Hello, friends.
One of my favorite things about being a giant, stone cold bitch is that I’m usually pretty damn good at dealing with stuff on my own (bitches get shit done, am I right?).
But I think every woman who is getting divorced after being partnered up for awhile will always remember her first holy-shit-I’m-going-to-have-to-deal-with-this-by-myself moment (and no matter how awesome you are, there are always going to be moments). Whatever your thing might have been, it’s not that you couldn’t do it, or that you wouldn’t figure it out (we are powerful sorceresses after all, are we not?), it’s just that after being in a relationship for so many years you get into a groove of dividing the labor and there are certain things that wind up falling under the jurisdiction of your (much, much less) better half. A friend who recently broke up with her long-term live-in boyfriend told me that she spent 45 minutes this summer figuring out how to start her lawnmower. I don’t want to be enforcing shitty gender stereotypes, but real talk, bitches, are we out there mowing lawns? No, no we are not.*
*For the women who have always mowed their lawns (and more power to you, my sisters), there probably was some other domestic task that filled you with loathing for humanity, which you smartly delegated to your now-defunct husband.
Ahem.
I had two moments that made me realize just how mother fucking alone I truly am.
In my house, you gain access to the attic through one of those pull-down trapdoor thingees with a foldout ladder attached. They’re not uncommon or terrifying in and of themselves, but in my house the attic entrance is located directly above the basement stairs. So, when you pull down the ladder it hangs over the stairwell. A fall would mean tumbling two stories down and landing in a heap at the bottom of the basement stairs.
(side note: oh my god, I could stare at that gif all day. What does that say about me? Reminder to ask therapist on Monday).
The house was built in 1957, and I’m pretty sure it’s the original foldout ladder, and let me tell you that thing is rickety. I store things like holiday decorations and boxes of kids clothes up there, which means that going up usually entails dangling precariously twenty feet in the air from a fifty year old ladder that is bolted into a thin piece of wood latched into the attic ceiling while carrying a big Rubbermaid tote filled with Halloween costumes and pumpkin lights. I should probably just seal up the attic and never celebrate another holiday again, but my son would literally murder me in my sleep if I refused to get the Lego Christmas train from the attic so there’s really nothing else I can do but climb up that terrifying ladder of death and just tempt the motherfucking fates to take me down.
The first time I realized I had to go up on my own I sat on my basement stairs and cried. When I finally got up the courage I texted my friend Erika and was like “Imma bout to climb up this ladder. If you don’t hear from me in twenty minutes, call 911. It was nice knowing you.” I’ve been joking that I’m going to start a gofundme for some fucking stairs, but until then this is how I live now. I ain’t got no man, and my kid needs his Lego Christmas train!
My second sad-sack I-am-so-alone moment came by way of the Brooklyn Half Marathon, which I ran back in May. After the race, my big toenail on my right foot hurt. A lot. Like, I mostly felt weirdly kind of ok after running thirteen miles to Coney Island? Except my big toe just wouldn’t stop aching. A few days later the nail turned completely black. And about three weeks after that I stepped out of the shower, caught my toe just a little bit on the edge of the dresser and ohmygodohmygodohmygod my toenail came off. Except, not all the way. It was sticking straight up, like, at a 90 degree angle from my toe. Nonononononooooooooo. I couldn’t walk around like that. I couldn’t bandage it with the toenail sticking straight up in the air. I had no option but to rip the toenail the rest of the way off. I am a SERIOUSLY squeamish person. This is definitely the kind of thing I would normally force another person to do. But it was a Sunday night! I love my friends, but calling one of them to come rip off my toenail seemed…horrific. And to go to the emergency room for that seemed absurd. I was going to have to deal with it…alone. Homies, I ripped off my own mother fucking toenail.
I am a powerful be-otch, and I can do anything.
Tell Me Something Good.
What straight bullshit did you have to start dealing with as a suddenly-single person? Rolling the garbage cans out to the curb every Wednesday didn’t suck as much as I thought it would, but cleaning the trash hair out of the bathtub drain? Fuck that noise.
TheDTrainNewsletter@gmail.com
Listen To This.
I’m from New Jersey originally which means I am basically contractually obligated to love Bruce Springsteen. This isn’t Bruce Springsteen, but maybe it’s better than Bruce Springsteen? (New Jersey hates me so much right now). All I know is that it’s breaking my heart right now, and a song breaking your heart is ALWAYS better than an asshole breaking your heart.
Love,
Amy Blair