Please join me in welcoming The Divorced Divas to my blog! They are a group of young women wanting to help others in the beginning stages of divorce who may be struggling to see the light at the end of the tunnel.  I just loved this guest post! I can definitely relate!! Enjoy!!

Three things got me through my divorce: cheap vodka, an ugly dog, and an amazing Volkswagen convertible. There I was on a Saturday morning, bloody Mary in my mug, my sidekick Ralph in the driver seat of Little Red, and the top down. We would cruise around the town, catching the eye of men young and old. Thirty minutes into to the trip, the bloody Mary had me feeling fine and the fact that the dream wedding, the dream marriage I had was far behind me didn’t feel all that awful. Just a week prior I woke up on my kitchen floor fully clothed in my bar clothes from the night before along with a new addition to my outfit…my wedding dress.

The story goes a little something like this… Shortly after leaving my husband and moving into my first place, I was reunited with my wedding dress. There it was hanging in the closet of my tiny apartment: a several-thousand-dollar garment in the grips of a dirty apartment that I could have easily exchanged for weeks. Before I feel asleep, as I woke, I saw it. Its assault on my life started slowly. Originally it was in the back right corner of my closet, its protective plastic bag waving at me. One day it rained, so I had to reach towards the back to my rain jacket where my hand grazed it, so I moved it towards the front. Through the change of season it was jostled around more and before I knew it I had pulled it out and hung it on the closet door. I went through a brief moment of healing where I found it appropriate to torture myself through the divorce. I watched the wedding video, and I had to call out of work the next day. I put the wedding album on the table and made my dates uncomfortable—“Why didn’t he call?” I wondered to myself, dusting around it. Eventually I unzipped the bag, released the demon dress, and hung it on my wall.

Remember the cheap vodka I talked about? Yeah. I was partaking in it.  A side note: a year prior to my wedding I stopped eating. My wedding dress was one size and my body at that time was that size plus “1”. So this fact circulated through my mind “Would it still fit?” and these facts, this series of events, are what ultimately lead up to me, myself & I, waking up on the kitchen floor, in my wedding dress, with an empty bottle of Mr. Boston’s by my side along with my trusty sidekick dog Ralphie. (Someone get this dog a medal!)

It was a new low. I cried, a lot. I sat there on the floor, too small wedding dress pulled to my hips and felt bad for myself. And then, I got up. I threw away the bottle, wadded the dress into a drawer and got into the shower. I went to work and no one was the wiser that as they slept in their beds in their coordinating pajamas, I slept on the floor in tulle.

It’s a funny thing, life. No matter what disaster or shame you inflect on yourself the night before—provided you survive and are not incarcerated—it goes on. I kept this story to myself for a while, and once I started to share it, I started to laugh… and then I just started laughing in general. Soon followed my drives with the dog, the wind in my hair, sun on my face… and yes booze in my cup.

Come to think of it, four things actually got me through my divorce: cheap vodka, an ugly dog, a convertible and laughter.

I can definitely relate.  It’s so challenging to let go of what might have been and move forward.  Sometimes it really does take a moment of feeling what you need to feel, a moment of letting it all out, in order to let go. I survived my divorce because of my amazing family and friends … and some wild misadventures. My wedding dress is still hanging in my closet … but I would never put it on again, burn it maybe, but not put it on.  Bonfire anyone?  

Make sure to follow The Divorced Divas on Twitter (@TheDivorcedDiva) and on FaceBook!

How did you survive your Divorce? We would love to hear about your stories!

Your Sister in Dating Bliss,

Single Dating Diva

Copyright Single Dating Diva