When you are young, there are certain events or words or phrases that signal a response of, "never me".

When I was young, I thought 30 was old. The only people I knew that were 30 (or almost there) were my parents and their friends, or my friends' parents. And of course, when you are young, your parents are old. It doesn't matter what age they actually are.....all parents are old to their children.

When I was young, I thought that being divorced was a signal of the end of a good life. It meant that things didn't work and, in my youthful innocence, that you were done with the prospect of finding someone to be with.

For the last couple of years, when someone asks me my age, I tell them I'm almost 30. I don't really bother with exact age, unless it's needed for a job or some other application in which exact numbers were needed. I just rounded up.

I think the reason children think 30 is so old, and those of us in our 30's or about to be there don't consider it old, is because we don't feel old. I don't feel like I thought I would feel at 30.

The same thing applies to being divorced. I don't really feel like the word carries the weight it did for me in my youth because I don't feel much has changed. The only difference between a divorce and a breakup is, with most breakups, there isn't legal documentation. A divorce is simply a relationship that didn't work out, and the failings of that relationship are documented in city hall.

So, by that rationale, is divorce the new 30's?

Is it something that means one thing until you actually experience it?

I guess everything carries a different feel to it until you experience it. Sex. Love. Death. Marriage. Moving into your own apartment. Paying bills. All of these things mean one thing until you are actually knee deep in them. They are glorified because we have no real life experience to compare them to. Do we actually think the butterflies we feel in our bellies at age 10, when holding hands with someone on the bus, will exist past a certain point in our lives? Of course we do. We do because we have no evidence of the contrary.

Just like marriage. Until we actually do it, there is no real way to experience what it means. Things do change after vows are taken. Things shift, and promises made take on much more weight. At least, they did for me.

And the feeling that life was over after the dreaded divorce word? That failed to carry the same weight as it did in my pre-adolescent brain. Instead of really feeling like a divorced woman, I feel like myself with another break up under my belt. And some attorney fees. But it is an experience unlike any other. I knew the marriage was over. Steve had a pretty good idea. But it wasn't something that we could do on our own. A judge had to make it official. Papers had to be drawn. Someone actually sat behind a desk and told me my marriage was over. Even though I knew it. It was a very strange validation.

I never thought love would be something I would need some stranger to either confirm or deny for me. That I would need some man in a black robe to tell me I wasn't with Steve any more. That I wasn't married anymore.

But, like everything else in life, things happen. Things change.

I no longer feel "tainted" because of the title "divorcee". As of a few hours ago, anyway. It was the knowledge of the difference in the way I feel regarding 30 that did it.

"Thirty" isn't a bad word any more.

And neither is "divorce".