One of the things that pleased me the most about being single was avoiding the Who Do We Spend the Holidays With Discussion. In fact, I was pleased by the entire concept of Celebrating Any Damn Way I Felt.

I love holidays. I love decorating, I love sending cards, I love giving presents, I love the food that only appears once or twice a year.  Jake does not love holidays — any of them. Not Thanksgiving, not birthdays, not Halloween, not Valentine's Day, not Arbor Day. He would much prefer not to be bothered, and he would much have preferred that I ignored all of them along with him.

In addition, there was the religious issue: Jake is Jewish and I am Christian. He doesn't, however, actively practice or celebrate Jewish holidays. He didn't want me to decorate or cook or do anything to recognize Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur. But he also didn't want a Christmas tree in the apartment.

"Of course you can have one," he'd say. "It's important to you." But he'd complain about it until it came down. He'd bring up my "disrespect" every time we had a fight.

Jake doesn't get on well with his family. His family doesn't get on well with each other. His family makes mine look like a '50s sitcom. Combine his family politics with his feelings about holidays in general and his feelings about Christmas in particular, my feelings about holidays in general and Christmas in particular, his difficulty with compromise, and the fact that, between us, we had five family branches scattered across the country, and you can see that discussing where to spend a handful of days each winter became a dreaded diplomatic dance.

We never, in all the years we were together, found a way to support each other on this, to end up in a place where we each felt we were listened to and acknowledged.

Losing that was one of the great things about getting divorced. Being free to celebrate what I wanted and how I wanted. Being able to see my family without negotiation. This, I felt sometimes, was worth being single for.