The year was 2002. I was 24 years old, married for five years and ready for a divorce. I just had to tell my husband.

Things were pretty good for us. We lived in a small town. My husband was a rising star police officer. He loved his job. I was starting my career in corporate America. I loved my job too. We were finally debt free. After years of allowing my husband to run our finances which put us into ridiculous debt, I took the reins. I worked two jobs (my corporate job and night shifts at a department store with my sis, Julissa) and I put us on an extreme budget. I paid off all our debt until our only bills were rent, utilities, food, and necessities.

It felt good. Life was good.

Then came the baby talk. Everyone was asking when we were going to have kids. We were married five years already. What were we waiting for? My husband wanted children. His parents were asking for grand children too. The main reason I never wanted children was that being a mother terrified me. I didn’t know if I would be an abusive mother and that scared the crap out of me. But the pressure was on. Everyone wanted us to have children and they wanted them now.

Aside from the baby talk I started to think big. Although I spent 13 years of my youth in a small town, I spent my older adolescent life in a bigger city, Miami. And here I was, back in a small town. Back in good ole boy Louisiana. I knew there was no way I was going to spend the rest of my life married with children in a small town. No way, not me. And quite honestly, I just wanted to be free. I wanted to live alone for once. I wanted to sleep with other men. I wanted to experience life. I wanted my freedom.

But I had no plan. I hadn’t even spoken to anyone about it. I just knew I had to break free. It was now or never.

In February 2002, on our 5-year anniversary we went to Outback Steakhouse to celebrate. We felt so grownup and fancy going there. I mean it was Outback!! We sat down and a waiter came over to take our drink order. We ordered two Coronas.

The waiter brought our beers. My husband took his beer and tilted his bottle to mine, and I blurted out “I want a divorce”. I don’t remember the conversation after that exactly. But I remember him repeating “yeah right, stop playing” something like that. And the more he said that the more adamant I was. “I want a divorce”.

I don’t remember if we enjoyed our steaks or how we even liked them cooked back then. That was our last anniversary dinner. We were divorced six months later.