I have the best group of ski friends ever. I mean seriously ever. They are not only some of the best skiers I know, but they are real, authentic, loyal, smart, etc. The thing I like best about them is that there is little subterfuge. They keep it real and don’t bullshit around. We talk about love, pain, joy, triumph, despair, sex, men, children, relationships…the whole gamut of emotions and situations that life throws at you. There are no boundaries or forbidden conversations and we can all be as crazy as we need to be with each other.

One of them, when she was recently out of a pretty traumatic relationship, told me something I would never forget. We were talking about men and how hard it was to let go of relationships that we had really wanted and expected to work out. She said “I have learned something from my most recent breakup. I learned that the easiest way to get over a man is to spend 24 hours in lock up”. Yeah…that would probably do it for me too.

The problem is our expectations. I truly expected to be married forever. I had dreams of dancing at my grandchildren’s weddings with my ex and being that last couple standing when they do the dance with married couples and keep having people sit down depending on the length of their marriage. The couple that is married the longest is the last couple standing. Watching that dance still gets me every time.

The past couple of days have been spent saying goodbye to some of my best friends. As usual, we had a grand time. Today, sad and lonely, I have accomplished absolutely nothing. Not only have I not packed anything, I have to go teach class and I was going to ride in, here it is 12:40 and I am still in my PJs so it doesn’t look like I am going to get any cycling done either. I have been surfing the web, thinking about cycling in Spain on my birthday.

And that might be why I am in the doldrums, my birthday. I just don’t want to spend another birthday alone. And this is my 50th. Again, I think back to the expectations my ex and I had for our 50ths with the kids grown and gone, what we were going to do together…and here I am doing it alone. A friend of mine once said “there is alone, and then there is ALONE”.

My girlfriends’ advice was to ask someone to go with me. I have asked a couple of people if they wanted to come with me and both had exceptional reasons for why they couldn’t go. At 50, most of my friends work, have young kids, responsibilities, etc. They just can’t take off for a cycling holiday in Europe. Maybe the universe is trying to tell me that I have to do this alone. I don’t know…I just know that today is one of those days where I am questioning my resolve.

Maybe I need to watch this again, about 50 times. http://weliveunbound.com/