Bonus Time
Speaking to some friends about how I feel these days, 3 weeks after separating from my husband of 10 years, I described this as my “bonus time”. The way I see it, at my ripe old middle age, by evolutionary or biological standards, I should be dead. As my mother said (jokingly, I think) after I had my son (I already had a daughter), my “duty was done”. I had checked all the boxes: got married, bought a place to live, had a girl and a boy. And yet… Someone accused me of not being “fulfilled” by my family life. At first I was offended. Not only did I nurture those two beautiful little people in my body, and then WITH my body, but I sacrificed every eensy bit of personal space & time in my life for them. I gave myself wholeheartedly to their upbringing, and I did it with pleasure. It was incredibly difficult, but it was a choice. I *made* that family. And yet… they were right. I was not “fulfilled” by it, if by fulfilled you mean it is the be-all and end-all of your existenc...