In Her Unhinged Era

When an abrupt change in life circumstances gives you the chance to reboot your life, important decisions must be made.

Will you start a new and unlikely career? An MLM? Will you date? Start a long term relationship? And, most importantly, will you start wearing an ostentations accessory to advertise your unbalanced mental health?

I bought a hat. I look awful in hats, usually like a terminally ill person, but also bad in other ways. As part of my quirky single woman schtick I’m taking myself on a trip this summer instead of sitting around missing my children, who are spending the bulk of their vacation with their father. A trip for which a hat is required, it seems. I will be in the sun and I’m of Irish descent which means I should probably wear a hat to shield myself from those rays so I don’t end up with an exciting new freckle my dermatologist will have to dig out of my face with a shovel. It’s only to save my face that I’ll wear a jaunty hat and look terrible on my vacation.

Next I think I need a tattoo. Not a sleeve – I don’t love pain – but as I’ve sped up my midlife crisis I should probably have something permanent and infinitely regrettable to mark the occasion. A piercing is great, but a tattoo is forever. You know, in case I someday forget about getting divorced because my eyebrow ring has closed up, I’ll always have a tattoo to remind me of that time my life turned itself inside out. You want to get your money’s worth, right?

The trip I’m taking this summer is part of the whole maybe-she’s-losing-it vibe. Should I go to Europe to escape my problems? I would argue that yes, I certainly should. The only positive thing about my kids being away is time to myself, which I have never had as the primary caregiver. So yes, I should go to Europe so I don’t sit at home missing my children while they spend more time away from me than they ever have before. I’m still going to miss them like crazy, but I’ll do it while eating a baguette.

Developing new habits is part of coping as well. Every evening I make myself a cocktail while I prepare dinner for my kids. It’s a ritual that feeds my soul while still ensuring I am a responsible parent in an emergency (I occasionally pour a second after the kids are in bed but rarely drink it. I have the tragic backstory of an alcoholic but no ambition to pursue it). I haven’t started vaping like the youths of today, and instead I’ve kept up my daily mental health walks from EL Paso. I listen to music all day every day, which I rotate depending on my mood, from pop to trap to rage rock. And I write. It’s one part therapy, one part hobby, one part brain exercise. Building up an archive of writing samples will help me apply for gigs, so it’s not entirely useless work.

So what’s next? After I get a tattoo and wander around Europe in my ill-advised hat, what will be the next potentially unwise choice? Signing up for pottery classes has lonely divorcee written all over it, but I hate having dirty nails. There’s high-heel dancing, or pole dancing, or maybe Brazilian jiujitsu. My quest to find a neighborhood bar where the bartender knows my drink before I ask has already been accomplished, but it gave me the ick and now I hate going there. The bartender is lovely, but having the same drink in the same spot so often it was memorable made me feel boring. I still have the same drink but in different places. You cannot improve on vodka and soda with lime.

It’s hard to be truly unhinged and reckless when you’re a devoted parent. I wanted to go to Vietnam this summer, but that seemed a riskier choice for my first trip. I’m not going to drink too much, develop a hard drug problem, tattoo my face, or start gambling in Vegas on my weekends off. I have to keep my quirks small-scale. I really don’t want a cat, and I don’t think I’m ready for a dog, but maybe I’ll adopt one of those men that say things like, “oh, Babe, you shouldn’t date me. I’m bad news. Can I get your number?” We all know those men are totally fixable. I’m sure they were only bad news for other women. I am what he needs, right? Right?!

Most of them are just normal boring men but they’ve heard women prefer “bad guys” so they use that nonsense as a pickup line. I’m hoping. How do they know the things to say to make their red flags seem like a pro instead of a con? Ugh, men.

I don’t know what weird obsession will follow the questionable hat and summer vacation, but, within the parameters of safe and semi-responsible adulthood, I can do whatever I want. I am me, not we, and the days of applying for corporate jobs in the “real world” are long gone, so bring on the face piercing and the neck tattoo (again, I’m sorry, Dad).

What would you do if you could start over from scratch? I have heard women enter their Zero Fucks Era when they turn forty, but maybe you get early access with proof of a dramatic life event. So raise your one cocktail, tip your weird hat, for God’s sake, clean that cartilage piercing, and enjoy your life, because you only get one, and it all belongs to you.