Hours after I returned home with the so-called simple agreement forms for my divorce from Edgar, my doctor called. Turns out, there is a reason other than stress why I'm so tired — and it's not that I'm having one of those female heart attacks with the weird symptoms, as I had feared.

My hemoglobin is low. The doctor said he suspects I'm bleeding internally.

"This is not an emergency," he said. When I return next week from visiting my parents I'm to go see him for tests. Oh, okay.

And then I realized: Had this happened after I get my divorce, I probably wouldn't know there was a problem, much less be planning to check it out. When Ed is really gone, so is my health insurance.

Tired? Take more vitamins, get more rest and exercise. When my leg falls off or blood starts running from my ears, then I will afford, somehow, to see a doctor, in the emergency room, because it is an emergency.

Millions of people are doing it. It's the American way.

I've been delightfully spoiled for many years, insured and able to make co-payments so I can see a doctor whenever I think I need to. I am afraid of giving that up.

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear."

I've heard versions of that quote, attributed to Ambrose Redmoon, for years. Especially since I came into AA, where we talk about feeling the fear and doing it anyway.

Ed has been out of the house for a year. I've done a lot of life reconstruction since then, with much more to come, and some of it is already scaring me. But old Ambrose's words are wise.

Apprehensive as I am, I'm also unwilling to let concerns about health insurance stop me from ending this bad marriage.

Who knows? Maybe once the divorce is final, my relief will be so great I'll be struck perfectly healthy. 

This past summer will henceforth be known as "Cohabitation Experiment Summer." Yes. Just a few short months ago, Mike and I tried living together — in strictly controlled, scientific circumstances, of course.

The Initial Plan: I am used to spending the summers in New York. Since I am now dating someone who lives there, living in the NYU dorms no longer seems like a good plan. Mike, unfortunately, lives in an apartment the size of a shoebox. There is no possible way two people can spend an entire summer in a place this size and not tear each other's faces off.  We both like being alone too much. We both want the option of getting away.  We need a door to close.

We decide that he will sublet his shoebox, I will take the money I normally spend on the dorms, and, together, we will sublet a larger apartment for the summer.

This will be a living together experiment. We will see how we do when it's longer than a week or two. We are pretty sure we're not ready to live together For Real — at least, I am, but this will not be For Real. There is a time limit. It is temporary. It is safer. We will discover new and exciting things about our relationship.

Delightful Possibilities: The luxury of spending time together without anticipating its end in a few short days. Seeing what "real life" with each other is like. Waking up together every morning.

Scary Possibilities: That we won't get enough alone time. That I will somehow freak out and mess everything up.

All these things, as it turns out, came to pass.

Next post: Alice examines just why this experiment was such an epic failure.

As you may recall, this summer marked a relationship milestone: Going On Vacation Together.

I had planned to use this post, and perhaps the next two or three, to recap the trip and examine and analyze the various relationship stumbling blocks that occurred, but, as it turns out, there's nothing to write about. It was a lovely two weeks in which Mike and I did nothing but have a good time and not get tired of each other.

Instead, I will share some thoughts on packing.

Being the kind of girl who does not overpack, the kind of girl who does not bring five bags and expect her boyfriend to carry them while she traipses along in wholly unsuitable shoes is, I think, a good thing. Jake absolutely did not appreciate the joy and the wonder that is Alice's Impressive Packing Ability, and that was one of the many things wrong with our relationship.

Of course, packing in such a way involves somewhat obsessive planning. What Mike would think of this, especially when he saw the little outfit diagrams I make, I didn't know. So I sent him an email detailing what I was doing, thinking, "It's best he know this now, before he stumbles across the drawings and wants to know why I've labeled pictures of my T-shirts."

Did packing so impressively lead to what can only be described as the most marvelous vacation ever? Or was it because this particular relationship is everything I thought didn't really happen in real life?

I suspect the latter, myself.

A revelation. It has finally dawned on me that I don't have to hate my husband to divorce him.

Having spent most of the last year putting up barriers against Edgar to defend myself mentally, physically and emotionally, I guess there's a reason the realization has been so long in coming.

In an email the other day, Ed told me that he misses me terribly.

My first thought was to run and hide under the bed for a week or so, partly because I miss him, too.

Sort of. Every now and then.

But the parts of him and our life together that I get a little wistful about come with the not-so-nice stuff, which is included at no extra charge.

I know that one reason — not the only one, but one reason I drank as long and as hard as I did — was to dull the pain and insanity-inducing frustration of living with an active alcoholic.

I don't want to go back to drinking, and I'm pretty sure that would happen if Ed and I got back together.

Since we've been apart, he's had some periods when he didn't drink. But over the past 11 months I've been blessed to miss some of the scary episodes involving him and the bottle, and he's not volunteering any reports on how well he's handling his alcoholism.

Here's the crux of it: He knows the disease of alcoholism is costing him his marriage.

So better safe than sorry.

I wrote Ed that while I sometimes miss him, too, I do not want to get back on that merry-go-round with him.

I added that this does not mean I don't care for or about him and pointed out that while he may not have been the best husband, I may not have been the best wife.

Jake popped up on Facebook today. It startled me. A lot.

The Internet is not a place I expect to find Jake. He's not social in general, and doesn't do much with on the Web besides email. He's the last person I'd think would be a part of any kind of networking site. I certainly hope I don't run into him on any dating sites.

I only found him because I was idly flipping through profiles of people from my high school, just to see who was there. His name and picture popped up and my heart stopped, it was so unexpected. And so...strange. Like a violation. He was in a place I thought of as mine.

Someone I know recently un-friended me on Facebook. She just went through a messy, messy breakup with a guy I'm also Facebook-friends with and un-friended everyone who knows them both, saying it was just too hard to see his name and picture pop up on her screen all the time.

Another friend called me last week, crying, because her newly-ex-boyfriend had just un-friended her. Not that she hadn't expected it, but the reality of it was one more thing in the line of heartbreak.

The Internet is a strange thing. These sites are strange things — suddenly we have these visuals, these reminders, these ties. I get irritated enough when the people I didn't like in high school pop up on the "people you might know" list. I can't imagine being confronted with a lost love every day.

I am not pleased that Jake has stepped into my digital world. It's silly to feel possessive over something public, but I do. I can only hope that he remains as lackadaisical with the Internet as he has thus far. Because I'm certainly not going to be accepting any friend requests.

When what I believe to be the final divorce papers arrived for my signature this summer, I didn't feel exaltation.

I thought, when this happened, that it would be an occasion of skipping-and-hopping-delight — something like what it was like to finally get Jake's name off the bank account, only exponentially more so. Instead, I was kind of miserable.

Since I am in this new relationship — this relationship that's turning out to really mean something — I thought putting this final, legal closure on things would mean an extra little boost of freedom and happiness and celebration. Instead, it just felt like failure.

I know, in that logical part of myself, that I didn't fail, that it is not my fault, that this doesn't necessarily mean that I am incapable of making a relationship work, that this doesn't mean all relationships are inevitably doomed, but something about holding those papers in my hands sure makes it feel that way.

It's hard not to take this ending and feel that it might mean everything: That nothing will ever work out. That there is no such thing as real compatibility. That there is no such thing as forever. That I won't ever get more than a couple of years. That what I have now — this wonderful and perfect thing — will also drift into pieces until it becomes merely stilted conversation and paperwork.

I had thought, had hoped, signing these final papers would be liberating. That it would be exciting. That I would be joyful. But it's just sad, and I am just unhappy. 

"I should have left years ago."

My 81-year-old mother said that to me for the second time this morning, and it's made me sad. She takes full responsibility for her choice to stay with my father, a difficult man. But one of the reasons she didn't leave him years and years ago is me.

Makes me especially sad to think that her sacrifice on my behalf wasn't a complete success. Witness to her marriage, I was afraid even to admit a desire to have a husband.

And when I finally managed to do that, the man I chose to marry turned out to be very much like my father (imagine that). And now I'm working on getting divorced.

On the other hand, I did grow up with a father who loves me and who was present and responsible, if sometimes unpleasant. And I've had a chance to see what it's like when an unhappy marriage goes on and on and on and on.... It's been educational.

It hurts to see my mother unhappy, especially at this stage of her life. But hers is also quite the cautionary tale.

I don't have a daughter to explain my divorce to, or worry about feeding and buying school uniforms for. At this point in my life that's a blessing.

But I do have myself to keep faith with, and I know I don't want to become an octogenarian regretting a long marriage. As sad as my mother's situation makes me, it also gives me more courage to push ahead through divorce.

Thanks, Mom. For everything.