Love, Health & Travel

Four Ways to Bounce Back After Your Divorce

BY JANET HOWARD

Adivorce can leave you feeling lonely, alienated, and wondering whether you will ever find love again. However, many people stay in their mourning period for too long and then find it challenging to start dating again. Wallowing in selfpity can wreak havoc on your self-esteem and make it seem as though you do not deserve a second chance at love. The following are a few tips to help you avoid this and ensure you bounce back after your divorce:

Know That You Are Not Alone

Statistics show that almost 50% of all marriages in the United States will end in divorce. While this is a dismal statistic, it is by no means an indicator that most people do not try to make their marriages work. The average married couple stays together for at least 11 years before calling it quits. These statistics should show you that you are not alone when it comes to divorce and that you have a community that you can reach out to, should loneliness and other negative feelings threaten to overwhelm you.

Concentrate on Building Relationships with Friends and Family

Your friends and family members will make up your support system during the months after your divorce. It is, therefore, significant to ensure that you cultivate these relationships during and after your divorce. You can have people to call on whenever you start to feel like you can never move on.

Take up a Hobby

Unless you get custody of the kids, chances are that you will have a lot more free time after your divorce. You may find yourself struggling with what to do. Consider taking up a hobby. Some activities include learning how to knit or crochet, taking cooking classes, joining a gym, or making use of your backyard to develop your green thumb.

Ease Back into Dating Slowly

Once you feel that you are ready, start going out on a few dates so you can meet new people and develop other relationships. The end goal of these dates is to get yourself out there and have fun without necessarily aiming for longterm relationships or marriage.

In Conclusion

Getting divorced can leave you feeling lonely. Many people take time to heal and rediscover themselves after a divorce but may end up spending too much time alone in the process. Bouncing back after a divorce requires that you put yourself out there to promote your happiness. p

New York’s Next Big Political Battle: Erasing Partisanship in Drawing District Lines

BY JOSEFA VELASQUEZ THE CITY

Women will gain at least 14 seats in the 117th Congress, setting a new record for female representation. The winners of Tuesday’s New York races for the state Legislature are likely to find themselves campaigning for reelection in 2022 for a district that’s different than the one they just ran to represent. Governor Andrew Cuomo sits with Senate Majority Leader Andrea-Stewart That’s because 2020 is not Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie before delivering his State of the just an election year, but a State address in Albany, Jan. 8, 2020. Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY once-a-decade Census year. Across the nation, state law- greater independence. ture determined what the dismakers will use the results of The 10-member commission tricts look like. the Census count to redraw — two appointed by each In the state Senate, then-ruldistrict lines for elected office. party in each house of the ing Republicans added a dis The coming redistricting, ex- state Legislature and another trict to the roster — cramming pected to finish in early 2022, two by the members collec- as many seats as they could will be unlike any other New tively — will hold public hear- into sparsely populated upYork has experienced. ings before deciding on the state areas prone to electing A bargain struck by Gov. new borders to present to the GOP members. Andrew Cuomo and legisla- state Senate and Assembly for In the city, they zig-zagged tive leaders during redistrict- approval. district lines block by block to ing nearly a decade ago In contrast, the current lines help protect the Republican amended the state constitution were drawn in 2012 in a Party’s few five-borough sento move from ruling-party largely political process where ators and their allies. Party control of map-making to a members of the ruling party in hands drew one district, curcommission that could have each chamber of the Legisla- rently held by Simcha Felder (D-Brooklyn), to concentrate Orthodox Jewish voters in sufAvailable at Amazon.com Available at Amazon.com ficient numbers to elect a sen ator on their own. In the state Assembly, where Democrats’ majority control has long been secure, leaders used their line-drawing power to reward or punish politicians — in the case of now U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (DBrooklyn), redrawing his Assembly district line to exclude his home in 2002. Now, the hope is, a fairer, less fraught and more transparent process could prevail for the state Senate and Assembly as well as the lines the Legislature draws for congressional seats. New rules discourage drawing districts to favor incumbents, require that districts have a relatively equal number of inhabitants and aim to keep ethnic and racial communities intact to guarantee political representation. “It’s untested in that it hasn’t been used before. So part of it is a learning process for everyone,” said Steven Romalewski, director of the mapping service at the Center for Urban Research at the CUNY Graduate Center.

Shortchanged Representation

A less starkly partisan process could tamp down redistricting practices that are legal but baked in lopsided partisan advantages for the ruling party — while also shortchanging New York City residents on their representation. When Republicans drew the Senate lines in 2012, retaining party control of the chamber even though most New Yorkers are registered Democrats, the lines crammed an excess of voters into districts in New York City and Long Island. Meanwhile, they created underpopulated districts upstate, said Jeffrey Wice, an adjunct professor at the New York Law School who has served on several state and federal redistricting councils. “That enabled Republicans to get more districts upstate to elect Republicans and fewer districts downstate to limit Democratic gains,” he told THE CITY. The Senate saw a sea-change shift to Democratic control in 2018, with some of those gains now hanging in the balance as the 2020 results continue to be counted. Yet the redistricting reforms — approved by voters in a 2014 referendum — don’t completely eradicate partisan advantages in the process. A proviso in the commission granting the minority party some say gives Republicans influence regardless of which party controls the chamber. The intricate voting structure of the commission changes depending on the composition of the Legislature, making it difficult to reach agreement without ensuring minority-party support. That is, unless a party has a “super-majority” of 42 seats in a 63-seat chamber, which would allow them to approve district lines without any support at all from Republicans in the minority. “With the voting structure as it is right now, there needs to be a certain level of minorityparty buy in,” said Jennifer Wilson, the deputy director of the League of Women Voters of New York State. of redistricting: Democrats are poised to keep control of the 63-seat chamber for a second cycle following Tuesday’s election, but are likely to fall short of retaining a supermajority needed to thwart Republican influence. That is, unless Democrats in the Senate and Assembly prevail with another constitutional amendment, rentrenching from the original reform deal nearly a decade ago. This new measure, expected to embolden singleparty rule in the process, will likely be approved by state lawmakers when they reconvene next year, according to spokespeople for Senate Majority Leader Andrea StewartCousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie. The new constitutional amendment proposal passed both houses in July but needs to be approved again next year before it can go to voters for approval in November 2021, when New York City will be voting for a new mayor. The proposal says that if seven of the commission’s members okay a redistricting plan, state lawmakers can approve it with a simple majority. If no proposal gets the support of seven commissioners, then the plan with the most approval is sent to the Legislature, where it must pass with 60% of the votes. That means that Democrats in the Senate would have an easier time carving up districts in their favor to ensure control of the chamber for years to come — a practice they decried when they were in the minority. Despite the possible pitfalls, the new system for drawing districts is much more equitable than its predecessor because of the guidelines the commission has to consider, Wilson said. “Whereas before the rules around drawing the map were like, ‘Do anything you want., Whatever you want to do, do it.’ Now there’s actual rules in place,” Wilson said. p

This story was published on November 4, 2020 by THE CITY.

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