Now Me

[Gardener]

NB,

G- love the thoughts you opened with. And it sounds like you had a wonderful experience while house sitting. If I didn't have a small child I'd love to go away like that for a few weeks!
But I'm curious... You said:

While I try to stay positive, I have allowed abandoned, divorced, financially-strapped and stuck with this house to define me for far too long. That's normal, I guess - if not necessary - for a while, maybe, but no more.

Do you have any new descriptions or words that define the new you or that you'd like to define you going forward, even if they're just aspirations now?

Good question. I tell myself, to paraphrase Eckhart Tolle: This is my current life situation. It is not my life.
Financial mess? Temporary situation.
House not selling? Temporary situation. All houses eventually sell. It is my last, my only remaining task in moving on, severing from X. That's great.
Abandoned? Many have read this here before, but I have framed in my bedroom this quote from Susan Anderson's The Journey From Abandonment To Healing (I changed the original a bit since she, of course, wrote it gender-neutral).Read it every day. Often.:

Keep telling yourself that you can heal from this.
You are a good person.
No one deserves to be abandoned.
Nothing you did warranted this kind of treatment
from the woman who promised to love you.
The issue lies within your wife.
It is a flaw in her that has caused her to walk out on you.
You do deserve better treatment.
It is better to be alone and happy
than to be with someone who would choose to leave.

So, abandoned? Divorced? Not my doing, out of my control. In the past. Past tense. Done. I survived.
Going forward? Grateful for every day.
After the house sells? For the first time, I will make my life. And make it an adventure of inner and outer discovery.
This prospect is both exciting and scares the hell out of me (which reassures me that I'm normal ).

Thanks for asking. I will visit your thread.

Peace,