I Had Sworn Off Love After A Brutal Divorce. An Unexpected DM Changed Everything

“Are you going to start dating soon, or what?” Chris and I leaned against our still-hot cars in the school pickup line.

“Please.” I snorted.

“Tien’s fully back on the horse,” she said of our mutual friend whose divorce unleashed a wildness in her.

“She’s back on every horse,” I said, getting in my car. “Anyway, I have no time for that nonsense.”

“Everyone has time for that nonsense,” she yelled. I wound up my window, conversation over.

While it’s true that time was tight, my unwillingness to even consider dating again was about something deeper, and I knew it.

At 45, I was a single mother of two teenagers and a seven-year-old. I had just come off a brutal divorce from a man I’d known since I was 10, who grew up three doors down, whose parents knew my parents, whose friends were my friends.

He had been part of the architecture of my life, and when his infidelities were revealed through the divorce process, I lost trust in everything, including myself.

When I was young, I loved to dive. When I threw a one and a half pike, I’d brush my toes against the end of the board on ...