Chapter 2 – Carolina
Today is the day I’ve decided to start doing something about my mess of a life. Now I just have to keep reminding myself of that, all day long.
Telling myself to take baby steps, I walk outside to check my mail, squinting into the bright sun. It’s been a couple days since I’ve been outside. Things have seemed a lot easier lately from under my covers. Until they started to seem a lot harder, because I realized I have to start paying bills, coming up with a plan for my future, facing life— little things like that.
I pull open the little metal door on the front of the mailbox. It catches and I have to tug it open, which serves as a painful reminder that I had always meant to replace this standard issue mailbox with one of those ironic ones I see on Pinterest, which signify a holdover from a more ancient time when people used to count on snail mail rather than messages in their social media feed.
Mine would be painted like that bird that’s the Twitter logo, if that isn't some kind of copyright or trademark violation. I always meant to look it up, but never got around to it before Jake and I fell apart, and then it was the least of my concerns. Leave it to me to painstakingly plan the most minute detail that would never come to be.
I take out a large stack of mail, which includes an envelope from Georgetown County Courthouse. Divorce papers. This was the reason I’d not been wanting to check my mail. And the reason I’d been hiding under my covers.
Jake had left me weeks ago, and no longer wanted to be married to me. It was time I start making other plans.
When people talk about plans and goals, they expect to hear big ones. So, I usually keep mine to myself and spend all my time planning them out only in my head.
My plans might have seemed small to some people, but to me they used to constitute big dreams. I married Jake right after high school, and I was supposed to be a housewife and eventually a stay-at-home mom. Life would be perfect, with not only a white picket fence but also one of those ironic mailboxes I never got around to making.
I know that I should be patient and let life’s plans unfold. But Jake’s leaving me seemed to be so outside of my control that I feel the need to make plans that are within my control. In my opinion, patience— like ironic mailboxes— is for the birds.
Jake and I had married young with the specific plan for me to be a housewife. We had been trying for what felt like forever to get pregnant, without success. At first, it was fun. I quit using birth control, and we made love whenever and wherever we could. But as the months wore on with no baby in sight, it stopped being fun.
We went to a fertility doctor who said the problem was on my end and that we probably would never be able to. And just like that, Jake was gone. He didn't leave so much as a note. When I tried calling him, his number had been changed.
Thus ensued my hiding under the covers. And now, just a few weeks later, I got divorce papers in the mail. I guess the future children and I were a package deal. Without them, Jake didn't want me. I’d gone from beloved wife to infertile ex in the blink of an eye, and it’s quite a blow to my ego.
Clearly, there’s nothing in the world I could do to change things. Jake has made that pretty clear with his silence, and now with these papers.
I head back into the house and then immediately open the envelope so that I can’t put it off any longer. If I do, I know it’s only a matter of time before I end up back under the covers.
I can see that he is generously offering me some alimony in the divorce, probably to get me to agree to it, which I would do anyway. I don’t see any point in staying married to someone who didn't want to be married to me anymore. Maybe he’s also trying to assuage his guilty conscience.
I can't say I don't understand why he doesn't want to stay married. I knew how much he’d wanted kids, because I wanted them too. I’m just upset that he didn’t feel that I mattered enough to talk to me about what he was thinking and say a proper goodbye.
I guess it was just too hard on him, and even though I was mad at him and thought he was chickenshit, I also realize it’s time for a new plan. My plan. But wouldn’t you know it, I had never even thought about what I would do without Jake.
It’s clear I need to start a career, since the alimony offered is in a lump sum and won’t last forever. I also need some kind of a focus to distract me from my feelings of grief and inadequacy over not being able to have children— or even keep my husband. I know I have to find something to offer the world now that my plans of marriage and motherhood have fallen through. I just need to figure out what it is.
It’s been years since I’ve held down a job, at least legitimately. Sure, I’d cleaned a house or two here or there just to make ends meet, and I'd cut hair for some of the local girls in my neighborhood. But it appears it’s time to get a “real job.”
I turn on my computer and go online. Clicking on websites that aren’t familiar to me— monster.com, indeed.com— I begin applying to many different jobs, pretty much any and every one that I’m remotely qualified for, and some that I’m not.
I live in a small southern town, where there aren’t many jobs available. I’d never had a need to look in or outside of it for jobs before, since mine was supposed to be “homemaker.” But once I exhaust the few job openings available here, I decide to apply anywhere and everywhere.
Why not? There’s nothing for me in this town any more, and it would probably be a good thing to get out of here. Other places have more jobs and higher salaries, so I’d best go to where they are.
There’s a job listing for a legal assistant at the law office of Marks, Sanchez, Reed and Mack that falls somewhere in the middle of “totally not qualified for” and “could do this in my sleep.” It also happens to be in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where I’ve never been. I doubt I’ll get the job, but I figure it doesn’t hurt to apply.
I’m a fast typist, and know my way around basic office programs like Word and Excel, but I don’t know a damn thing about the law. I figure I’m semi-qualified and I apply because it’s on the list of things I need to do if I want to go on eating and paying rent and all that other important stuff.
Having done my due diligence in looking for a job, I collapse back under the covers. And now I wait, until one of these leads calls me, hopefully. If they don’t, I have no idea what I’m going to do.