In my first post I told you that after my divorce I asked myself one question that had more of an impact on my life than I ever thought possible.  Who do I want to be?  The problem is, I had no idea who I wanted to be.  I had been a wife, mother, business analyst…but I had never thought about WHO I wanted to be.

After my divorce I made a choice.  I chose to use this as a chance for a new beginning.  Less than 12 months before the divorce was final I had moved to a new state and started a new job, but after the move I had been focused on the crisis in my marriage and with my family.  I basically had a clean slate.  I had a couple coworkers I considered friends, but otherwise I was a single mother alone in a new place.  

I have to admit, I did have moments of panic….times I was so overwhelmed with what I had before me that I could have been paralyzed with fear.  My marriage was Bad (yes, capital B…it was that BAD).  I won’t go into detail here but by the time my divorce was final I had virtually no self-esteem.  I was 60 pounds overweight and struggling with the idea of doing everything on my own.  I suddenly had a house to maintain and 2 kids to chase around.  I was exhausted and terrified.  As if that weren’t enough, several months later I was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism and discovered that at least part of my exhaustion was truly medically related.  But before they could get it under control I went through a period where I could barely get out of bed, never mind mow the lawn and play with the kids.  There were days it seemed hopeless.

But in truth I was lucky.  There are so many people who have much bigger problems.  My thyroid was an issue, but it wasn’t life-threatening.  My girls were amazing and during the worst times would take care of me instead of the other way around, even though they were only 6 and 7 at the time.  I had a job that was flexible and a boss who was understanding.  I made enough to cover our bills and have a little extra every month.  I had a reliable car that would get us where we needed to go.  And I was grateful.

I decided that I was going to make a new beginning.  Who I had been up until that point was not who I wanted to be, so I chose to wipe the slate clean and start fresh.  It was like I’d picked up the Etch-A-Sketch and started over.  It was time to start drawing a picture of me as a single mom.