Coming Into Sunlight

Marriage after divorce and single parenthood for close to ten years is like coming out into glaring sunlight after living in permanent semi darkness. 

Until recently, the need to conform to societal expectations had been minimal if at all – I could focus exclusively on a couple of things without having to worry about that taking away from other obligations that are intrinsic to a two parent household. Raising J in the way I wanted, getting better at what I do for a living and being able to take on more challenging assignments – was all I cared about. Then there was the blog that I fed  a lot of my energy into, instead of seeking out or nurturing real life social relationships.

It was very much a cocoon – closed, sometimes rather suffocating but almost always safe. I did not have to compare against the standard benchmarks of relative to peer group success. They were "them" and not in my situation. What applied to "regular" people did not apply to me because I had challenges like they did not – at least that was my way of explaining my off the grid existence. More likely than not, I needed an excuse to not deal with the additional pressures of conformity and this seemed a perfectly reasonable one.

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