Category Archive

On Thanksgiving 2006, it poured rain. By two weeks before the holiday, I had no friends able to take me in or to come to my house for a nice dinner, and my kids were gone that year. Family was too far away, too expensive. I tried to volunteer to serve dinners, but I found at the three places I where I tried that it was impossible without their own CORI check (I had had three done that year for various schools and assignments), and that paperwork had to be completed before November 7. So, I planned a hike. Sprinkles would have been fine, but torrential downpours made it all impossible. I drove, and found myself at a Dunkin’ Donuts somewhere in the Berkshires, waiting for the rain to ease up so I could just go home, lonelier than before.

I resolved at that time to make more time for better friends, to meet new people, and yes… to start dating. And I did. I have made some friends, heard many stories, glimpsed into some wonderful and beautiful lives, been honored by the experiences. Here I find myself, wiser, a year and a half later.

I have also found heartbreak.

I did not realize until recently just how much it had hurt. Of course, my reactions at times must have revealed my true feelings to some people, but I myself thought I was doing just fine.

He was a do-gooder, handsome in an ebullient sort of way, charming, funny. We corresponded for a while, and I was stunned by the overlaps in our lives. We met, and I fell hard. He was also a busy—doing good, I thought, or attending to the need of two boys for whom he was the primary caregiver. His ex-wife was not involved in the parenting, he said. It was a familiar and understandable situation to me.

For the first time in a long time, I had met someone who was not only not disturbed by the size of my family and the extra demands of my two sons beyond the girls’, my own busy life, but who embraced that life and the gifts it brings. In fact, he even advocated for the rights of families like mine to live accessible lives, better lives. For all the hardships, the joys are even greater… and he seemed to understand this. I liked him.

He liked me.

Well, I thought he did. It was months after I pondered his abrupt disappearance just before Thanksgiving that I found out the truth. I was so caught up in another sort of heartbreak this past Thanksgiving, I barely noticed the warning signs.

Erratic calls, availability only at certain times, evenings cut short. Sure, it should have been obvious, but I did not want it to be. I believed him. My own denial may have caused someone else to be hurt, which haunts me.

I was surely not the first or the last in his series of conquests. Somewhere, another must still be hypnotized by that illusion of love and freedom, devotion and honesty, when in fact his real life betrays him. And oh! how his real life must cry.

Up to realizing my misguided infatuation, dating had been fun, promising. Since then, I have found myself less willing to take chances, discerning, and much more aware of what I want and what I do not want. All that is probably for the better.

But at least for now, I have not been finding what I need. Far from it. In fact, the efforts I made after licking my wounds may have hurt worse than the original wound itself. Short periods of dating have proved to me that I want a glimmer that I could be right for someone else, right for a complete life, and not just snippets of it. I miss sharing time, the rhythm of knowing another person, and I want for it all to be true. It would be glorious to grow a love from a smile that promises more. But there has to be a starting point.

I realize now that healing takes some time. And maybe love another day.

Against my own resolutions, I bought myself peonies. They are hot pink, and not yet open, full of the promises of the coming year.

It is a new year, a new number, full of the hope and empowerment that do-it-yourself projects like window repairs can bring. I see through a clear pane of glass now, a bit more protected, and no longer avoiding the jagged edges that I had simply covered with a board. I can see, and the window can be broken again without the helplessness I felt before. Repair is possible. Only… would I want to do that again?

At the end of 2007, I said I would not buy myself flowers. With a new sense of self-sufficiency, I wonder if I should amend my previous thoughts. Peonies are in bloom now, as they always are right about now, and I need them. I need the beauty, and I want the things I wanted when I wanted flowers to be given to me. Only… those things are not in my control. It would be much nicer not to want. Or would it?

It has been a year of heartbreak and hereafters. Perhaps I have worn my heart on my sleeve too much, allowing myself to be an open target for criticism or misuse. I have indeed been criticized, but praised sometimes, too. As for the misuse… well, that was a bit harder to bear.

Still, I have met special people in the past year, and learned many things about myself, about the world. There are still so many wonderful souls wandering, and a world still left to find. Love remains, in children, but also in hopes. And perhaps once, there will be some safe place, visible in the distance, so I can take my sails down, coast in, throw an anchor. It is no island I seek, but a protected harbor on the edge of life, a warm harbor full of lights and sounds and spices and splendor. A good place.

But for now, I’ll enjoy my peonies, and the new summer sun. I will navigate through the waves and wind, and also through still waters, quiet moments left just to watch the stars.

Sun shines, moments reflected in a pond and shimmering. More peaceful than silence, the birds and breeze sing in some forgotten paradise, far from the madness of the everyday, but still right around the corner.

Night comes, and the city enchants, throwing lights, lamplights, stars, glistening high into the air somewhere near a sliver of moon suspended between buildings.

I don’t often feel such confusion, wondering what nights like this are supposed to mean, if they are more than simply splendid nights. An opening door, warm air from a kitchen, bread, cheese, interrupts the cool air, and then to wander into something wonderful, something I am afraid I could come to depend on… We walk, then later, an accordion, voices, the froth on top. A kiss. Can wonderful be ordinary? I try to find a context for words, for hair brushed behind my ear, for feelings that seems so distinct from the life I lead on Monday. I stop myself before my reality becomes too distorted.

Tomorrow, at my desk, I will think of other things, like the correct answer to polite questions, and what time I need to leave for a meeting. “How was your weekend?” Does anyone expect the truth, if truth seems outside of the mundane, and yet not cause for official celebration? Can we believe that time away can be magic, or that life still holds its wonder even now, beyond a paycheck, a house to clean, appointments, errands? Maybe bliss should not be only time off. Maybe I should yield to that warmth. Maybe there is a new context I never even considered, one where joy is not held separate and only available on weekends. Can I weave that joy into the everyday and still make sense of it? Will it disappear, or fade, or will it infuse the days with softness?

Or is this all an illusion, just the dance of two lonely souls?