Half a life later, it is easy to look back and say that the mistakes of my first marriage were at the roots, failures of imagination. At 20, I wanted to leave home but couldn’t work out a plan on my own, so I said yes when my first love asked me to marry him. He proposed on Luquillo Beach in Puerto Rico, where we’d gone for a family wedding. How could we not be happy after such a romantic and adventurous beginning? The distance between us started to take hold six months later. He’d read my journal without my permission. I didn’t like his intrusion on my privacy. He didn’t like what I’d written. It took decades for me to understand that my truest self emerges when I write. I married him before I knew that his not liking what I’d written meant he would end up not liking me.

In 1986, our marriage unwound as spring slid into summer. I found myself, at 30, living alone for the first time. My heart hurt. Dark moods blew in and overtook me like the season’s fast-moving storms. Invisible hands yanked me out of sleep and dropped me back against the pillow wide awake, hours before sunrise. I had failed and I was ashamed. I avoided mirrors, afraid of seeing my own pain.

No one knew what came next. My mother fretted about my immortal soul. Friends treated me with a mixture of pity and concern. They feared I had volunarily sentenced myself to a solitary life. After all, they pointed out, Newsweek had just published a cover story—one that wouldn’t be debunked for 20 years—claiming that the chances of marriage for women dropped precipitously after the age of 30. Their worries did not change my mind.

On mornings when I couldn’t sleep, I took an early bus to the office and began a nodding acquaintance with an intern and his girlfriend who were also early risers. Evenings when I wasn’t ready to return to my apartment, I meandered home on foot, stopping at the main branch of the Free Library or pausing to watch children play baseball along the Ben Franklin Parkway. I went to a blues concert along the Delaware River, but didn’t stay long, and participated in a charity publicity stunt, Hands Across America. For fifteen minutes I was part of a human chain that linked 6.5 million people across the United States. Afterwards, I hurried away. I didn’t feel entitled to enjoy myself alone, in public.

One muggy afternoon, after washing the tears from my face, I caught a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror. My reflection startled me. The wounds to my heart and spirit were not etched on my face as I’d imagined. I began to regard myself with the kindness I usually reserved for other people. Perhaps no one else was ready to forgive me, but I could begin to forgive myself. “You’re going to be okay,” I whispered and watched the light return to my eyes.

The following weekend, I decided to attend one of the free-admission Sunday mornings at the Philadelphia Art Museum. Advertisements for an exhibit featuring the paintings of Diego Rivera had been posted across the city. Wearing what I used to think of as a boardwalk skirt, made of red cotton printed with large flowers, I strolled a few blocks along Fairmount Avenue from my apartment to the back entrance of the museum. The line for the show was long, snaking from the top of the hill to the bottom, but I had all the time in the world and the June weather was fine that day.

I don’t remember speaking more than a few words to anyone; nor do I remember wanting to. It was enough for me to be part of the group. I knew almost nothing about the artist, but my lack of familiarity made the event more exciting. I came to his work, and his life, as a blank slate. Hours later, I left the exhibit far more interested in Frida Khalo than Rivera, and exhilarated at having discovered both artists on my own.

I learned an important lesson that day. I could go out alone and enjoy myself. When I used my imagination, I didn’t need company. The single life would be worth living.