After Hurricane Katrina blew my life apart, but gave me the opportunity to escape my prison sentence with Stinky, I was in what some people call a bit of a state of shock. I was traumatized. Yep, that storm blew my house, my children's school, and my office away, and Stinky had knocked me clean stupid.

So, though it's been two and a half years, sometimes I long for those first months (okay, it was actually a year) of being so confused and unhappy and scared that I couldn't hold down a full time job and was afraid to really do anything more than get up, get the kids to school, and brush my teeth.

That's when I found my new friends: Crown Royal and Mimosa. Mmmm. I had no money, but I actually bought the complete collection of all six seasons of Sex In the City and after the kids were in school, I would come home and I would put in the next DVD open a bottle of Frexinet Brut or Extra Dry, mix a mimosa and sit down to plunge into complete oblivion watching four hip chicks living their lives in the Big Apple.

Ahhh. Those were the days. By noon, the champagne was gone along with a king sized bar of Hershey's dark chocolate, I would lay down and sleep for two hours, awake refreshed, brush my teeth, again, and go get the kids.

Then after baths and homework and giggles and stories of their day, and once they were both snuggled in for the night, I would shower, slip into my bed and put in the next DVD and hit play. I would also begin drinking the four Crown Royal highballs that would lull me into a deep sleep, so deep that I would not have the nightmares that had plagued me the first few weeks after my departure from the coast of Mississippi.

Just when you start feeling sorry for yourself because you barely have enough money to pay rent and both kids need new clothes and you're wondering how in the heck you're going to find a home for six new kittens, life smacks you right upside the head.

My friend's granddaughter died Wednesday. She was seven months old. SIDS, perhaps. The autopsy report has not been released.

Life: It's a fragile, fleeting, passing thing.

In the midst of frustration, because my 11- and 12-year-old cannot go one day without quarreling over something, I have to stop and realize how blessed I am to have two healthy children who are able to quarrel. When I want to complain because I've been hacking like a smoker (I don't smoke) because of all the Middle Tennessee pollen that is in every single breath I take, I have to stop and be grateful that I am able to breathe, able to cough, able to have itchy, swelling eyes and a runny nose.

Many years ago when I finally learned that life is all the good and all the bad rolled into one, I felt that I had discovered the secret. If I could look at all things that happen to me and allow them to happen without my feeling cursed, singled out, plotted upon, then I would be able to accept whatever happened to me and roll with it. But, losing a child — I don't know how a mother recovers from that loss. As tough and strong as I like to think I am, would I be able to move forward with life if my son or daughter died?

We've all heard about the seven most difficult things we can face in life: Divorce, job change or loss, relocation, marriage, pregnancy, illness or death, but we don't all have to face these.

Well, of course it does. Freedom comes with loneliness and fear. It comes with self doubt and trepidation. Freedom comes with a blank canvas that stares at you saying, when you are going to finally pick up that paint brush little lady?

But it is worth it. Leaving your partner, disconnecting from the person you shared three, 10, 20, 30 years with is painful, but it's the first step toward freedom.

He left you, you left him, you both left each other — it doesn't matter. Divorce hurts. It cuts to the very core of who you are and who you were. No matter whose decision it was, you find yourself in a new existence, but instead of feeling excited and happy, you find yourself lonely and regretful. You may even fantasize about the possibility of getting back with him because he and that marriage were a "known". You are now faced with the unknown.

It's hard. But rest assured, God wants you to be happy.

But, everything you've been taught, everything you read — it all points to the husband and wife and family scenario. You now feel that you've abandoned your beliefs, failed at your marriage, lost what mattered most.

But, you are wrong. I personally wrestled with the whole "I took a vow, I promised forever, I swore to never leave," yet I did. You could say, well he beat you, Wanda, of course you had to leave. But many women take their beatings and remain "a good wife." So, was I selfish? Was it my fault he hit me? After all I am opinionated. I am mouthy. I am feisty and somewhat self centered. I do like to do what I want to do. So, am I somehow to blame for all of this?

Self doubt and regret — they're killers. But, they will pass. You have to trust me on this. I made it through. Today, I don't have any regret. I don't have any loneliness either, as remarkable as that may sound. I've been busy painting, you know.