A Life Leaning to the Left
How one woman pulled up roots and started fresh to follow a different journey newly single
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Here I share my experiences as I journeyed from marriage and kids in the DC/VA suburbs to single life in the city and then a brand new chapter — moving to Florida amid the COVID pandemic.
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I relocated to Palm Beach County on the southeast coast of Florida in July 2020, a month after my youngest child graduated from high school and six months after finalizing the divorce from my Trump-supporter husband. I was happy to start my new chapter as a divorcée arriving to a seaside city in a totally new part of the country.
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Follow my improvised journey as I adjust to life as a liberal-leaning single in an “active adult community” in sunny, hot Florida!
—Jennifer Merrill
MY BLOG ARTICLES
Article 1. Walking Out on Marriage
to a Trump Supporter
As I made plans to participate in my third Women’s March in January 2019, there was one big change in my life this time around: I was no longer living with my husband. The previous fall, after 24 years of marriage and almost two years of dealing with the aftermath of the devastating 2016 election, I decided I could not live with this person anymore….
Article 2. Going Back to a
Full-Time Job After 22 Years
When I decided I was going to separate from my husband, in the fall of 2018, I knew that I was not going to ask him to leave the house. I would move out to an apartment nearby in our town. This was not a popular choice, I soon discovered. Almost every married couple that I knew who separated had sent the husband packing, not the wife….
Article 3. City Living,
Here I Come Again
After I had been separated from my husband for several months, living in an apartment instead of the family house, and working full-time, I decided I needed to change it up again. My commute from Vienna, VA, in Fairfax County to the new office job in Arlington, right next to Washington, DC, was a bear. After working from home for more than 20 years while raising my three kiddos, I definitely did not embrace the twice-daily, grueling drive to work in rush-hour traffic….
Article 5. Life Takes
Another Detour
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On January 3, 2020, my divorce was final. Soon after, I signed away my ownership of the house that I had lived in for 20 years with my husband and three kids. My now ex would own the house by himself, and he would refinance the mortgage so he could buy me out for 50 percent of the market value of the home, as per our divorce settlement….
Article 7. Florida on My Mind
In March 2020, I put an offer on a villa home at the Tuscany Bay community in Boynton Beach, FL. Soon after, the country went into lockdown. COVID-19 was now a real threat, everywhere. But I still was moving ahead with my plans to buy my dream home in a resort-style development in sunny southeast Florida….
Article 9. Fitting in With
the South Florida Scene
My life as a Floridian started on July 15, 2020. That’s when I fully moved into my new villa home in Tuscany Bay, a gated community in Boynton Beach that is restricted to age 55-plus. I had just turned 57 the month before. So I was definitely on the young side for this place. And as I’ve often been taken for someone younger than I am, I figured that many residents of this “active adult” community would not think I was old enough to live there….
Article 11. House Guests
in the Time of COVID-19
I moved to a new state in the middle of a worldwide pandemic. It was a surreal time to be starting anew. But I was entranced with my sunny, airy villa surrounded by palm trees in a pretty, resort-like development in southeast Florida. I enjoyed furnishing the new house with wall hangings and rugs and decorations, rearranging furniture, and then sending people my photos when the rooms were complete....
Article 13. Jumping Into Georgia Politics
With My Son
My son and I infiltrated Georgia for the January 2021 Senate runoff races, and we experienced a bit of an eye opener, to say the least. Soon after the November 3, 2020, elections, Lucas and I knew what we had to do. We wanted to be part of this important moment in U.S. history coming up in two months....
Article 15. How I (Sort of)
Became a "Snowbird"
My life as a new Floridian was going great. The weather during winter and spring was fabulous, I was making new friends both inside and outside of my gated community, and my work as a freelance writer/editor from my South Florida home was finally coming together.....
Article 17. The Jacob Factor:
Moving My Son to Southeast Florida
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Everything about my decision to move to South Florida felt great, and I was happy with the place I had picked for my new home, the friends I was making, and the choices I had made — except for one thing. I was conflicted about being far away from my kids. But I had picked Florida because it was just a little over a 2-hour plane ride away from them in Northern Virginia.
Article 19. When Life Takes a Rough Turn
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I had been enjoying the latest chapter of my life—living in a 55+ community in South Florida—for over three years now, and it was going great. I loved the community, Tuscany Bay, and the friends I’d made and activities I’d gotten involved in. I relished the warm winters here. I also had convinced my son Jacob to move down to the area, and he was doing very well. And, best of all, I had found love right within the gates of the community, with Art.... So life was good. I felt very fortunate. But then, the other shoe dropped.
Article 4. Moving Ahead
With Divorce
After I had been living apart from my husband for a year, in what I had initially described as a “trial separation,” I knew it was time to file for divorce. I did not see us getting back together. Everything I had learned about him and his beliefs since I had moved out in October 2018 further confirmed my realization that we were just too far apart in so many opinions and values that we could never meet in the middle….
Article 6. Exploring Living in
the Sunshine State
It was Leap Day 2020, and I was leaping forward. Life in the United States was not yet in COVID lockdown. My 17-year-old daughter, Rachel, and I boarded an airplane to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. We were going to start our little vacation in Palm Beach County, where I had booked a hotel for us. A real estate agent was planning to pick us up at our hotel the next day and take me to see homes on the market in Boynton Beach, a small city I was interested in moving to….
Article 8. The Big Move:
It's Really Happening!
My Toyota Camry and I made the trip down to Florida on an Amtrak train before my little dog made the journey. I needed to get my car down to my new town, and I didn’t want to do the 16.5-hour drive by myself. My plan was to bring the car down on the train, spend a few days setting up my new house, and then fly back to get Lex for a quick airplane ride to his new home….
Article 10. New State, Big Election
I moved to southeast Florida a few months before the biggest presidential election of my life. So of course one of the first things I did was register for a new voter card, in addition to a Florida driver’s license. Having moved from a “blue” state to a red (purple?) one, I wanted my vote for Joe Biden to matter in a state that could use my Democratic influence. At least that’s what I planned....
Article 12. A Florida Winter With Dad
My widowed father turned 80 on December 3, 2020, and nine days later flew to southeast Florida to ride out the winter with me in my new home. The coronavirus crisis had jettisoned his plans for a big family birthday celebration at his Chicago-area home. The COVID pandemic was also messing with his psyche, as he struggled to be happy living alone in quarantine in his condo. As the cold months closed in on him, and his opportunities to dine and socialize outside were waning, he agreed to the plan to spend the winter with me in Boynton Beach, FL.....
Article 14. The Singles Life,
After 50
I moved to Florida right after I turned 57 and was freshly divorced. It was in the middle of a worldwide pandemic. Everybody was staying home. So getting back into the dating world was pretty low on my list of priorities.....
Article 16. Post-Lockdown, the Fun Activities Finally Start to Happen
In the spring of 2021, after residents were becoming fully vaccinated in my active-adult community in southeast Florida, things were finally starting to open up, and the activities I had
read about in the online brochure back in the early days of 2020 could really begin to happen......
Article 18. Finding Love Again
in a New Place
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I really didn’t think it would happen again for me. I divorced my husband in early 2020 with no concrete plans or real hope of finding love again. I just wanted to start over on my own, to do my next chapter by myself, to create a new life in a new place. And I did. I moved to South Florida, I made lots of new friends, and I jumped headfirst into new activities, new interests, and new geography. I was content being single here.... And then along came Art....