Two time loser

A lawyer I went to see a few years ago, when I was first contemplating a second divorce, said offhandedly when I expressed my desire to try to stay married, that if I didn't I'd be a "two-time loser."

That term stuck with me. And brought to mind other terms, some of which gave me some latitude, such as "three strikes and you're out." Three? Well, this was only a potential second!

Time passed, the marriage deteriorated, and now I am officially that particular attorney's definition of a two-time loser.

Only I'm not.

I'm so winning.

I haven't won the game yet, or clinched any titles. But I am in the lead. I'm ahead.

It's true that I'm a twice divorced mother of three, who has two baby daddies (but again, two is not three). My name has changed so often in the past decade that the current-and-past-identities section (aka, the aka section) of my recent title documents was a list of seven names, and, my name will more than likely change again (back to my maiden name, which is already my middle name, which could be kinda tricky).

But I digress.....

The point is that I sound like a train wreck. And I'm sure that there are people out there who think of me as such. The great PurcellSimonsenCordasco two-time losing train wreck.

Only I'm not.

I am emotionally healthier than I've ever been. Or at least that I've been since I hit puberty. I am so much closer to not giving a flying fuck about what people think or say abut me than I ever have been, because, well, (a) I probably don't want to hear it, and (b), and more importantly, because what matters is what I think about what I think and say about (and to) myself.

As the saying goes, 

I am free to be who I am, and who I want to become. I no longer have the white-picket-fence, perfect-heterosexual-nuclear-suburban family ideal to live up to. I shattered that one, not on purpose, but it's broken beyond repair nonetheless. It no longer fits. And never can again.

It's an ideal with merit, one that has been around for many decades. I am truly happy for, and somewhat in awe of, my friends that are thriving and happy living this life. Congratulations all around for the ample hard work and tenacity, and perhaps the bit of luck, that it takes to make it work -- to go the distance.

 I couldn't do it. I tried and I failed.

But my failure at this (my two-time loser-ness), is the exact entryway into my success at something else. What that something else is, exactly, has not quite yet been determined. But I'm hopeful, and ready, and willing to take it on.