Nothing in Common :: Personal Narrative Essays

Nothing in Common    After 19 years of marriage I decided it was time to try living on my own. It took another year and a half for me to actually do it. I had married my husband when I was barely out of high school and promptly gave birth to three sons in rapid succession. I won't go into the details of those 19 years. My husband was a good husband and an okay father. After about 10 years I realized that we were two completely different people with absolutely nothing in common except for our sons.    Moving out was the most devastating and liberating thing that I ever did. I first set myself up in a small above-garage apartment. I had no furniture except my bed and my computer. My first night there I sat in the empty living room listening to the sirens in downtown Lake Worth, a far cry from the peaceful cocks crowing in Jupiter Farms. The emotions running through me were a strange and horrible mix of elation, sorrow, and fear. What had I done?    After a few weeks I began to settle in. I had a full-time job with FPL, I saw my sons often, and I discovered the joy of solitude - something I hadn't known in a very long while with three boys and their friends always under foot. In the mornings I would have a cup of coffee on my balcony and then take a walk to the Intercoastal, which was only two blocks from my apartment. My chaotic soul started to slowly heal and slow down to a peaceful pace.    In the silence of that apartment I had plenty of opportunity to look hard at myself. I took advantage of the silence and finished writing the two books on healthcare and childcare in the late 1800's that I had barely begun a few years before. Those two books were published a year later. I renewed my love of poetry and spent hours reading the works of Pound, Rich, Atwood, and others. I decided to return to college.    I spent four months in my sanctuary over the garage. Then I went home. Everyone thought I would be the same, that life would be the same.