My first post after a long hiatus and I find myself deeply changed but not yet able to cope with those changes, or what they mean, or how they will alter the course of my life. What I am trying to learn, what I think we all wish to ultimately achieve in one way or another, is the ability to live in each moment. To be able to grasp the problems of our now and change it. Not to fret about the future or dwell on the past, but to handle what we can in our given moment with our given strengths and learned tools.

My now is that I find myself single. I find myself single and in New York City. I’m suddenly a television show. I’m suddenly a different person. I’m suddenly alone. I’m suddenly navigating single-dog-parentdom. I’m suddenly bleeding cash. I’m suddenly moving. I’m suddenly sudden.

I’ve approached this before. My personality and how I am happier when I am making others happy. Happier when there is a need for me. These days, there is little need for me. My dog, who is now definitely and without hesitation MY dog, Ajax, needs me. And I need me. That’s about it. And that’s hard for me.

The optimists say to look at this as a moment of rebuilding. I have a chance to completely change my life. I have the chance to add and remove at will. I could go anywhere, I could do anything, I can finally, finally, build my meaningful life.

But how do I get there?

I’m compelled to bring up Bridget Jones’ Diary. It has always been a favorite movie of mine, and one that I watch once or twice a year. I actually do prefer the film to the book, which is rare for me. It has always spoken to me, regardless of my relationship status, because at its root, aside from the love triangle and dashing men, it is a movie about building a meaningful life. It’s about creating a life that you love. And sometimes that doesn’t look like someone else’s life.

In fact, it isn’t supposed to look like anyone else’s life at all.

It’s supposed to look like mine. Yours is supposed to look like yours. How am I just learning this? How far deep has my head been buried under the sand?

I’m trying to dig out. After a vacation and indulging in many nights out with friends who nod their heads and celebrate my life and my choices, I’m here now. Back to my words, back to the keyboard, and back to discovering what it is that I was meant to be doing here on this planet. It’s hard to find myself back here again. Because where I once wrote from a joyful heart, I now write from a lost one. Like Esther Greenwood’s heart beat “I am, I am, I am.” I feel mine asking, “Am I? Am I? Am I?”

So it’s time to build my meaningful life. To throw away and add at will, to see what happiness is, to test the waters of many different things. To share with you what it’s like to start anew at 27. Whether I am ready to do so or not.

It’s easy to want to hide from the news that I am single. And I have been. Because it was so many threads unraveling from a very big blanket. It took a little bit of time, but the whole blanket finally unraveled. It’s still hard to explain and scary to share because I don’t want to be accused of airing dirty laundry. For some reason I still want to protect him, his reputation, his own meaningful life.

But then I realized there is a difference between dirty laundry, and what are facts of life. Facts of MY life. And those, I can share. Those I can tell you all about. My life with a blank slate. A slate that I’ve been eyeing for weeks but that I’m not quite sure I know what to do with it. What to say about it, what to write on it. I imagine it will come to me. It has to. It has to. It has to.

Because maybe that’s where I’ll find something that makes me, and only me, happy.