This past summer will henceforth be known as "Cohabitation Experiment Summer." Yes. Just a few short months ago, Mike and I tried living together — in strictly controlled, scientific circumstances, of course.

The Initial Plan: I am used to spending the summers in New York. Since I am now dating someone who lives there, living in the NYU dorms no longer seems like a good plan. Mike, unfortunately, lives in an apartment the size of a shoebox. There is no possible way two people can spend an entire summer in a place this size and not tear each other's faces off.  We both like being alone too much. We both want the option of getting away.  We need a door to close.

We decide that he will sublet his shoebox, I will take the money I normally spend on the dorms, and, together, we will sublet a larger apartment for the summer.

This will be a living together experiment. We will see how we do when it's longer than a week or two. We are pretty sure we're not ready to live together For Real — at least, I am, but this will not be For Real. There is a time limit. It is temporary. It is safer. We will discover new and exciting things about our relationship.

Delightful Possibilities: The luxury of spending time together without anticipating its end in a few short days. Seeing what "real life" with each other is like. Waking up together every morning.

Scary Possibilities: That we won't get enough alone time. That I will somehow freak out and mess everything up.

All these things, as it turns out, came to pass.

Next post: Alice examines just why this experiment was such an epic failure.

Somewhere in my house is a book entitled Letting Go of the Person You Used to Be by Lama Surya Das. I bought it three years ago when I lost my job and my last pregnancy within a few weeks of each other.

When the job went, that was kind of okay. I was about to take up a new vocation: motherhood. When the baby went, that was utterly not okay, and I've been trying ever since, in ways healthy and not so, to get over it.

I need to reread that book. Fifty-one weeks ago I was surprised to hear myself telling Edgar yes, I do want a divorce. I still haven't filed the papers.

I can talk about keeping the health insurance and the expense and trouble of divorce, but at least some of my delay is a result of my unwillingness to let go of a bad marriage.

Doggone it, took me 40 years to find a husband. So he wasn't the best husband, but he was — uh, still is — my husband.

It also took me quite a while to find and buy my house, which I don't really seem to be able to afford right now. 

In truth, I haven't been able to afford it for quite a while.

It has been pointed out to me that if I don't figure out how to pay for, or to sell, or to rent out the house, it'll be taken from me. Then I'll have to let go. For the past several months I've been working on letting go of the conviction that I must and can hold on to my home.

I've put less effort into the idea of releasing Ed.

But I feel my tightly clenched hands being pried open, so to speak. I'm beginning to accept the possibility that it's time to let someone else (who can afford it) love this house.

Maybe the practice will help me to let go of my marriage.