This is the end. This is the calm.

I hopped on my bike yesterday and went for a really nice ride. The thermometer said it was 83 degrees outside, but the sun was hiding behind the clouds. There was a really nice breeze.

My ride was revitalizing and empowering. There's something wonderful about making my body push itself to it's limits-- feeling my heart pounding in my chest, my lungs reaching for air, and my muscles burning. I felt strong.

I like to have destinations for my bike rides, though, and this bike ride will probably have the most significant destination of all the others! I biked over to Main Street in Lexington, across from the county courthouse- my lawyer's office.

They had the papers waiting for me at the bottom floor office. I initialed 8 pages and signed the last. My heart was still beating hard from my pedaling, and I could hear my blood beating through my ears as I flipped from one page to the next. My initials, AMM, above the initials that were already there, SAM.

And it was done.

I picked up my bike helmet and left. I biked some more around Lexington without much thought put into where I was headed. I vaguely thought about how many of those roads were the same ones I biked on 10 years ago... 10 years ago when everything was so much less complicated. I'd never been on a date before, never had a boyfriend, never shared a kiss... Things were so much less complicated then, although, there is great irony in that statement because I would NEVER want to repeat being 14 years old.

Things were simpler but far more confusing than now.

I may now feel weighted down by more baggage at the age of 24- the pain of heart breaks, the stress of poverty, the loneliness of leaving home and trying to find independence, depression-- BUT the difference is... I am much less CONFUSED and LOST.

Somehow, through this divorce, I have found myself again. I don't think that's what usually happens to people when they get divorce. But for the first time in YEARS, I don't feel lost.

I have peace. I have a home. I have the atonement working in my life. I have hope and faith.

I'm working on having patience!

and I have Eliza...

... and I still have a friend in Steve. It's not the relationship we had hoped to have with each other, but we've made a decision. No longer husband and wife- now we'll have new titles. Exes, Co-parents, divorcees. To those titles we've signed our names.

But the title of friend is what I value most.

And I think I'll take another bike ride.