming; I spent most of my spare moments this year hiding under my covers. I also bought a lot of shoes.

Not more than like 20 pair though, I'm sure. Parade of shoes, last 4 weeks of school.

I've kind of figured out Colorado Springs, just in time to maybe have to leave - seeing as I didn't renew my contract for the teaching job because it was impossible to live on the lollipops and rainbows they were paying me, and there isn't much work here. I haven't given up on this place entirely, though, mostly because I hate moving, so the search for work is afoot.

What's that? Didn't go to Garden of the Gods until you'd been here 10 months, and then only because somebody else dragged you in? And it's free and it's less than 2 miles from your house? Nicely done, townie.

The divorce was final two weeks ago. I've spent most of that time thinking about how to be single after six years of marriage. (Thoughts are inevitably drawn to a fabulous blog whose tagline is: Because nothing is sexier than a divorced woman in her thirties with 3 cats.) More on that some other time, I'm sure.

 

Yes. Yes, there are cats. I'm that person now.



 

In order to keep afloat through all this, and much more, I clung with frantic tenacity to a variety of people: the kids back home, the family, who called me faithfully, and some friends I finally settled in with here to whom I owe at least three months of functionality and whom I will love for-EVER. Family and friends, this girl loves you madly.

My three buckets of Colorado Springs sunshine. Who could have a bleak winter with those faces to look at every day?

 

So...let's go find a job, I guess.