It was 9 years ago today that I packed my Toyota Corolla and headed west to Colorado.\u00a0 I stopped by my mom\u2019s to tell her goodbye, then got in my car and just started driving.\u00a0<\/p>\n
My reason for leaving on February 13th<\/sup> was calculated:\u00a0 I didn\u2019t want to spend another Valentine\u2019s Day with someone who didn\u2019t know how to love me, or couldn\u2019t commit to me not just in front of witnesses, but on a day-to-day basis.<\/p>\n I drove 3 days to start this new life.\u00a0 It\u2019s kind of ironic that I went from living in a brand new home with a queen-sized bed and a steady job and my friends and family around me, but lived in misery because of my marriage.\u00a0 3 days later, I slept on a poorly-inflated air mattress in a cold 2-room basement sublet with no job and no local friends\/family and yet I had never been so giddy.\u00a0 \u00a0I was finally free.<\/p>\n Tomorrow will be the first time in 5 years that I won\u2019t have a Valentine or special someone to call my own.\u00a0 I\u2019d be lying if I wasn\u2019t sometimes sad about it.\u00a0 Not the loss of the person himself \u2013 because why be with someone who doesn\u2019t want you as his forever girl? But just the concept, the emptiness of that space in my heart.<\/p>\n However, in reality? It\u2019s okay.\u00a0 Just like 9 years ago, I recognize the start of a new life.\u00a0 In the past 4 months I\u2019ve been able to better appreciate the great friendships, good job, and happy world I can create for myself.\u00a0 I\u2019ve got things I\u2019m passionate about, things that make me happy, and a way to give back to others.<\/p>\n Finally, I\u2019m a better person than I ever was.\u00a0 I\u2019m strong enough to love the right way.\u00a0 And I\u2019m ready to blaze a new trail.<\/p>\n \u201cTwo roads diverged in a yellowed and I?\u00a0 I took the one less travelled by and that has made all the difference . . .\u201d<\/em> (Robert Frost)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It was 9 years ago today that I packed my Toyota Corolla and headed west to Colorado.\u00a0 I stopped by my mom\u2019s to tell her goodbye, then got in my car and just started driving.\u00a0 My reason for leaving on February 13th was calculated:\u00a0 I didn\u2019t want to spend another Valentine\u2019s Day with someone who…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[36,33,8,35,34],"class_list":["post-155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dating","tag-happiness","tag-happy-trails-day","tag-love","tag-robert-frost","tag-valentines-day"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2UnPK-2v","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeywrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeywrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeywrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeywrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeywrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/joeywrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeywrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeywrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeywrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}