There I was, entering the Inbal Hotel in Jerusalem, my first (okay, really second) date in ten years. A scene I never thought I’d encounter again, never in my wildest nightmares.

The place was packed. Wall-to-wall couples. Young, old—you name it, they were there. But most of the couples were younger than me. Like ten years younger. In this scene for the first time around, not the second, like me.

I took off my coat, trying not to feel self-conscious. Was I the only woman in the room divorced and dating again? Or did they think I was married to this guy who’d just picked me up in his car twenty minutes ago? Well, there were worse things, I guess, but I hadn’t even gotten a chance to take a good look at him yet. I didn’t even know if I was going to enjoy the next hour in his company. I really didn’t want to be mistaken for his wife . . .

Was I the only woman in the room divorced and dating again?

Snap out of it, I told myself. You need to focus on what you’re here for. See if he’s a normal guy, a good Jew, a mensch. See if it’s worth a second date. Feeling self-conscious won’t help anything.

But it wasn’t just the self-consciousness. It was the bizarreness of the whole situation. I thought I’d found my intended ten years before. We were married shortly before Passover. Our tenth anniversary would have been in a couple of months. Ten years ago at this time we were engaged, planning a wedding, getting to know each other, experiencing all the ups and downs of that crazy period called engagement.

Did I know that one day my husband-to-be would flip out, would decide that Judaism was no longer for him? Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined such a thing. He was mine, back then, and I trusted him with my entire future.

Years have passed since then, since the early newlywed days, since the depression and the therapy and the ultimatum and the divorce. It’s been over four years since I found myself in the rabbinical court, being handed a piece of paper that severed me from the person to whom I’d been so close for five and a half long years. Shouldn’t I be ready to move on from that place, that place of pain and agony, of the tearing apart of the very fabric of my life?

My parents sure think I should. My friends call me with suggestions all the time. But my heart refuses to move on. My heart says, But he was mine! I don’t want to be here in this hotel lobby, talking to a stranger. I want to be home again, home where the heart is, home in a cozy marriage that provides everything I need.

Then I remind myself that that cozy marriage no longer exists. It’s been years, in fact, since it existed. And even when it did exist, it had been unraveling for a while before it ended. So it’s time, indeed, to move on.

If only I could convince myself. If only I knew that at the end of this long journey through hotel lobbies and dinner dates, there’d be someone who would care for me and take care of me the way that a real husband does.

Trust in G‑d, I tell myself, trying to listen to this divorced father of three as he tells me what he does for a living. If it’s not this guy, there will be another guy. But you can’t live in the past. It’s over, that life you used to have. All that’s left are the memories, and the future.

So it’s time, indeed, to move on

I know, even if I don’t always feel it, that there’s a reason G‑d wanted me to go through all this. There’s a reason why I had to lose the husband to whom I was once so close. Sitting and bemoaning my loss, after the initial grief period, isn’t going to get me anywhere. It’s time to move on, I know. Time to open myself up to a new stage of life, a new period of joy and blessing . . . if G‑d wills it.

The past is over. I’m here in this hotel lobby, putting my best foot forward, for the future.