Purple Cowboy - Cabernet Sauvignon @@@@ (4 corks)

Retails: $10.99 (Target)

And so, the tide recedes.

To say that I've had an eventful past seven months is an epic understatement.

In between my last entry and now there have undoubtedly been innumerable pleasurable bottles of wine, many of which were consumed during a time of enormous heartache, difficulty, disappointment, confusion, and utter life questioning, sleepless nights. If it had not been for good friends and family who build my solid foundation, and a resolve to not become another defeated person (woman), I'm sure I would not have consumed, but would have been consumed.

Before I delve too deeply into the details, first, the wine.

I came across this little beauty while in one of my absolute favorite guilty pleasures--Super Target, (the "super" being superfluous since ALL Target is super in my opinion...I digress). The descriptive label boasted of both cherry and cola flavors -- cola? So, in essence, we're comparing this Cabernet Sauvignon to cherry coke --- needless to say, sheer curiosity overtook any logic behind my buying power, and I immediately placed the bottle in my red cart.

The smell does have a certain Robitussen familiarity about it. I mean that in the absolute best way. In the same manner in which Robitussen cough syrup is cherry-esque, I would say this wine embodies the same quality. It's not sweet but there's a stone fruit palatable bitterness about it. There's almost a hint of eucalyptus vapor, probably adding to the cough syrup resemblance. It's a difficult wine to describe, my one critiques is that the dryness can be a bit overpowering. This is a completely full-bodied wine, definitely not for the faint of heart. If you're brave enough to follow-through, you'll find a beautiful blackberry flavor lingers on your tongue, inviting you back for more. Intriguing, complicated, absolute perfection for this moment.

Back in December, the final nail was hammered into the coffin of my marriage. After a long thirteen months, after enduring yet another brutal fight, I finally found the courage to admit to myself, to my ex-husband, and to the world, that I couldn't stand to live another miserable day feeling "less than."

I've spent an inordinate amount of my young adult life feeling less than. One failed relationship after another, I've frequently been made to feel less than, and when I chose to get married, I felt I had finally escaped the cycle. I worked hard, harder than I've ever worked at anything to resolve difficult situations and cultivate a sense of ease but more importantly, a sense of love in the home I had created.

But, as one of my favorite Wilco songs simplistically says in the most articulate of ways, "I thought that if I held you tightly, you would always love me like you did back then," suddenly became the absolute truth. It became clear that this person's anger and rage towards me were never going to cease. The name calling, the hurtful words were only going to get worse and more painful. I was paying the price for someone else's mistakes.

Perhaps, after many, many years, these kinds of troubles can be resolved in a marriage, but within the first year, coupled with all of the other difficulties, I felt as if I were barely surviving as it was. I couldn't sleep, my entire immune system was incapable of functioning properly. The stress was literally killing me slowly. And for what? At the end of the day, I didn't even have a partner, I had a roommate who lived down the hall who I slowly felt less and less for until I finally felt absolutely nothing at all.

It took a long time for me to finally find the courage to end it before it would end me. I was afraid of what people would say --- shocking, I know. Many of my closest friends were entering parenthood or blissfully newlywed, how could they understand? Then, of course, there's the sting of the divorce stigma -- and after only thirteen months?! The horror! Somehow, I felt guilty that I couldn't handle the "pressures of being married." I had somehow convinced myself that what I was going through was completely normal---but is walking on eggshells out of fear around the one who's supposed to love you most, normal?

Probably the most difficult thing to come to terms with in the whole situation was the fact that I truly wanted to be married. I've wanted nothing more my entire life than to have my own family and feel the security of having a home full of people who love you and whom I love -- no matter what. I felt like a complete failure for not being able to resolve all the problems and make the situation work.

I moved out just before the holidays, my stuff lay in purgatory between my old home, my parents' condo and storage. I spent Christmas and New Years Day alone--and if it weren't for a couple of amazing friends, I would have also spent the two Eves' alone, too. Thankfully, work was amazingly busy so I was able to fully dive into this distraction.

That is, until I got laid off.

Yes, just after the holidays, I got laid off--I couldn't have been more devastated. Not only had I in the New Year, moved into a new apartment specifically chosen for its proximity to work, but I also had worked the holidays rather than going home and grieving my loss. My marriage had failed and I had failed at the only real job I had ever had. The kind of hell I fell into is indescribable. "It's a fresh start," literally everyone I know, said. Yes, I would agree, but nothing could have prepared me for losing absolutely every part of my past life. My divorce might have been my decision, but it was nevertheless a complete destruction of the person I had become. My getting laid off was the last piece of my former life to part with. Perhaps it hit me worse only because it wasn't at all on my own terms.

Luckily, during this difficult time, I found solace in a new found hobby --- no, not drinking an extraordinary amount of wine or other liquor---but, I began, for the first time ever, distance running. The one stroke of good luck I had in January, brought me in as a last-minute fill-in for a runner on a relay team in the Ragnar relay series. Running 200 miles in a 36 hour period from Miami to Key West, our team of 12 conquered an incredible feat at the start of the new year. If it weren't for this experience, the friends I made doing this and the new-found hobby, I'm fairly certain I wouldn't have caught the next wave--

I'm a big believer that we are all floating in a giant body of water, waves come along and pick us up, carry us for a while, the energy coming ever-closer to entropy...to slowly end at shore, or die abruptly in the waters...only to be carried into another wave that will lead us further into The Journey.

So, after my whirlwind adventure running the relay, after getting laid off -- my luck finally began to change.

Out of nowhere, my former employer called to re-hire me. Under better terms (and salary), I hopped back on-board doing what I've been doing -- and actually feeling appreciated for the kind of effort I bring to the job at hand.

Out of nowhere, a former love is slowly becoming a new love all over again. Organically. That's probably the most exciting thing, the prospect of starting all over again, all over again, with someone who during "round one" (as I affectionately call it), I was pretty damn convinced was the one I'd end up with -- if it weren't for a bunch of outside circumstances (distance, too much travel, burgeoning careers, life). And I would have been lucky to have ended up with him.

As he so eloquently put -- "right bus, right seat, wrong time" -- couldn't agree more and I absolutely cannot wait to see where this bus (wave) will take me this time.