Sleeping Solo: One Woman's Journey into Life after Marriage by Audrey Faye Read Free Book Online Page A

people get around by the instrument
panel, and they don’t care much whether they can see out or not.   I’m one of those crazy fighter pilots
from an earlier time who needs to fly a couple of loops in a clear blue sky to
figure out which way France might be.
    I wasn’t going to turn these limping words into a book
unless and until I could feel France again.  
    And not for all the money in the world was I going to
release crap.
    So I put a tearful, heartfelt, deeply honest post up on my
Facebook page, one that came not from the author, but from me, frail human
being.
    I wish that every person on earth could be gifted a day like
what happened next.
    Comments, many hundreds of them, wrapped
in the energy of thoughts from thousands more.   A tsunami of love and support and advice
and encouragement, from people who had been through a divorce and those who
hadn’t, from those new to my books and the regulars who had been with me since
the beginning.   So
much balm for my bruises and sorrow and guilt and grief.  
    They didn’t see the author—they saw me.   These people who had read my million
words and fallen in love blew right past the news that their beloved series was
on indefinite hold and wrapped me in utter acceptance.
    I still go back to that wall of words often.   Not very many people have proof like
that of how much they matter.
    I’d already decided that I needed to do what was right for
me—but they gave me permission to do it with a light heart.   My beautiful world of love and family
will live on in so many hearts—even if I can never write another word
there.
    I shifted gears, started writing three or four things,
waiting for one to take hold.   And
one did.   A story with more attitude and less glitter, carefully rooted outside the most
hurt places of my soul.   (It’s
called Lesbian Assassins .   It began as a dare, honest.)   A chance to play and
write something a little less emotionally draining.
    It’s been fun, even if the whole plan to keep these
characters a bit more at arm’s length hasn’t worked out all
that well.   And there are
stories percolating in the wings.   I
sit down these days eager to write, my fingers struggling to keep up with the
flow.
    I sit down knowing that I am still a writer.
    I don’t know that anything I will write ever again will touch
quite the same chord in the universe as my first series.   I got the amazing chance to be the
spinner of a dream that lives deep in the heart of so very many people, and I
know full well exactly how special that was.
    I still don’t know if I will ever be able to go back to
those stories.  
    But I figure if that time comes, my ribs will know.
    Being happy when it’s
still messy.   My life these days is basically happy.   I didn’t expect that—a lot of the
divorce self-help stuff talks about how the party who got surprised by all of
this will be forever running to catch up.
    Not me.   Somewhere in the last few months, I got clear of the wreckage.   Not entirely—I don’t know if
that’s possible when you have kids and the legal stuff isn’t settled yet.   So maybe it’s more accurate to say that
my heart got clear.   My life got
clear.   Shit will still happen, but
it doesn’t get to sit in the driver’s seat anymore.
    That doesn’t mean crap doesn’t hit the wall, or that I’m a
cheerful fairy free of anger and the occasional need to throw things at the
wall and the more frequent need to vent to a friend or two.   Sometimes one of my Lesbian Assassins characters gets way too moody and I have to go
have a chat with her and explain that she is not me and she doesn’t need to track my emotional state all over the place.   (There have been a couple of cathartic
scenes written that won’t ever see the light of day, however…)
    Sadness still visits regularly too.   For my writing, for my marriage, for my
kids who are in many ways only now starting to register what they’ve lost.  
    My head is not