Chapter 1

It was almost a year to the day when he had experienced one of the worst days of his life. It had started out that morning with a flat tire on the way to where Ed taught school. Then at school two of his best students got into a fight over a girl in the same class that one of them had gotten pregnant. Most of the students in his classes were caught up in spring fever and couldn't care less about what Ed was teaching which was disappointing but expected. In leaving school he discovered that his car had received a dent from some unknown car in the parking lot. On the way home from work he dropped the tire off to be fixed and was told it couldn't be fixed so he had to purchase another tire. On the radio he heard that there was a record drop in the stock market and that put a good hit on his investments. He thought the day couldn't get any worse but he was wrong, it did.

At home he was just finishing dinner when his wife of twenty five years looked at him from across the table and said, "I want a divorce."

That was a shock and he was in for more.

"What's wrong? What have I done? Why do you want a divorce?"

"Ed, I just don't love you anymore and haven't for a while. Now that our two daughters are married and living out of town I think its best if we end our marriage. I have met someone that I have been seeing and I am in love with him. He has asked me to marry him and I said I would. I think it's best for the both of us to end our marriage and move on. I hope we can still be friends for the sake of our children."

He didn't know what to say or how to react. He knew instantly that once she said that she wanted a divorce there was no going back and the marriage was over. He got up from the table and went for a walk trying to think about what was happening. While they hadn't been lovebirds for a while he didn't see this coming. He knew she had been working longer hours and coming home late but she said the cases she was handling as an attorney were causing this. Trying to talk her out of her request for a divorce was not a viable option. While he wouldn't want to end the marriage he had to admit that it had become somewhat of a routine or maybe boring.

In thinking about it he remembered things that should have told him she didn't love him anymore. When he went to bed she had an excuse as to why she wasn't coming with him to bed. She either wanted to stay up to watch the news or wanted to finish a chapter in a book she was reading. When she did come to bed her make-up was off and she was greased up with a lot of facial cream.

Ed went back into the house and said, "How do you want to handle this? It will be up to you to tell the girls. I want you to tell them this was your idea and not mine."

"I'll do that and it won't be easy. I will be moving out. If you waive any alimony from me you can keep the house and we will split what is in the bank and our stock accounts fifty fifty. We both keep our IRA's. The divorce will be a no-fault one and should be done fairly quickly."

Since it appeared she had given some thought to this and it was a fair division of assets Ed simply said, "Fine," and walked away as there was nothing more to be said.

When Ed came home the next day he could see that she had taken her clothes and some personal belongings and moved out. It was a sad end to twenty five years of marriage but what could he have done? He gave it some further thought and concluded that maybe if he was more attentive to her the marriage would have lasted but her being a rather successful attorney had exposed her to a life he couldn't compete with. Maybe this all was for the best and he could only hope that it was.

Overcoming the shock of the divorce was not easy. His two married children called and expressed their support for Ed. They seemed to take Ed's side and were disappointed in their mother's actions. His friends also expressed their shock at the news of the divorce. Some of them wanted more information as to the reasons but Ed wouldn't give them the specifics or bad mouth his soon to be ex-wife. He now had to assume all of the duties in managing a house and while it wasn't overly difficult these duties did take up more of his time.

Two weeks after the divorce was final it was announced that there was an early retirement offer being made to all teachers that were fifty five years of age or older. Ed had just hit that magic number so he weighed the pros and cons of the offer. With his years of service and the bump up in pension that was being offered, he figured that he would receive a pension that was more than what his present take home pay was now after the various deductions. Being able to substitute teach if he wished would add to his income. Since pension income was excluded from the State income tax he would be ahead comparing what he was making now while working and what he would receive if he retired. Ed accepted the early retirement offer.

One thing Ed did was to do an honest appraisal of himself. He had put on about twenty pounds on his six foot frame since his marriage and was not in the best of shape. He thought that if he could lose the weight and get in better shape he would feel better about himself and his life. He started an exercise program, first by bike riding and then moving to fast walking and then to jogging. Combining the exercise with him doing the cooking to count the calories and eating two meals a day helped in his weight loss. No snacking to control his calorie intake further helped in losing weight. In nine months he had lost the twenty pounds and four inches off his waist. He felt good and was sorry he had waited so long to do something like this.

At his annual visit with the Doctor, Ed received congratulations on his efforts to get in shape. The Doctor told him he wished all of his patients did what Ed had done. Ed discussed his current life with the Doctor and asked him for a prescription for the little blue pill. The Doctor laughed and said that was no problem. He cautioned Ed to be careful and for him to consider using condoms as there were numerous social diseases that were going around in today's society.

Ed's ex-wife had also divorced herself from their circle of friends. There had not been any contact between her and them which only caused the friends to be more supportive of Ed. Some of the friends were trying to fix Ed up with women that they thought would interest him. So far he was able to avoid their blind date offers.