I feel as though I should have been saving up something deeply profound to say here — something that will mark this, something that one might print out and post on one's bathroom mirror. Something deep. Something meaningful. Something universal and marvelous that will affect and impress everyone.

Yeah. I've got nothing.

When I started writing for this site, I had visions of a hilarious series chronicling my forays back into the dating world. This will be delightful, I thought. I'm in my 30s and have been married most of my life. I have never dated as an adult. I have no idea what I'm doing.

Turning the odd and the icky into a column will make the merely awkward hilarious, and what a comfort that will be. A bad first date will have some purpose. I will try many things in the name of research. I will be Carrie Bradshaw, only without the shoe thing.

It was an excellent plan. I had been dating for a bit, so had some stories saved up. I had no desire at all to do anything beyond casual. You couldn't beat me into a real relationship with a stick.

Then of course, I found myself in one, despite the kicking and screaming, despite refusing, for months, to give it a name. So this has become less about the hilarity of Watching-Alice-Try-to-Figure-Out-Dating and more the hilarity of Watching-Alice-Skid-into-Commitment. Which is constantly startling, really.

It has been a surprising help, these columns. Finding the right words for something here has often helped put things in perspective, or decide where to go, or just ease the feelings over something.

So, thank you, those of you who have been here with me, those that have commented, those who have read, and those who write along with me. I've very much appreciated your company, and look forward to bringing you along on future adventures.

If life is a journey, it's no weekend jaunt to the beach. It's an around-the-world expedition riddled with dangerous passages and course corrections.

My marriage is a journey, unfortunately quite a rough one of late. My relationship to my ailing father and my siblings who also help take care of him is always under construction.

Like many people, I also grapple with work-life balance: how much of myself do I put into my job or even any given project, and how much do I hold in reserve?

I've added another journey. Crazy, right? But stick with me...this one might be worth the added trouble.

I've embarked on a six-month yoga teacher training, and it's intense. The amount and level of physical, academic, and emotional study only seems to grow, week to week. At one point early on I said to a classmate that this might not have been the right time to engage in such a difficult program. Then we started our course of yogic philosophy.

Now I'm chartering more twists and turns in my mind than on the mat. While the training is physically challenging, this journey goes within, and the steadiness of mind I'm building benefits every part of my life.

So this one's a staycation. And there couldn't be a better time for it.

During this, the final week of my solo month, there have been lots of opportunities to give up and run to a bar, or go to Fire Island for one last fling before the kids come home.

Instead, I've dabbled in cooking, reading, and sampling wine. I've become an expert in the latter. My friends have given up in frustration trying to set me up with dinner-party hotties.

I've resigned myself to the single life, for at least the foreseeable future.

Labor Day weekend will be my last shot at a three-day getaway. So I've been Googling activities that don't involve getting spruced up for the opposite sex. That means no going to a spa, or a resort, no facial peels or shopping sprees. Obviously alcohol and orgies are out.

Instead I decided to try a resource in the New York metro area that supports mental and psycho-spiritual well-being. There were plenty of opportunities not more than an hour from my home that offered to stretch and encourage my inner goddess.

There was the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health Center in Stockbridge, Mass., which says it aspires to "teach the art and science of yoga" and is a "place where people come together to deeply inquire into the core issues of life."

Kripalu has a radiant health retreat for women on Labor Day Weekend starting at $513 for classes, meals, and accommodations. It's taught by Sudha Carolyn Lundeen, a holistic RN who helps people discover their inherent wholeness.

Hey, if I discover my inherent wholeness, maybe that will do away with my focus on finding the next man in my life.

And if that doesn't pique my interest, Kripalu also offers rock climbing, yoga, and bodywork.

Also, in central Massachusetts is the Barre Buddhist Center, which specializes in meditative insight. According to their calendar, I could cultivate Inner Freedom and Nonreactivity with Michael and Naraya, just not on Labor Day weekend.

About a month before Levi and I were married, he decided to get a tattoo. It was a tribal sort of tattoo and was of a circle that came together at three points. Somehow this circle was (maybe still is) very symbolic to him, and he told me that it was symbolic in terms of our relationship, our coming together.

I found myself thinking about that tattoo yesterday as I was driving on the freeway, alone. Since I've had Adrian I have found that I have all of my epiphanies, realizations, and profound ideas while driving — that's also where I do all of my problem solving. Driving to and from work, daycare, etc. is the only "me" time I really get anymore.

But, back to the tattoo. So I found myself thinking about his stupid tattoo — what it represented to Levi, what it represented to me — and I began to wonder what he must think of that tattoo now? (I mean, I've always said tattooing somebody's name on you is probably the stupidest thing you can do [unless that someone is your child], but I've never thought about a symbol.)

That's when my new epiphany happened. That tattoo looks like a cyclone. Our relationship was a cyclone. We came together in a frenzy, ran circles 'round and 'round until we spun totally out of control wreaking havoc on ourselves and everything around us. Then we broke apart, each person forever changed, each on a new path.

I'm a firm believer in everything happens for a reason, that there are no coincidences, that we are each put here for our own unique purposes; and every epiphany I have like this one brings me closer and closer to finding mine.

I've hit several bumps along the way to reinventing myself. It's hard to keep in mind that this is quite necessary and unavoidable when you're in the thick of things.

Being a control freak, I've tried to get around these issues. It's easy to get caught in the maelstrom caused by bucking convention and listening to your heart or going with that gut feeling, especially when doing so does not give you the results you wanted or expected.

I am in the process of trying to recover from a hat trick of seemingly debilitating setbacks: personally, professionally, and physically.

I am not ashamed to tell you that there were quite a few times where I handled each of these incidents with self-pity, tears, or alcohol. Or all of these things.

Always the multitasker.

I guess the point I am trying to make — to myself, if no one else — is that these things happen often and usually simultaneously. It may seem easy to roll over and take it. But I'll have to be prepared to live with that decision — for the rest of my life.

Last week in "Since You Asked," Cary Tennis's advice column on Salon.com, a young woman in a sad marriage suspects she shouldn't be married at all and wonders how to be happy again. The poor thing is caught between the guilt born of a religious family of origin who believe divorce is a sin, and a self-evident truth that she got married too quickly and simply doesn't love her husband.

She even says her husband is a perfectly nice guy. Huh. Sounds familiar.

Tennis's response blew my mind. It validated her (and my!) discomfort as perfectly legitimate and pointed out that leaving the marriage is not a selfish act but instead rectifies the previous selfish act of marrying for the wrong reasons.

Staying in a marriage that cannot be fixed is continuing to patch something that is monumentally broken.

Further, leaving would release her husband from marriage to a wife who doesn't want to be with him any longer, and he could move on. In this case, if the act of leaving is not an act of service to another, I don't know what is.

Cary also talks about how we all carry with us something like a personal truth — he describes it as a package we clutch to ourselves through thick and thin — and suggests that in her case that truth, the thing that defines her and that she is compelled to honor in her life, might be the spirit of freedom.

Perhaps she is a free spirit and marriage in general is not a good fit. Amen. I don't know if he has her figured out, but he sure has my number.

For someone who allegedly doesn't like to gamble, I sure seem to be doing a lot of that these days.

And it seems that I only engage in high-stakes ventures. I have always loved a challenge. Unfortunately, this time around, I am on a serious losing streak.

For the past three months, I've been hedging my bets in the professional world, to no avail. Recently, I've been wagering my personal life, too, with the same dreaded results. Just when I think I have a winning hand and that the cards are in my favor, the house rules.

I've been wondering why I even bother to take risks at all. In the midst of such a volatile market, wouldn't it be far easier to just take the safe road, at least until things stabilize a bit?

The problem with that rationale: the safe road is boring. Taking risks involves stepping out of one's comfort zone — something many people are afraid to do. This fear keeps many people from going for what they ultimately want, jeopardizing their happiness in the process.

I have never been one of those people, and I can't justify becoming one of them now, just because life has taken a rather rocky turn.

In my ongoing quest to spend a month happily living solo, I decided to spring for some fresh, fanciful fare.

I've just finished reading French Women Don't Get Fat. It seems the French drink a lot of champagne and that, somehow, ingesting quality ingredients keeps their women from over eating.

I scored beautiful local goat cheese at the Hastings Farmers Market and picked up a lovely pink Brut for under $40.

I don't usually drink alcohol while I'm alone, but I'm in survival mode and the kids don't get back until after Labor Day.

Popping the cork and pouring the Brut into a pink marabou martini glass, purchased at the TJ Maxx bargain rack, life seems sort of okay for the moment.

This was not a reward for spending a month in isolation. I don't need a reward, because I know that a workshop or trip to the Omega Institute is coming up.

However, I'm convinced that every night I spend alone is going to help me be a stronger person.

Admittedly, as I'm having these thoughts, there is a strong craving for a Valium or something else that will make me feel numb.

I used to feel desperate if I didn't have a man in my life. I still feel desperate, but when I compare the relative peace of my little blue house in Hastings to my married life in the mansion, with my over-the-top, angry ex-spouse, I'm satisfied with my decision.

But when I think of the things I gave up to be a hermit, I want to cry. Family and friends from the last 20 years are gathering on Fire Island this month to swim, laugh, and sail together.

Flirting with single guys, and sometimes even the husbands of my friends, chatting with the hunky lifeguards, and making the rounds to Saltaire, Fair Harbor, and Kismet were all part of my married life.

Feeling popular, rich, and loved seemed ingredients for a perfect life. But they're not.

"Marriage makes you soft," I once told my female co-workers. This was a few years ago, during a very active hurricane season here in Florida.

My husband, Ed, was spending time in rehab, so it was up to me to get the house ready for an approaching storm. I was not handling the task very well.

I'd been doing okay working full-time at a new job, taking care of our many pets and, when I was permitted, driving 15 miles through traffic to visit Ed. But I quickly wore myself out hauling in the lawn furniture, the plants, the grill and all the other stuff we kept outside.

In a hurricane, that stuff becomes projectiles.

And then there was that little matter of the steel storm panels, the ones that are supposed to be secured across the sliding glass door. I'd donned high-top sneakers and leather work gloves to give it the old college try, but by the time I'd hauled 3 of the 12 heavy panels from storage, I was exhausted.

Surprised and frustrated to find that I really couldn't do it all, all by myself, I burst into bitter tears.

Surely I had not been such a wuss before I became a wife.

Wuss or no, I still had to secure the house.

The next morning, as insistent breezes announced the proximity of the storm, I was back at it, determinedly ferrying the storm panels to the front of the house. Two of my neighbors, Bob and Joe, were outside, so I stopped for a few minutes to chat. As I prepared to get back to work, Bob asked, "Do you need some help?"

Do I what?

I almost said no. I'd always thought of myself as independent and completely capable. But common sense prevailed.

Bob and I got the panels up in a matter of minutes, during which I realized it is a two-person job. Duh.

When we finished, I barely managed to keep from crying as I thanked him profusely.

"It's nothing," he said. "That's what neighbors do."

What would happen if I just made up my mind to leave? How would life change for me and for my family? Would I find the inner peace that I lack right now? Would everything magically get better?

I'm not delusional. I know that it would be ridiculously hard. Most of all, I know that it would be a really difficult transition for my kids. They're young and as far as they know, mommies and daddies stay together.

Did I say it would be "difficult?" Maybe I should change that to "horrible." "Tragic." "Life-altering."

"The end of a secure life."

Am I being dramatic? I just try to think of what it would be like if a life truth was suddenly changed for me. What if my house burned down? What if I lost my arm? I can only imagine what it's like to suddenly have everything change.

I know that I would recover just fine. I know the process would be painful, but in the long run I think that it would make me happier overall. Then again, how can I be happy when I cause so much pain to my kids?

What a tangled web.

If I one day suddenly blurted out, "I can't take this anymore. I need a divorce," then it would be a bizarre combination of a huge weight lifted off my shoulders while also opening the door to a bunch of new drama and turmoil. It’s like I know what I want the eventual outcome to be, but I don't want to deal with all the stuff in between.

So what happens if I just make up my mind to leave? The world will be turned upside down. My life will never be the same again. The question then becomes, will the new life be better, and worth the effort?