rat poison is not in my future

Late at night I flip through channels and usually end up on my standards of lulling-me-to-sleep shows such as reruns of Will and Grace, or David Letterman, or (Ugh) Jay Leno, but sometimes sleep is a restless, relentless animal with which I wrestle and so I go channel hopping for wee-hour-of-the-morning filler TV. On two separate occasions I’ve come across stories where a wife or a husband tried to slowly and methodically poison their spouse. In one case, the wife/ mother ended up killing two of her children. Hmmm….

At the end of 2005 I called a friend whom I hadn’t spoken to since I surprised her for her birthday in July that year and got the bombshell that she was getting a divorce and had already rented an apartment. She said they just weren’t each other’s priority and before children or more years of doubt came into play, she was leaving. Ok, I said, not knowing the workings or insides of her relationship, but knowing that this match never felt right to her friends.

I’m reading now a book about a woman who gallops off to Italy, India and Indonesia in the wake of a nasty divorce and a failed love affair with another man. Her divorce came about much like my friend’s; with the realization that being forever tied to a person and the possibility of a family was not, after all, what she wanted in life. So, at 30, she left.

When I grapple with my decision of singleness I often think about what I really want, how I’m going to make my mark on the world if it’s not through family, and how I will ultimately receive love. But then there are moments when I wouldn’t trade this decision for all the rat poison in the world. I’d rather not love and be bitter and leave. I may be foolish. I may be wrong, but I think I’d rather not love at all.