Grim Is My Middle Name

So there you are, your hands still puckery from all those dinner dishes, doing laundry at 9:30 on a Friday night. There's never enough time--or a babysitter--to go out and see friends, or a movie. And there's never enough money to waste on an overpriced coffee at Starbucks. Your whole social life is the yearly parent-teacher conferences.

You walk around so tired that it hurts to lay down in bed and try to fall asleep. When you jolt awake, in the moonlight, four hours later, everything's still, and the only sound is your teen-aged son snoring in the next room.

You didn't think there'd be this much homework, this much reading, this many papers. But you're gonna finish this degree if it kills you.

You can't remember the last time you walked around an art museum, met friends for sushi, heard any kind of live music. You simultanously disdain and envy your single friends who manage all these things.

Grim has come to live at your house.

You may still be bitter from your divorce. You may feel as if you have absolutely no time for friends and fun. You may be dead set on finishing up your school. You may be totally, steely dedicated to holding down full time employment and 24-7 Motherhood. And these are not bad things. What you have to monitor is your attitude. If you have been divorced 12 months and have not developed your own, new social life, then it is time. Buy a newspaper. It will tell you what movies are showing, where the local Strawberry Festival is this weekend. What the book club at the library is reading. Where the next fund raiser for the Humane Society is. If you are sitting there, shaking your head no, then it is very definitely time. You may be holding onto your old life a little too much.

The new rule is that you can meet anybody for coffee. Anybody. Try it. You'll like it.