Hi, I’m Adrienne.  I’ve been divorced a few years, and I’m starting to come to terms with my new life.  I’d like to share with you the best advice I ever got from an acquaintance who tread the path to singledom a few years before I did.

We were at a picnic and she pulled me aside.

“How are you doing?” she asked.

“Fine,” I said, trying not to notice all the intact families around me.

“No, really, how are you doing?” she asked again.

“It’s hard,” I said, my voice cracking.

“Listen.  You need to get new sheets.”

“Really?  It makes that much of a difference?”

“Trust me.  You’ll see,” she said, before walking off to find her son and her new husband.

When I left the picnic, I asked my sister to babysit so that I could go shopping.  I held back the part of me saying “This is a waste of money and you can’t afford it anyway.”  I bought really soft, 400-thread count sheets (in a muted shade my ex hates, but I always loved) and I went home and washed them and put them on my bed fresh out of the dryer.

I washed the old sheets too and put them in a bag for Goodwill.  Goodbye to the sheets my husband and I cuddled under to plan our future and dream big before it all fell apart.  Goodbye to the sheets where our children were conceived.  Goodbye to the pillowcases I cried countless tears upon.

I slept that night between my new sheets and I slept so well.  The sheets were nicer than any other sheets I had before, but more importantly, I was refeathering my nest.  I was accepting that this is “my” bed now, not “our” bed anymore.

Everyone has advice when you’re getting married, but no one tells you how to get divorced.  What’s the best advice you ever got?

You can find out why I needed new sheets in Giving Myself Away, coming out this fall from Assent Publishing.  Thanks for reading!