Well, the hard part is over. As of June 2^nd, I'm officially divorced. From now on my name will be Linda Thompson-Odum. I had to keep the Odum because that is the name I'm known by for my writing. It is the name editors look for, and students sign up for my writing classes because of that name. Maybe at some point I will be able to drop it, but I'll keep it for now.

As far as divorces go, mine was pretty easy. My ex and I agreed early on about the settlement, so we only had to go to court one time. The entire proceeding took maybe 15 minutes. Hum, 15 minutes to end a 14 year relationship. Seems a bit sad, doesn't it?

It is hard for me to believe that I've been living on my own for almost 6 months. Half a year!

When I first moved out in December, I was so busy adjusting to my new life that I never really looked back at the old one. Then spring came, and I began to miss my Hillsboro house with the gardens I had worked so hard to establish through the past 10 years. A little internal calendar went off, telling me that my crocus, daffodils, bleeding hearts, and peonies were waking up. It is also the time of year when the neighborhood comes out of hibernation and everyone would start to congregate outside, most of the time on my front lawn. I spent a couple of sad weeks thinking about what I was missing.

Wow, what a crazy few months it has been, but I guess that is to be expected when you make a major life change. Even though I was the one who initiated the change, going from being married to being single again after 10 years requires some adjustments. Sometimes it has been an adventure of meeting new people and trying new things. Other times it gets pretty lonely. I guess that is par for the course as I move forward with life.

Hi Everyone, Just a quick post about two writing classes I'm teaching through Concord Community Education. One is on what you need to know to be a freelance writer(5 weeks), and the other is a creative writing class (6 weeks.) The classes begin next week (April 8.) If you are interested, contact Community Ed.

Happy New Year! I'm sorry I've been so out of touch. For me, new is the operative word, since my life has taken on a new direction in the past few months. The biggest change is that my husband and I have separated. One month ago I moved from my house in Hillsboro to a small studio condo in Concord. I'll save you all the gruesome details, though my marriage didn't end for the traumatic reasons many of you have posted about in your own lives. It was more because we are different types of people who had different life goals and were just making each other very unhappy.

My life has gotten very crazy in the past week. Thanks to the financial ups and downs of freelance writing, I have taken two part-time jobs to help keep the wolf from the door. One is as the substitute children's librarian at Fuller Public Library, where I will be doing the preschool story time hour on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. I was a Montessori preschool teacher for a number of years, so it will be nice being around kids again.

The other job is in my local Shaws bakery. While I have a weakness for baked sweets, I'm not worried about facing temptation each time I punch-in on the time clock, thanks to the store's rule that you may not eat while working. (Only during break times in the employee lounge.)

My ego took a bit of a blow this weekend. I'll spare you the not-so-pretty details. Let's just say I discovered that someone close to me doesn't appreciate what I have to offer in the looks department. It stunned me because I have always been in the "pretty in spite of being fat" category my whole life, and I thought that person saw me that way. It was quite a shock to find out the opposite.

Do we let how other people see us have too much influence on how we see ourselves? I mentioned a couple of posts ago that when you lose weight, you start feeling pretty good about how you look, mainly because you feel so much better about yourself. Then something comes along, such as a photograph or a comment from another person, that brings back all of the insecurities and negative self images that you are trying to put in the past.

We just keep getting fatter, at least according to the research group the Trust for America's Health. (Just who are these people?) They found that obesity rates climbed in 31 states last year, and no state showed a decline. While New Hampshire raked pretty well (38th) and Massachusetts even better (50th!), the poor states of Mississippi, West Virginia, and Alabama came in the unglamorous numbers 1, 2 and 3.

So it would seem we just keep getting bigger, which is amazing to me when you consider the fitness and dieting crazy our society has experienced since the 1970s. It's even more amazing when you realize Americans spend an estimated $30 billion a year on diet programs and products.

Yesterday I went to the Monitor offices to have a photo taken for this Sunday's Let's Get Real column, the last monthly piece about my weight-loss journey. This was the "after" picture to show my progress in the past year. I was feeling pretty confident about myself and what I've accomplished. That is until I saw my picture on photographer Ken William's computer screen. Then the bubble burst-who am I kidding? Sure, I've lost weight, but I'm still fat. It was a slap in my ego's face.

I moped around for the rest of the day. Then today I looked back at a posting on this blog that I made on October 3, 2006 called "Doing a Happy Dance." I wrote about how excited I was to fit in a pair of black jeans that I hadn't worn in 2 1/2 years. I also wrote about a smaller pair of jeans that I couldn't wear yet but I could finally button.

What's the key to happiness? Darned if I know. However, I do know that weight loss isn't it.

All of the popular diet plans would have us believe that the key to happiness is to lose weight. I've learned a lot of lessons while changing my lifestyle this past year. Perhaps the most important is that weight loss does not equal happiness. Unfortunately, each of us will continue to face hardship and disappointment no matter what the scale says.