I cut my hair this week. Well, I didn't cut it — I had a hairdresser do the job.

I don't have very long hair. I used to, though. It hung to the middle of my back in all its curly glory. But the long shape of my face combined with the long, curly hair gave the impression of a cocker spaniel, floppy ears and all.

So I cut my hair short — very short. The two-inch brown stuff that was left looked funky and fun. Well, it would have, had I had the small, heart-shaped face required to pull off a pixie cut like that.

I ended up with a hairstyle somewhere in the middle, a length above my shoulders but below my jaw line.

"Short," I said firmly to the hairdresser this week. "Fun. Funky. Flou," I waved my hands about, trying to convey a messy yet charming hairstyle that would make me look young and wild.

And there's the catch: I want to look young and wild. I want to look like a free spirit full of confidence and sassy attitude. I want to have it goin' on, girlfriend.

I don't want to look middle-aged and run down. I don't want to look tired anymore. I want to find some way to attract attention and make myself look appealing.

I want men to look at me.

I don't even necessarily want a man. I have one. He's a little screwed up and we fight sometimes, but hey. I still have feelings for the guy and we have a history. We're working on it.

But I want to know that I'm still attractive, used goods and all. I want to know that my life isn't over, that I could still turn heads and get a man if I wanted one. I want to be desirable — not just to one man, but to many.

I think I want to know that I'm still worth a second glance and that if my ex and I do decide that we just can't make it work, that I won't be alone.

"You cut your hair." My ex examined the shorter, sassier mess of curls. "I liked it better longer."

Rob's and my couple's therapist suggested the choice I face isn't between our current relationships on the one hand, and separate futures on the other, but between a new relationship together on the one hand, and separate futures on the other.

Oh, right. I don't have to settle for our relationship status quo; if I choose to stay, it should be for a better, healthier relationship. While this is not earth shattering, it felt new, and gave me pause. I guess I had been in a rut thinking the relationship was unchangeable and therefore doomed. Not so?

After this suggestion, I spent a good day thinking, nah — there's no way Rob can change. And the trauma between us is irrevocable and can't be healed.

But then I thought of all the good changes Rob has already made and decided he would be capable of it. That lasted through a second day. But something still irked me. Even if change for the better were possible between us, I still had misgivings. What were they?

They were my dreams. My dreams of independence, the freedom of living on my own terms — without the guilt and the fighting and the worry — and the pride that would come of humble self-sufficiency.

These dreams of mine are set in the near future; I imagine enjoying this independence while I can still pass for the kind of young that gets away with putting up visitors on a futon rather than in a well-appointed guest room, that travels from hostel to hostel and is not decades older than the other guests.

This is it — I feel I'm in a race against time. Sure, independence at any age will be wonderful, but my particular dreams I want to live out, well, now.

This reminds me of Harry Burns's loving tirade at the end of When Harry Met Sally: "When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible."

My sweet little boy is getting a teensy bit aggressive these days and suddenly I find that I am being bombarded with all sorts of advice that I don't want to accept.

For example, Adrian has started pulling hair. But not any hair, just my hair, and it hurts! He'll yank my hair — hard — and when I shout "Ouch!" he laughs and laughs and laughs. It has been suggested that I pull his hair in retaliation, "show him what it feels like," they say. Ummmm, no thank you.

One of Adrian's other favorite things to do to me is to bite. Again, he'll just come over to me, bite me, and laugh like crazy when I say "Ouch!" And those new teeth are sharp! It has been suggested that I bite him back. "Only way to stop a biter," they say.

And yet another one of his "new tricks" is smacking me. This one doesn't happen as often and usually only when I'm sleeping, but still....

I took him to the doctor last week for a physical. The doctor that we usually see was out, so we had to see the physician's assistant. While we were there he asked me if there had been any changes in his behavior. I said, "Yes, as a matter of fact, there has," and told him what I just told you all.

He said that I need to put him in a time-out chair whenever he does any of these things. I explained that I had tried that but that Adrian will just get up; he doesn't understand that he is supposed to stay there — he's only 16 months old. I told him that rather than using the chair, I use the playpen.

On Thursday afternoons I go to a writing workshop in the basement of a local novelist's home. You've maybe read some books workshopped and developed in that basement, or seen the movies.

"Dangerous Writing," it's called. Dangerous because it's about going deep into places that scare you, the vulnerable places, and writing from them.

The sore spots, my teacher calls them. It's fiction writing, mostly. Characters created to explore places too hard to go alone.

He's the real deal. Along with a Pulitzer-nomination and his seemingly bottomless stores of compassion, he has a gift for intuitively guiding writers into the heart of their own hauntings.

We are all of us haunted, he says.

And he lives it. His books are brilliant and beautiful, but they aren't easy.

A couple weeks ago he was talking about how, for a long time, his boyfriends were just anyone who loved him.

I wonder how many of us do this. First fall in love with the love itself, regardless of who is loving us. Then stick around long after we should just in case there's no one else. Trade fear for love.

Because what if this is as good as it gets.

Or what if, in leaving, we are forced to see ourselves. The good, the bad, the hauntings, all of it. See who is living in our skin.

There's no hiding from yourself on the page and there's no hiding from yourself in divorce. It strips you down, exposes every place you never wanted to see.

It's dangerous business, being human.

The reward for seeing, for living circumstances that weren't supposed to be, is, hopefully, we put ourselves back together stronger and healthier.

More human and more loving.

Family. That is what holidays have traditionally been about. Father helps children celebrate Mother's Day by purchasing a card or two, flowers, a gift.

Maybe he helps your son and daughter prepare a breakfast complete with your favorite French toast, bacon, and eggs.

Today, moving beyond divorce, holidays have changed. This Mother's Day begins with getting out of bed and feeding the cat and the six little kittens now crying for their kitty food, walking the dog, making my bed, starting another load of endless laundry, and watching the weather channel. I watch the weather channel the way some people listen to the news or radio.

I turn the oven on to broil and I grab some Lenders bagels out of the fridge and split them with my fingers. I place them on my mother's 50-year-old pizza pan and slide the pan into the oven. I wait.

I open the fridge to look for my caffeine fix of sweet tea, and the pitcher is empty of anything except a single swallow. I grab my second choice, the kids' Pepsi. I turn and kick the door shut with my right foot. I pull the bagels out of the oven. I yell, "Breakfast!"

Happy Mother's Day to me.

There is no answer. I yell again, "Breakfast!"

I hear shuffling and laughter.

"Mom!"

"What?" I say. "Breakfast!" My frustration and self pity increasing.

My daughter calls me to her room. I stomp back to the hall muttering to myself about ungrateful children and my life without a spouse and no support, and then I open the bedroom door.

Her eyes wide and sparkling. My son stands beside her barely able to contain his laughter.

They pull their hands out from behind their back. She extends a large pink construction paper creation in front of me with pink paper roses glued to it. She has made a card. It is beautiful. My son has made me three Lego puppies.

I'm beginning to realize that this state of limbo just isn't going to work.

A while back I decided to just disregard the feelings I had about leaving, and to push it all aside and just go on like everything is fine. You know what? Everything isn't fine. It hasn't been fine for a long time, and it's not something that I can just decide to switch on and off.

The fact remains that something has to be done. A decision has to be made soon.

How did I figure this out? I was sitting on the couch, working on my laptop while my husband was watching TV. There was one of the Lord of the Rings movies on — I'm sure don't know which one it was because that's not really my cup of tea — and I glanced up just in time to see a scene where one of the guys returns home to his kids who leap into his arms and his wife who smiles, embraces him, and gives him a loving kiss.

It hit me like a ton of bricks: Married couples should be happy. I should want to kiss my husband when he comes home. I should smile when I see him walking toward me. I'm not saying that everything should be sunshine and roses 100% of the time, but how much longer can I wander around in the fog of "marital issues?"

When I saw that scene on the TV and had that reaction, I almost stood up and announced that I was packing my bags.

I'm trying to be practical about all this. I'm trying to give this situation as much effort as I can. I'm going to therapy. I'm trying to be a good wife. For goodness sake, we just booked a vacation for this summer!

I'm doing everything I can think of, and I have been doing it for months. I'm exhausted, and I'm starting to freak out a little.

My uncle and his girlfriend were married yesterday. They've been together for 16 plus years. I've already taken to calling his girlfriend my aunt. It's just easier that way.

I used to ask them years and years ago when they were going to get married. My uncle would always say something like, "Who needs to get married?" When the Levi disaster happened, I must admit that I started to feel the same way.

So you can only imagine my surprise when I opened up my e-mail yesterday, yes, my e-mail, to find a message from my uncle that said the following:

Faith,

Janice and I are getting married at 5 today at the house. We need you to come over and be a witness.

I thought that he was kidding so I called him. Nope, he was serious.

They were married at 5:00 p.m., in front of their house, underneath their cheery tree. It was only the two of them, the Justice of The Peace, Adrian, and me. Still, it was beautiful. It was perfect.

I realized yesterday how absolutely jaded I am now. How whenever someone tells me that they're getting married or I hear of someone getting married, my instant reaction is "Why!?" I think to myself, Why would you want to screw up a perfectly good relationship by going and getting married?

I also realize how silly that sounds.

Marriage is not the enemy, nor is it something to fear. Marriage is hard work, but can also be filled with happiness, love, and security.

These two are perfect for one another. The amount of time they've spent together thus far proves that. I don't know if it's possible but I hope that somehow in marriage, there bond can grow even stronger.

Congratulations, guys!

After my Ingrid Michaelson song post, someone commented, "It's just a song people."

I loved the responses to that, but I especially loved this one:

"And a poem is just a poem? And a painting is just pigment on a canvas and (so the song goes) life is just to die? Sorry, I don't buy that. I think it's good, great, wonderful to look to art, music, architecture, nature — all these things — to try to find or understand our connections to one another and to find some meaning to go with our experiences."

I spend more time doing this these days — finding new meanings in pieces I've already known. Songs, especially — whether they're about splitting up, or, more recently, being in a relationship that makes me happy — songs I've known forever I hear again and suddenly understand, suddenly feel like they're connected to me.

Suddenly, there are songs that mean something. Books that suddenly make sense. Poems that make me feel like I know where I'm going.

Because I like that — that feeling of connection — and because I want to irritate the commenter who thinks songs mean nothing but a paycheck to the songwriter, I'd like to spend a little time this week on those connections.

That's the thing about major life shifts: There's new meaning to find, and there are others trying to find the same meanings. Sometimes they say it better than we do.