For those of us that are dating after divorce, getting ‘back in the saddle’ again seems scary at best, and mortifying at most. When slinking home after a disasterous date, it’s difficult to imagine dishing it all to your very closest friend.  So what kind of emotional resolve (or temporary insanity) would it take for a singleton to blog about it on the Internet, for all (and that last date) to read?

Meet Sara Susanna Katz, a midwestern writer and author of “Wife Living Dangerously.” Katz bears it all on the MSN .com section devoted to single life and dating.  In regular blogging posts, she talks about finding both men and frogs online, swooning and being swooned, and living the large life back in the dating world.

For Episodes 1-64, click here!

For Episode 65 of Single in the Suburbs, click here

Episode 66 of Single in the Suburbs can be found here

Single in the Suburbs Installment 67 has now been released!

Latest news!  Installment 68 has now been released!

Wow! The latest installments of Single in the Suburbs can be found here!

Sometimes I feel that my life is a series of trapeze swings. I’m either hanging on to a trapeze
bar swinging along, or for a few moments in my life, I’m hurtling across space in between
trapeze bars.

Most of the time, I spend my life hanging on for dear life to my trapeze-bar-of-the-moment. It carries me along a certain steady rate of swing and I have the feeling that I’m in control of my life. I know most of the right questions and even some of the right answers. But once in awhile, as I’m merrily (or not so merrily) swinging along, I look ahead of me into the distance, and what do I see? I see another trapeze bar swinging toward me. It’s empty, and I know in that place in me that knows, that this new trapeze bar has my name on it. It is my next step, my growth, my aliveness going to get me. In my heart-of-hearts I know that for me to grow, I must release my grip on the present, well-known bar to move to the new one. Each time it happens to me, I hope (no, I pray) that I won’t have to grab the new one. But in my knowing place I know that I must totally release my grasp on my old bar, and for some moment in time I must hurtle across space before I can grab onto the new bar. Each time I am filled with terror. It doesn’t matter that in all my previous hurtles across the void of unknowing I have always made it. Each time I am afraid I will miss, that I will be crushed on unseen rocks in the bottomless chasm between the bars. But I do it anyway.

Perhaps this is the essence of what the mystics call the faith experience. No guarantees, no net, no insurance policy, but you do it anyway because somehow, to keep hanging onto that old bar is no longer on the list of alternatives. And so for an eternity that can last a microsecond or a thousand lifetimes, I soar across the dark void of “the past is gone, the future is not yet here.” It’s called transition.

I have come to believe that it is the only place that real change occurs. I mean real change, not the pseudo-change that only lasts until the next time my old buttons get punched. I have noticed that in our culture this transition zone is looked upon as a “no-thing”, a no-place between places. Sure the old trapeze bar was real, and that new one coming towards me, I hope that’s real too. But the void in between? That’s just a scary, confusing, disorienting “nowhere” that must be gotten through as fast and as unconsciously as possible. What a waste! I have a sneaking suspicion that the transition zone is the only real thing, and the bars are illusions we dream up to avoid the void, where the real change, the real growth occurs for us.

Whether or not my hunch is true, it remains that the transition zones in our lives are incredibly rich places. They should be honored, even savored. Yes, with all the pain and fear and feelings of being out-of-control that can (but not necessarily) accompany transitions, they are still the most alive, most growth-filled, passionate, expansive moments in our lives. And so, transformation of fear may have nothing to do with making fear go away, but rather with giving ourselves permission to “hang-out” in the transition between trapeze bars. Transforming our need to grab that new bar, any bar, is allowing ourselves to dwell in the only
place where change really happens. It can be terrifying. It can also be enlightening, in the true sense of the word.

Hurtling through the void, we just may learn how to fly.
Excerpted from The Essene Book of Days

“I miss my ex-husband, but my aim is getting better” and other witty slogans are often seen on bumper stickers and t-shirts, vocalizing the darker thoughts that many of us have after a marriage breaks up. Today, crafty entrepreneurs are cashing in on those dark thoughts and encouraging the newly-single to celebrate their status. With over 40 percent of all marriages ending with the “Big D,” why shouldn’t there be a bit of levity interjected into this transition?

New York Times bestselling author Plum Sykes takes a look at this celebration of divorce in her latest novel, The Debutante Divorcée. Set in New York City, Sykes introduces the reader to Lauren Blount, one of high society’s newly unwed (aka divorced). Like a teenaged debutante, Lauren believes that after a divorce, all women like her (very rich, very young, very pretty) should have a coming out period, replete with travel, luxury and ‘make out challenges.’ The story and its characters dart from Mexico to New York to Europe, flaunting their divorced-ness and celebrating their singledom. Although most newly-single lives don’t come close to recognizing the lives lead in The Debutante Divorcée, there clearly is something refreshing in vicariously living through the unabashed lack of shame in being divorced that the characters have. Don’t expect this book to win the Pulitzer, but do expect it to bring you a few chuckles and more than one daydream!

In a recent Time magazine article, mention was made to many hot-selling items that put a funny or even positive spin on the pain of a breakup. From ex-husband voodoo dolls to ex-wife toilet paper (www.chocolatefantasies.com), wedding-ring coffins (www.weddingringcoffin.com), or Wheels O’ Wisdom for after the break-up, complete with the motto “Emotional Tools for the Bruised and Confused” (www.knockknock.biz) these items can assist you in healing or seeking a bit of passive revenge.

On the local scene, le’ Bakery Sensual, a long-standing Denver bakery, makes fun-loving cakes to celebrate singledom. Liz McCombs, cake decorator at the famous ‘bakery of love’ finds that the number of women and men ordering divorce cakes is basically equal. Business has grown so much that now the bakery carries divorce cards along with their wedding and anniversary card selections. Funny and whimsical, the cakes help memorialize an event that historically may have been hidden. In my mind, whoever created the phrase ‘laughter IS the best medicine” must have been envisioning a divorce cake! You can reach le’ Bakery Sensual online at www.lebakerysensual.com or by calling them at 303.777.5151.