March 31st, 2016

I was going to title this “threads”, but when I fired up my computer, Pandora gave me Mason Jennings crooning something about your love.  What could I do, but comply?  It’s because, ultimately, this post will come around to being about a declaration of harmony and gratitude for such a love that I couldn’t have even imagined had I not lived the life I’ve lived.  The thread.  Mason Jennings.  One of the sweetest early memories of this present love was a silly karaoke session we had on one of our first evenings together.  It was winter time.  Possibly New Year’s Eve.  He had come over, and we were singing, but mostly I was singing and trying to get him to sing.  I can be persuasive.  Ahem.  So I eventually did get him to sing, and the song he chose was a Mason Jennings song (Your New Man –it’s a hoot!).  So.  There you go.

I’ll get back to him.  Meanwhile, I’ve just remembered the original thread I had in mind.  I was reflecting on past loves and moments.  I was thinking about the trials and lessons and various moments of beauty and pain and sorrow, and I was thinking about who remains in my life now, who has a particular place reserved in me, in my heart, just for them.  There are only a few.  I’ve always loved deeply and fully, with whomever I was loving deeply and fully at the time.  With time, however, healing has occurred and left remaining a warm and comfortable glow in which I finally see that I have lovingly let go those who needed to be let go, and loving retained in a gentle and altruistic way those who have their own special place in my life.  Everyone who has ever been has a very special place in my heart, in the depth of my memories.  But not everyone remains in my life, in my real world here and now.

I think back to the beginning.  JJW.  The father of my first two  unborn.  We were so young.  We were kids ourselves.  Those children weren’t meant to be.  We weren’t meant to be.  Yet today, here, now, we are friends.  We see a glimpse of each others’ lives from afar.  He has a wonderful wife, a true soul connection, a beautiful life that could not have been had we not been.  I am so happy that he found her and that he’s lived the rich and beautiful life that he’s lived.  Who are we to each other now?  Warm friends from childhood.  Nerds.  We reveal our stupid silly nerdy quirky selves in the occasional Facebook posts.  JJW.  Yes, he has a place in my life.  Smiley face.

Who’s next in my OCD lineup of present life former loves?  Oh.  JEM.  We text each other on our respective birthdays every year.  Every year!  Once in a while we’ll call, maybe once a year.  We inquire about family members, laugh about goofy old times, describe our children to each other.  It’s always sweet and sincere.  Genuine.  It’s especially sweet because we had ended badly, with such a sour taste remaining for so very many years.  I’m always grateful for this particular friendship, because my heart is so heavy when sourness lingers.

Then there’s DAN.  Mister Divorce Rebound.  Perhaps that’s the main reason why he lingers in the periphery of my present life, if Facebook status can be considered present life periphery.  I will probably always have a fondness for the one who gave me a glimpse of the possibilities that life held post-divorce.  Hope!  Of course we could never be, but I think we were meant to be when we were.  Maybe, also, we can be real life friends now, as with JEM, because enough years have passed to let the bitterness of the breaks fade and be replaced with the brightness of younger days.

This brings me to BXD.  Surely he’ll post a comment that I should have given him the BFD tag when I wasn’t able to google a middle initial in 30 seconds or less.  I think we each suffered our own kind of anguish and had to work through some layers of bitterness before the friendship was able to re-emerge.  I am delighted and grateful that it survives.  He is like a lifeline to me, because he understands the incomprehensible dark sides that are so  hard for anyone to understand.  He understands, because he lives with it too.  Depression.  The elephant in the room.  He is so refreshingly logical that I can fully trust that anything that I might run by him will be evaluated clearly, completely, and truthfully.  Also, our professional fields  have some overlap, so there’s something to be said about being able to talk shop.  We share sporadic flurries of email communications a few times a year.

As I’m finding these words to describe these chapters of my life, I’m counting the calendar time during which such life moments were defined.  Four years with JJW.  One year with JEM.  Four months with DAN.  Two, maybe three months with BXD.  Friendships fostered during a span of five and half years of my life.  I love that what surfaces in the here and now with all these friends is the laugh.  We chuckle.  We grin.  We snicker.  We chide.  The relationships we have are all grounded in levity and warmth.  It’s a beautiful thing.

And this brings me to the here and now, here and now.  EHB.  Nearly sixteen months and it’s as fresh and sweet and fun as the day we met.  We have so much fun together!  We laugh!  We talk for hours about all sorts of deep and interesting or crazy and ridiculous things.  We toil over projects at his place or mine, always with a smile and a spring in the step.  I wonder how much of our compatibility is merely because I finally sorted myself out.  Maybe he recently sorted himself out too, or maybe we both found ourselves ready at the same time, so somehow, miraculously, we just fit.  I don’t think I can explain it, but I certainly am grateful for it!

He’s nerdy.  I don’t know how many people actually know that about him.  I doubt very many.  He’s a cool cat on the exterior.  I love that he’s nerdy, and I love that he’s a cool cat too.

He’s thoughtful.  He’s a very internal person, so he thinks deeply about the things he thinks about.  I can take him seriously.

He’s fun.

Integrity means something to him.  I could go on and on, but I was working towards a conclusion of sorts.

The other day I told him that we should start counting down our anniversary (given that we have an anniversary), starting at 40, because it seems like we will have to be together that long in order to do the things together that we want to do.  All the books to read, the movies to see, the podcasts to hear, the places to go.  There is so much living to live!

And so I’ve finally come to the point of all this.  I’m finally here!  I wandered down paths with all sorts of twists and turns until now.  Every moment had its value.  And through it all, some friendships remain like glowing embers, softly warming the outer reaches of my heart.  I think I can say that I am truly making peace with my past, that I like my present, and that I have hope for my future.  I think I am finally on my way to getting over myself, so I am finally on my way!

 

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 31st, 2016 at 4:37 PM and is filed under chapters of my life, divorce, friends, love, me, men, relationships, thankfulness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

One Response to “something about your love”

Mary Says:

Xxxxxx