The first night I spent in the sublet apartment, separate from my children, separated from my husband and home of 24 years, I cooked and my sister came over.
My sister, Nina, had to wear me down to have her over, so reluctant was I to be the reason she had to leave her small children and drag ass to this stranger’s apartment. I’m fine, I’ll be fine, I like being alone, you don’t have to come. Nina persisted. Finally, I admitted, Yes, I would like you to be here and, no, I don’t think I should be by myself.
The sublet, on the second floor of a carriage house in Brooklyn, was all wood beams and exposed brick with two big skylights. It was where my ex and I would stay, alone, on alternate weeks while we figured out our new lives. Whoever wasn’t at the apartment would be back at the house with our two children. It was a lo-fi, hand-built place with wide-plank floors through which light and pot smoke rose from the artist’s studio below. There was a wall of books and happy houseplants in pots on every windowsill and in every corner. The living room was outfitted with a thin-cushioned blue velvet couch, a sheepskin rug, and a wood-burning stove. I don’t think there was a lightbulb in the place over 40 watts. The owners had installed a giant crystal into a central skylight, which leaked when it rained; more crystals hung from the ceiling and projected rainbows on various walls all day. The open shelves in the kitchen were stocked exclusively with clear glass jars housing healthful pantry items: lentils, beans, every variety of rice, multiple types of flour and honey, Himalayan pink salt, and decanted pasta shapes. If Winnie the Pooh left the forest to become a naturopath, this would be his apartment.
I met my husband when I was 23, got married when I was 26, and was happy in my marriage for more years than I was not. But our average had plummeted: too many lows in a row. For several years, I had made a lot of pragmatic choices I hoped would make our relationship better: If I was unhappy, I should work on that. I found the right therapist and showed up every week. I accepted my brain’s delightful chemical mix of depression and anxiety and got treatment for both. I stopped smoking weed. I tried to be a better parent. I started lifting heavy weights and the back pain I’d carried around for almost two decades went away. I wrote two cookbooks that did very well, and I became a video host.
Life got better, but the marriage stayed stuck. The decision to separate was ultimately mutual, but for a long time I carried guilt about putting my happiness first.
Despite months of processing in solo therapy and in couples therapy, my preparations for the first night away were not thought out—at all. On that surreal day in mid-May, I brought my rolling suitcase up to the laundry area on the top floor of our family home and surveyed the heap of clean clothes piled there. I chose belongings at random and dropped them straight into the bag at my feet. Then I prowled back and forth between the bathroom and the bedroom, foraging: I needed my meds, mouth tape, the journal I rarely wrote in, and quite a few lip glosses, apparently. Phone charger, computer charger, sunglasses, Advil. There was no tearful, cinematic moment when I removed my wedding ring and put it in a jewelry box. I had stopped wearing it months before.