Decisons, Decisions

Hands shaking, I return to the cottage. I need a shower. I need a nap. Hell, I need a drink.

As I ascend the stairs, Joy calls me. We have Girls Weekend coming up and we have some details to chat about. It is good to hear a voice of pure reason. I tell her about my wicked mother and she and I agree it is a blessing that there are 5 states between us. It would be a long way for either of us to drive and continue to hold on to thoughts of strangulation upon arrival.

I also tell her about what I fear I can expect from Lars when I go to file for Child Support on Monday. She knew him when we were dating. She knew him as my husband. She watched him morph into someone I did not know when we became parents. She knows exactly why I am nervous. She is happy to hear that I have a lawyer. Even happier that I like the new lawyer so much. Maybe this one will help me finally get Lars to stop insisting on picking my pocket and go and make his own money so he can (really) support our children and presumably his half-assed yoga instructor wife. In the meantime, she wants me to make sure I can go to Charlotte's or her house if he goes berserk and I need to go undercover for safety and sanity.

I go upstairs and prepare to shower. The cottage is quiet and it is nice to be able to take the time to do things slowly. To walk around without a towel if I want. To hog the hot water. To sing Half Breed really, really loudly in the shower because no one can hear. (At least I don't think they can.)

Hair dryed and broken-in jeans and sweater on my back, I return to the first floor and think about putting on the radio. I don't. Silence, or rather, silence laced with birdsongs and bullfrogs and squirrels at horseplay is all the accompaniment I need.

I slice a few pieces of cheddar cheese and get out some crackers. Lunch. Because it's only me.

And I flip open my laptop and click the button to watch it come to life.

It's show time, folks.

I have decided a couple of things in the last few days.

One of them is that Craig has dropped out of my life voluntarily and does not look like he's coming back. So I have to move on.

Another is that moving on is much harder than it seems like it should be.

And the next is that Mr. Right is not going to come a-knocking on my door. I am not working so there are limited opportunities to browse the selection in the halls at the office. (And even when I was, the line up was so abyssmal I may as well have been working in a State Penitentiary.) I am not in any socially invigorating clubs, so meeting someone interesting at the Yacht Club or the Music Festival Planning Meeting is not a possibility. And my friends are almost entirely of the married set and can only be relied upon for fun-filled nights out once in a while, and never on the fly when I find myself bored, lonely, thirsty or looking for trouble (which happens with surprising regularity.) And lastly, though I've gotten much more comfortable with the idea, I can not always just go grab a bar stool at one of the local pubs by myself. I do not want to get the reputation for being the Hag Bar Fly, and I am about one more solo visit from doing so. My last trip to the bar was during a blackout and the bar had only bottled beer and spirits since the generator could only run the lights and A/C. The male patrons abruptly left when the power failed and left me to share the bar with only a beefy lesbian with a poorly concieved outfit given her size and bra strap configuration. Not exactly a meat market.

So my last decision is this: eHarmony or Match.com?