I just got divorced, after, well, a really long time. Forty years, actually. Married him right out of college, you know, when everyone did that. And now I’m… 68, I guess. And I’m sitting here in this new apartment, all these boxes still around, and I’m looking at my bookshelves, right? All the books I’ve collected over the years. And it hit me, like a ton of bricks, really. Not a single one of them is something *I* picked out, not really. It’s all his taste, or books I knew he’d approve of, or, you know, stuff we were “supposed” to read because it was good for the career, the image, whatever. Like, I’ve got all these biographies of industrialists and treatises on global economics, which, fine, I’m retired now but I was in finance, so it makes sense on paper. But did I ever *want* to read those? Not really. I always sort of gravitated to, I don’t know, historical fiction, maybe some literary stuff, but I always felt like that was… frivolous, I guess. Not serious enough for someone on the partner track. It’s like a performance review for my own reading habits, even now. And it’s not just the books. It’s everything. The art on the walls, the places we traveled, the kind of restaurants we went to. Even the type of dog we had! Always a Golden Retriever, because they’re, like, family-friendly, good for the kids, good for the image in the neighborhood. And I loved our Goldens, don’t get me wrong, they were wonderful dogs. But secretly, I always kind of wanted a terrier, you know? Something a bit scruffier, a bit more independent. But that just wouldn’t have fit the… brand, I guess you could say. My whole life, it feels like I’ve been curating this public persona, this perfect wife, perfect mom, perfect executive, and all the preferences that came with it were just part of the package. Like, I don’t even know what my favorite color is anymore because for so long it was just… whatever matched the decor, whatever he liked. It’s such a WEIRD feeling. It’s like I’ve woken up and realized I’ve been living in someone else’s house, or something. And it’s not even his fault, really. I just… went along with it. For forty years. And now I’m here, alone, and I’m supposed to suddenly know what *I* like, what *I* want to do with my time, what *I* want to eat for dinner. And honestly? I don’t have a CLUE. It's almost embarrassing to admit. I’m an educated woman, always capable, always in control at work, but outside of that, I feel like a teenager trying to figure out their identity. But with a whole lot more wrinkles, and, you know, aches and pains. It’s pretty damn pathetic, if I’m being honest. And yeah, I know, “you’re free now!” and all that jazz, but what if I don’t even know what freedom means for me? What if I never figured that out? What then?