{"id":701,"date":"2017-11-25T21:33:38","date_gmt":"2017-11-26T01:33:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderblessings\/?p=701"},"modified":"2017-11-25T21:46:14","modified_gmt":"2017-11-26T01:46:14","slug":"205-seven-years-of-singleness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderblessings\/?p=701","title":{"rendered":"205. Seven Years of Singleness"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderblessings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Heron11_24.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderblessings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Heron11_24.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"298\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-703\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderblessings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Heron11_24.jpg 400w, https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderblessings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Heron11_24-300x224.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Seven years ago today, my divorce was finalized.<\/p>\n<p>At the time, I was scared.  I got married right after finishing grad school.  So I hadn&#8217;t lived as a single adult on my own, out in the world.  I felt unprotected and alone.<\/p>\n<p>But &#8211; being single turned out to be lovely!  I am working as a librarian, making my own friends, active in church, choosing activities that I like to do.<\/p>\n<p>I have even managed to buy a car and keep it maintained!  (That was one of the most daunting things.  Done.)  Why, I even chose and bought my own home (with a down payment from my dad, okay) &#8211; something we never managed to do as a couple.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, there have been lonely times.  Yes, I hope to marry again some day.  But life is very good even if that doesn&#8217;t happen.<\/p>\n<p>And this year I&#8217;m even on the Newbery committee!<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this month, a family crisis got me feeling vulnerable and alone again.  But now things are better, and I just keep on seeing herons, as <a href=\"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderblessings\/2017\/11\/23\/204-great-blue-herons\/\">I mentioned a couple days ago<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Herons represent self-reliance and remind me that, yes, I am just plain thankful for the last seven years.<\/p>\n<p>I am not only living my single life with grace; I am soaring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Seven years ago today, my divorce was finalized. At the time, I was scared. I got married right after finishing grad school. So I hadn&#8217;t lived as a single adult on my own, out in the world. I felt unprotected and alone. But &#8211; being single turned out to be lovely! I am working as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderblessings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderblessings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderblessings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderblessings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderblessings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=701"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderblessings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":705,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderblessings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701\/revisions\/705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderblessings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderblessings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderblessings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}