I remember when I was a child and thinking life sucked because I wasn’t allowed to ride my bike to the country store. All of the other neighborhood kids got to. My brothers got to. But I was too little. Not old enough. I couldn’t wait to race through the next year so that I was finally old enough.

Several years later, I wasn’t allowed to attend a monthly dance at one of the local schools. It was intended for high school students only. I was in 8th grade. Not a high schooler. My mom was a stickler for the rules. “Rules are there for a reason. If we are going to break them, we might as well get rid of the rule, because we are teaching our children worse things otherwise“… Again, I found myself wanting to race through the next year so that I was finally old enough.

Now I’m an adult. And frankly, it can really suck… Why did I desire to race through all of those years? What did I think was waiting for me?

My xMM caught me at a time when I was beginning to go through my own personal crisis. My husband had threatened divorce many times throughout our marriage. He had finally told me to shape up or get out. (by shape up, he meant that I should be more 1950′s housewife than independent work-at-home mom.) I was determined to shape up, but I ended up miserable. Sick to my stomach with anxiety from trying to, once again, live up to his standards. In the meantime, I found my xMM on Facebook. Almost didn’t send the friend request, because I figured he wouldn’t remember me. But I did – and he did. And the rest is history.

I’m currently in a major holding pattern: separated from my husband, waiting for the divorce, looking for work, raising my children, and trying to get over a man who was and is no more available for me than the man in the moon.

I’d give anything for my biggest problem to be not being able to ride to the country store. (But I’d settle for a response to my apology letter…)