Imagine? YOU could take The Gold every time!

Inspired by the Olympics and delusional that I somehow can still get my body to look like those women's volleyball contenders, I was thinking...

There are so many things a divorced gal becomes proficient at by necessity — by herself — that there should be some way to get credit for it. Just maybe there should be some kind of Divorced Women's Olympics.

There would be global contenders.

Here are some divisions in which any one of you could take a medal:

Grocery Power Lifting

The Financial Balance Beam

She-Man Provider Competition

Single Mom Relay

Solo Wrestling With Yourself

Set the Table Tennis

Laundry Volleyball

Extreme Soul Searching

My favorite? The Divorce Decathalon!

"Heptathlon" actually is the proper word for the female version of this track and field competition, made up of these seven events: 100 meter hurdles, high jump, shot put, 200 meter sprint, long jump, javelin throw, and the 800 meter run.

As we all know, this sounds like a typical day BEFORE lunch.

The final event would be the "Late Life Luge"...jump on, hang on, close your eyes, say a prayer, take the ride of your life and hope you make it to the finish line in one piece.

The last one might take some extra practice but since you've got nothing to lose — you might as well Go For The Gold!

I've taken to running again. Though I've run before for exercise, the vein that drives the behavior is almost entirely new: Running is a rather wicked form of escapism.

For the last few days, I have found myself running when I could think to do nothing else to squash the anger, anxiety, and fear that grips me at any given point of every day.

Equipped with running shoes and a heart rate monitor, I run: 20 minutes, 30 minutes, one hour, two hours. For the longer runs, there are a few breaks, but mostly, I need the rhythmically soothing thumping of my feet on the road — and of my pulse in my ear.

I run past the point of exhaustion and through pain. When I feel as if I need a break, I quicken my pace. If I feel that familiar twinge of pain in my knee, I shuffle to a tune on my iPod with a faster tempo, turn up the volume, change my stride and run faster.

Ignore fatigue, run through the pain: These things don't matter. It's all in your head. Block it out and move on. Increase your speed and these demons can't keep up with you.

This is what I like to believe. It's insane at best, and nowhere close to being true — but that doesn't stop me from trying.

At the end of the run, more often than not, I find myself exhausted to the point of immobilization, and the demons I worked so hard to escape settle back into my head...

I distinctly remember the pills. When Levi left me, I couldn't sleep and my doctor prescribed me some pretty powerful sleeping pills — even though I was pregnant...

Sometimes when I have a calm moment, which are few and far between, I find myself thinking of all the things that have changed in my life over the last year. It reminds me of that quote, "The only thing that ever stays the same is change." I had never realized before how true that really is. Nothing stays the same — even the best things.

My divorce practically started on the eve of my son's birth. Several emotions all crammed into one — all conflicting — rendered me an absolute mess.

I remember thinking I would never be happy again. I remember worrying about how I was going to support a baby by myself. I remember scrounging for change in between the couch cushions for diapers, thinking things couldn't possibly be any worse.

I remember feeling abandoned and hopeless. I couldn't see the light.

I remember one night — which I haven't told anybody about until now — I was lying in bed, in a house all by myself, totally exhausted from being up all day and night with an infant, all by myself.

I remember realizing that it was cold and walking over to the thermostat to see that the temperature was dropping. No heat, no money for oil. I dressed the baby in warm clothes and put him in bed with me. I remember lying there, wanting to cry, but nothing would come out. I was too exhausted for tears.

It was then that I remembered the pills. My doctor prescribed me some pretty powerful sleeping pills when Levi took off — even though I was pregnant. He also gave me an anti-depressant.

I hadn't taken very many of them, but for some reason I still had them in the cabinet. I remember thinking to myself that I should just go downstairs and take those pills.

I wanted to give up.

Oh, the joys and pains of being a woman. Sunday morning, I found myself in my temporary New York City digs in need of personal maintenance. You know, those womanly chores we love to hate — or maybe just hate — with a passion.

Being that the prior week was so hectic, I hadnít had time to pay attention to myself, and by the weekend, I was a mess.

I needed a shampoo and a shave like nobody's business. The shampoo was going to be easy, I figured. So I decided to begin with my least favorite chore — shaving, though I decided to use one of those hair-removal-in-a-tube deals.

Ordinarily, I don't subscribe to chemical hair removal, because it's so messy, and because there's just something strange about the process.

But my heightened need for hair removal — summer equals skin exposure — and the fact I get so impatient when I shave, made me take the plunge.

I wish I had checked the water situation in the apartment before smearing the hair remover on.

Thank goodness it was merely a lack of hot water, and not a full-on drought. If that had been the case, I would be going through the remainder of these horrid New York summers hiding vanity-induced chemical burns under long pants.

It's all in the name of beauty, I suppose.

Why in earth do we as women care so much? What's it all for?

Is it really for ourselves?

This is the story of how last night I landed in that 100,000 degree yoga class I swore I would never go to. How I made it through without waking up to the eyes of a paramedic I will never know.

It was 6 pm. I just got off the train from NYC and was heading to my suburban NYSC gym for a spin class when I got a call from Vi, my gym buddy. Vi said, Joann (her sister and my other gym buddy) wanted to try the 7:30 Bikram yoga instead — that they were having some trial special.

Not the hot yoga? I asked. Yup, that's the one. I had to pull over. This did not sound appealing. I wanted to say no, but I said yes. My high heels were killing me and I needed coffee first, so I stopped at Starbucks. First problem. You never drink coffee before hot yoga. The woman at the desk looked horrified when I walked in with the cup. It raises your heart rate she said.

Now I'm horrified, since this seems like a very bad thing right now. You didn't eat recently, did you? she asked. Well, I did not get the memo on yoga protocol between the train and the class, so yes, I just had a banana shake on the train that was one of the four meals allowed on my Diets4idiots first day.

I now notice that people are practically naked sitting in the hallway and I am already feeling hot. Has anyone ever died in here? I pay, grab my towel, and head to change and some girl yells that I am not allowed to walk in there in heels. We don't want pebbles in our mouths she said. Pebbles in our mouths????? Holy Zen. Second infraction...you need to leave your shoes at the door. Good thing they don't give out yoga tickets.

I was inside a building that blew up. Yep. KaBam! Boom! Pow!

When the explosion ended almost in a matter of one single second, I found myself blown out of my office chair and on my hands and knees under my desk.

What had just happened? I asked myself, completely unaware of the second and third degree burns that covered my feet, ankles, hands and face.
I immediately scrambled to stand and rushed to get out of the building, as I was quite certain another explosion was to come. I still had no idea what had happened.

That was 25 years ago, but the same emotional shock and confusion and even physical pain would come again when my divorce was final. What had just happened? Yesterday I was married. Today, I'm a single parent raising two young children on my own.

Divorce wreaks your life. So, if you're considering it, please make sure you know that there simply is no other way to survive, literally. If you can find a way to make it work, find that way and make it work.

Divorce is the last resort. It should not be used as an excuse to remove yourself from a situation that has become a little hard, challenging and less fulfilling than it once was. It should not be an excuse to go shopping again for something that you think might bring happiness to you.

Divorce is not an escape valve. It's serious business, and it breaks hearts each and every time.

I am in the "moving beyond" for FWW. That is who I am and what I am doing. It comes with its own set of challenges each day. It comes with its own unfulfillment, it's own lack luster. It's own boredom, strife, heartbreak.

What wonderful changes can you expect when you move beyond divorce? Hmmm, let's see. Depends, really. Some women who become depressed stop eating altogether. Some eat constantly. Some drink. Some go searching for random acts of sexual contact. I did a bit of drinking the first year, and that coupled with fast food, as I was sad and unwilling to cook (which I think is a happy act) allowed my body to find new mass.

Lovely. Weight gain. My favorite thing. Yours, too, I just bet.  

But rather than dwelling on the negative right off the bat, let's start, instead, with the positive. As a 50-year-old woman, a little extra fat in the face makes Botox something completely unnecessary. So, think of it as a free face lift compliments of Ritz crackers, squirt cheese and Tabasco olives, French fries, and sweet tea by the gallons. 

A larger bust - maybe depending on your body type. More breast, I don't need. Hell, I paid $12,000 to have them reduced after Joseph was weaned. But, for some, a little extra might be welcome. 

OK, that's about it for the positive. 

The negative? Ah, where to begin. My skirts hug my waist so tightly that the hug should really be considered a choke hold. My tops "pop" a little if they have buttons in the front. And, for the first time in my life, I have this roll beneath my breasts. And that roll, that roll, is so large it should have an address! 

My neck. OK, where exactly did my whole neck go? I mean it's still there if I push my head out away from my body. I can almost succeed in hiding the extra flesh in pictures with this little move.

After Hurricane Katrina blew my life apart, but gave me the opportunity to escape my prison sentence with Stinky, I was in what some people call a bit of a state of shock. I was traumatized. Yep, that storm blew my house, my children's school, and my office away, and Stinky had knocked me clean stupid.

So, though it's been two and a half years, sometimes I long for those first months (okay, it was actually a year) of being so confused and unhappy and scared that I couldn't hold down a full time job and was afraid to really do anything more than get up, get the kids to school, and brush my teeth.

That's when I found my new friends: Crown Royal and Mimosa. Mmmm. I had no money, but I actually bought the complete collection of all six seasons of Sex In the City and after the kids were in school, I would come home and I would put in the next DVD open a bottle of Frexinet Brut or Extra Dry, mix a mimosa and sit down to plunge into complete oblivion watching four hip chicks living their lives in the Big Apple.

Ahhh. Those were the days. By noon, the champagne was gone along with a king sized bar of Hershey's dark chocolate, I would lay down and sleep for two hours, awake refreshed, brush my teeth, again, and go get the kids.

Then after baths and homework and giggles and stories of their day, and once they were both snuggled in for the night, I would shower, slip into my bed and put in the next DVD and hit play. I would also begin drinking the four Crown Royal highballs that would lull me into a deep sleep, so deep that I would not have the nightmares that had plagued me the first few weeks after my departure from the coast of Mississippi.

Ah, student life.

That day was a continuation of last weekend as far as life in the super-fast lane is concerned. Once again, I played it fast and loose with my blood sugar, going much too long between meals. If my mom reads this she will have my hide when she visits next month, but the day had me shuffling too many things that too many people place way too much emphasis on. I'm sure there is a line of unsatisfied customers somewhere. I can't be concerned with that.

All in all, I am happy with the way things turned out. I did not let other people stress me out, I prioritized the way I thought necessary, and bonus — everything got done.  Now, if I can manage to keep down the dinner I waited too long to eat, it will truly be a banner day.

The moral of the story: Do the things you deem most necessary first, make sure you understand the consequences of all your actions, and most importantly, pack some protein in your bag for those days you spend on the go.

Just when you start feeling sorry for yourself because you barely have enough money to pay rent and both kids need new clothes and you're wondering how in the heck you're going to find a home for six new kittens, life smacks you right upside the head.

My friend's granddaughter died Wednesday. She was seven months old. SIDS, perhaps. The autopsy report has not been released.

Life: It's a fragile, fleeting, passing thing.

In the midst of frustration, because my 11- and 12-year-old cannot go one day without quarreling over something, I have to stop and realize how blessed I am to have two healthy children who are able to quarrel. When I want to complain because I've been hacking like a smoker (I don't smoke) because of all the Middle Tennessee pollen that is in every single breath I take, I have to stop and be grateful that I am able to breathe, able to cough, able to have itchy, swelling eyes and a runny nose.

Many years ago when I finally learned that life is all the good and all the bad rolled into one, I felt that I had discovered the secret. If I could look at all things that happen to me and allow them to happen without my feeling cursed, singled out, plotted upon, then I would be able to accept whatever happened to me and roll with it. But, losing a child — I don't know how a mother recovers from that loss. As tough and strong as I like to think I am, would I be able to move forward with life if my son or daughter died?

We've all heard about the seven most difficult things we can face in life: Divorce, job change or loss, relocation, marriage, pregnancy, illness or death, but we don't all have to face these.