The "Hot Date" Test

“Hey, how was lunch with that guy the other day?” Naomi is forever inquisitive of any and all interaction I have with the opposite sex. I can’t believe she didn’t interrogate me after my trip to the dentist last week, after all, he’s a male. (Albeit 62 and married, but still.) Perhaps her “I have a boyfriend existence” must be getting mundane since she’s endlessly searching for dramatic developments in my spinster/cat lady land life.

“That was lunch. He’s just a friend, why?”

“What makes you say he’s just a friend? How do you know he’s just a friend?” She narrows her eyes and I start wondering if she’s going to grab a spotlight out of her purse and begin a full on interrogation.

I briefly consider asking to call my attorney. “What has gotten into you? You have more tenacity lately than Tiger Woods in a brothel.”

“Well? Like I said, how do you know?”

This woman does not give up.

I grunt at her, cock my eyebrow upwards and announce, “I didn’t buy a new shirt. That. Is how I know.”

She collapses in laughter, surrendering to illogical logic.

Inside joke explained: I have this very very odd habitual pattern of running straight to the mall and buying a new shirt when I have a date with someone I really like. In fact, if it’s winter I’ve even been known to buy a new coat.

Twice.

In fact, Naomi likes to use my odd garment gathering as a barometer for just how of hot a date we're talking about here. “You like him? Alright, so how much was the shirt?”

In one case last year an ex-boyfriend of mine who I’d secretly pined for for months asked me to help him write his resume. Of course, I wanted to believe this was confusing boy code for “I can’t live without you, I want you back.” We agreed to meet for coffee to go over his career logistics but not before I went to the mall and bought the cutest damn shirt I could find.

(Naomi didn’t approve, she thought my history with him didn’t warrant the investment. Advised me to keep the receipt.)

I thought it was a wonderful wardrobe decision for what I was sure was to be the first step in an obvious reunion.

Yeah, not so much. Turns out he really was just a fan of my writing abilities. Because twenty minutes into our meeting I had to sit there in my cute new shirt and listen to him tell me all about his cute new girlfriend.

What a waste of my Wet Seal wandering.

(I did keep the shirt though. It really was cute.)

So, here I am. No boyfriend in sight but with a closet full of adorable tops, blouses and sweaters. Maybe I have enough of a collection now that I can break this bad habit, I have plenty of options now, right?

Oh hey, wait a second. I just got a text from Brad Pitt. What the? He’s finally leaving Angelina for moi? He’ll be here in four hours?

Hold on, I have to call Naomi . . .

Okay, Dating Land fans. I gotta run. She’s going to be here in five minutes.

We’re going to the mall.

Because there's a new shirt out there with my name on it.

Mrs. Audra Pitt

Odd Happenings in the Life of Moi

I am going out for dinner tonight and when I do, I am having a beer.

And I don’t even like beer.

But it’s been one of those weeks. The kind where I've actually caught myself giving thanks that I am not pregnant, unemployed, or dealing with a leprosy diagnosis.

When you have to go that dark to cheer yourself up . . . yeah, it's been a rough go.

First off, my ex-husband got engaged. Which is just fine, but odd. It kind of feels like he's doing a remake of our life and I've been recast as a brunette with huge boobs.

Weird.

Secondly, my ex-boyfriend (no one ever mentioned in this blog) who broke up with me because I was 10 years older is now dating an older woman. But she doesn’t have kids. She has a dog.

Lovely.

Thirdly,a guy who I had not only amazing relationship potential with but who I could actually envision becoming my best friend (which is the fairytale everyone is seeking) is MIA and busy snowmobiling. I am trying to forget he exists. That is working about 80% of the time . . . alright, up that stat to 95%. I don't want to make myself sound like a pining woos. (Okay, maybe it's 92.5%...)

Last but not least, I think George Clooney just wrote to me on Match.com. But of course, he's slightly psycho.

Those celebs usually are.

On an up note, I’m making some great progress on my novel and am highly considering developing an allergy to dating until I finish that baby on or around June 1st.

If I do that, I have no idea what will happen to Dating Land.

Maybe I’ll just have to write about Naomi . . . she’s got more material than a fabric store going out of business.

We'll see . . .
**************************************************
Private Message to Team Anders:
My blog is about relationships. But no relationship is more precious than the love we have for our children. Dating Land's theme is dating . . . but behind the scenes is a real life, with real love, that comes in many many forms.

Endless thoughts and prayers over the years and miles to you and your family my dear friend . . .
~Audra

Just Hanging out in the Sahara

"So, about the blog lately," Naomi announces one day. I sense a topic suggestion coming. With an English degree, and BBF status, Naomi is the default Dating Land editor. And she takes it seriously. (I wonder if she's noticed yet that I don't pay her?)

"And?"

"And . . . call me crazy but I think Dating Land needs to go on a, oh I dunno, date? I'm down with the Santa story and the locked door but let's go, already. You've sat around on your single arse long enough. Dating Land is in a dry spell."

"Arse? Are you Irish?" I sarcastically counter.

"Don't change the subject."

"First of all it's not a dry spell if it's self inflicted. Secondly, you know I wait a month or two before deciding on what material to use. I can't write about what's going on in the present. I'd be psycho writer dating pariah if I typed up my personal life in real time and put it on the internet. Gawd woman. I'm not going to make the guys I date into sacraficial lambs for the sake of my writing."

"What are you talking about? What "guys you date?" You've barely left your house in a month!" A more pathetic truth was never spoken.

"Hey," I protest, "I go to the grocery store. And . . the gym."

"Oh boy. The gym. It'd more exciting if you knew someone named Jim. What about that Johnny Depp guy you met? Mr. Baseball."

"Him? Must we bring that lunch meeting up?" Leave it to Naomi, the woman with a boyfriend, to categorize a rebound moment as a real date. "I treated that whole thing like a business meeting." I roll my eyes to no one but myself. "I am sure he thinks I am a weirdo the way I rambled on and on and interviewed him so coldly. Argh," I sigh in frustration, "that was just humiliating quite honestly. I wasn't over you know who. I should not have even gone."

"Yeah, well, you are a weirdo but in a good way, usually. As for that decision, little Miss Sabotage, rebounds usually result in casual sex. I'm not sure what you were doing that day. I don't know if qualifies as rebounding, because you certainly didn't get laid."

"Really? You can tie lunch to sex? Really?"

"I'm talented."

"You're ridiculous."

"I'm ridiculous? I'm not the one who blew the date with Mr. Baseball who lookes like a celebrity. Didn't you say he cooks?"

"Yep."

"Damn. Looks like People magazine's Sexiest man alive and a chef? Wow. You should get a medal for messing that one up."

"You know, we didn't have much in common. He doesn't read. Well, he can read, he just doesn't read. I can't date someone who doesn't read."

"Are you looking for companionship or starting a book club?"

"Bite me."

"Okay, forget I suggested this. Your dating life is deader than your grandma's libido," she finally surrenders.

"Ew, if my grandma has a libido I don't want to know. Besides," I counter in defense, "part of being single is NOT dating. Sometimes it's the healthier choice to just spend some time alone."

"True. But if you keep this up, you're going to have to change the name of your blog to Creeply Old Cat Lady Land. You do realize.

"Hey, I like my cats."

"My point. Exactly."

********************************************

Merry Christmas everyone! My plans for the holidays include overdosing on snowman shaped frosted cookies, pretzels dipped in sugar, and sitting in a recliner at my parents' farm watching waaaaaaaaaaay too much Pay Per View. It does NOT, and I repeat NOT, include anything that remotely resembles dating.

Hmmmm. . . . maybe I should start saving up for cat litter now . . .?

~Audra

Alright. Who Locked This Door?!?!?!

“Mom, I can’t open the bathroom door,” my teen daughter nonchalantly informs me late one night.

“Oh for cripe’s sake.” I march to the door wondering at what point I turned into my own crabby mother. I once made the mistake of disciplining one of my children while standing in front of a mirror. There was my own mom, harping away. Wait a second. That’s me. Oh my gawd.

It’s true what they say, our children are our parents revenge. In fact, right after giving birth to my first child I called my mother not only to announce the news I’d just turned her into a grandma before she’d hit menopause but to apologize for the torturous experience of my own birth. She appreciated the sentiments, even if it was twenty one years after that hot July day in 1972 when I started screaming the moment only my head was delivered. She had to listen to my yelling for another twenty minutes while she labored to get the rest of me out of her.

(Sorry, Mom. What can I say? I’ve been emotional from the first second my lungs sucked air. Some things never change.)

I push on the bathroom door. Hmmm. I push harder. Throw a little shoulder into it this time. Nada. What the? What happened? Why the flip is this door locked? From the inside?

I interrogate my offspring. Of course, no one knows anything. I consider Chinese water torture but just surrender to the fact my kids may end up CIA agents someday the way they guard interrogating information. Gremlins apparently slunk their way into our neighborhood with the sole purpose of sabotaging our morning showers.

Fine. Whatever.

I live in an older character home and this particular door has a deadbolt that must be turned with some effort in order to secure the lock. How the hell the deadbolt ended up bolted is slightly mysterious. Hmmm, poltergeist? Who should I call? Locksmith or priest?

It’s pretty late by the time the mysterious bathroom ghost has pulled this prank so I decide not to call anyone and just tackle this baby myself before certifying my damsel in distress status. How hard can this be?

I find my toolbox in the basement, and yes, I own a toolbox. I assess the situation and settle on a needle nosed pliers. I can clearly see the back of the deadbolt through a small hole in the door. That’s gotta be it. One hour of grunting, groaning, slipping and sliding later, I am no further. (And yes, normally activities of this nature would fall into the fun things to do after midnight category, but not in this case.)

In this time all I’ve succeeded in doing so far is to remove the doorknob. That did nothing. Yes, I realize. But in a moment of desperation I decided to unscrew every screw I saw. Which was, I know, completely pointless.

Now my locked door has no doorknob. Yay.

At 1:00am I admit defeat and go to bed.

I have nightmares about having to spend the rest of my life showering at the truck stop down the road.

In the morning I make the damn call to the locksmith. He shows up. Takes one look at the door. Grabs MY tool and proceeds to do precisely what I’d spent hours the night before doing.

Four nanoseconds later he turns the bolt and unlocks the door.

Are you flipping kidding me?

I could have fixed this on my own? All I was missing was testosterone?

Fifty five dollars later I’m back in my bathroom and just irritated that I needed to call a man to do this. I was smart enough to figure out what needed to be done and how to do it. But in the end the only thing that inhibited my success was brute strength? Argh.

Well, that experience was a metaphor for a lot of things. There is something within all of us that tells us that if we can’t do something alone then we’re weak. Independence epitomizes success. That if we need help, we’ve failed.

I’ve had three friends call me this week because relationships have ended, and not all women either. One was a guy. But the feelings were all the same.

Hopefully, my shoulder and advice was helpful. I think it was, for they all thanked me for listening and sharing my wisdom.

I guess I just kind of hope that for them, I was their locksmith. I didn’t bring any special tools or new ideas. I just brought a little strength that I’ve picked up along the way.

And hopefully? Well, I hope my words were just the keys they needed.

To unlock a few doors of their own.
********************************************
No offense, Mom...you had your crabby moments but overall you were pretty fun! :-)

Why Drunk Dialing is Always a Bad Idea or "Sure. If you want to be a psycho, go right ahead."

“Don’t call him.”

“I’m not going to!”

“Don’t text him.”

“I do not plan on it.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I!”

Two days later . . .

“I called him.”

“I knew it.”

The preceding exchange is one that has played out several times in my life. Although I’ve been on both sides of the dialogue. I’ve been the one harping my girlfriend NOT to call that jerk again. And, I’ve been the one being coached into silent power post-heartbreak.

Like warriors in battle, we hold each other up and cheer each other on.

I honestly have to say, I am pretty good at the letting go. I’m forever the romantic so the writer in me has a pretty consistent pattern that includes at least one obligatory and well written “woe is me email” a day or two after a breakup. But after that, I can pretty much put that puppy to bed and get on with my life, self-respect intact. Besides, I’ve tried the “pining and “groveling” hats on and they just aren’t flattering. I look much better in “independent” and “good bye loser.”

Some of my other friends? Yeah, they wrote the book on drunk dialing your dignity away. And I am talking about women pushing fifty. Seriously.

But the need to be loved is eternal and doesn’t expire when menopause hits.

Just this past weekend a good friend ended a long term relationship. And then. She proceeded to get.

What else? Completely smashed.

“Sharon,” one of the women in our post-break up platoon ordered her at the end of the night, “Now don’t call Brad. If you do . . . I am going to cut off . . . your left labia.”

After I finally quit laughing hysterically, I soberly underscore, “Now that is a pretty serious threat, Sharon.” And point out the logical consequence, “because what is your next boyfriend going to say?”

I deepen my voice and clear my throat. “So Sharon. I see you’re missing your left labia?”

“Ah yes,” I raise my voice a couple octaves and do my best Sharon impression, “the result of an unfortunate drunk dial late last year.”

Awkward.

My friends and I collapse into girlish giggles, but the point is that silence is serious. It’s no laughing matter.

When a guy is being a terd, I don’t care how terrific he was last Tuesday or how wonderful he was last week. The now is what matters. And if now he is more absent than a classroom of second graders with the swine flu then just let him be. Good gawd.

Don’t call him.

Don’t text him.

Don’t send him a smoke signal.

Silence is power.

Breaking it.

Is psycho.

Because you know what? If his idiot attack is temporary?

Then he’ll come back on his own terms.

And if he does.

Do you really want to have to explain . . .

. . . how you lost your left labia?

I didn’t think so.

All I Want for Christmas

I took my little girl to see Santa last weekend. And as the line of parents and toddlers snaked its way toward the jolly old elf, it struck me that this may very well be the last time I make this obligatory parental Christmas trek to the mall.

She’ll be nine next Christmas.

And so, the idea of Santa Claus, at least the innocent belief that he truly does exist in the capacity I’ve taught her that he does, is something she will more than likely outgrow by the time the calendar reads December 25th again. This milestone strikes me out of the blue as I’m standing in line and realize that my child is a lot taller than many of the other children here to see St. Nicolas.

I embrace this precious moment before it melts like the fleeting snow and kneel down so I can enthusiastically whisper with her about what she is going to ask Santa Claus for this year. Her eyes and goofy little personality (where’d she inherit that from?) are shiny with anticipation as she lists out the toys and items she has on her Christmas list this year: a purse, Jonas Brothers boots, an American Girl doll, and maybe . . . a convertible?

“I think we can probably scratch the convertible, kiddo.” I tickle her tummy and she laughs at her own little joke.

My normally impatient child is the epitome of serene as the line slowly inches toward the elf on his throne. We watch enthralled as wide-eyed little girls and boys in their Christmas best are deposited on Santa’s lap and artfully tricked by the photographer to transform their awe, or terror, into smiles.

Soon, it’s her turn. She jumps onto Santa’s knee and all of her wishes spill out as she twists her hands and dutifully recites her Christmas list. I stand to the side and try not to be sad mommy mourning a milestone and instead just enjoy the sweet innocence of the moment, for the present is where life resides.

And right now. Its adorable.

When she finishes, we snap a photo too. Her wide smile needs no prompting.

As we say our farewells to Santa, she stops and announces, “Oh, Mommy, I forgot to ask Santa for something really important!” She rushes back and proclaims for all to hear, “Santa! One more thing. Can you please, please, please bring my mom a nice boyfriend? The ones she finds always make her cry.”

I laugh awkwardly. I know her intentions are so loving but I am embarrassed by all the other parents who just heard what she said. I feel like white trash single dating mom all the sudden. I make great efforts to insulate my children from my dating life but I am just human. And sometimes? Well, they have seen my pain.

I try to brush off the comment and gracefully usher her to the exit as I smile awkwardly and mumble meagerly in an effort to retain some level of dignity in front of all these strangers, “Oh, that’s not necessary. Mommy doesn’t need a boyfriend, she’s just fine, come on, sweetie . . .”

But before I can take more than one step, the kindly old man in the deep red velvet Santa suit gently takes me by the elbow and smiles warmly. His eyes shine as he pulls me close enough to see that yes, his beard is real, his voice a hushed whisper, “Its okay to ask for love for Christmas you know. It is actually my favorite gift to give.”

He looks up at my speechless expression, releases my arm, and promises with a wink and a grin, “I will see about the boyfriend.”

And I know it's so weird because this is just some old man at the mall in a rented red suit but I feel a warmth come over me that is just plain comforting. Like I just got a hug from my Grandpa.

I am no longer embarrassed.

"Thanks ..." I whisper back.

As my daughter and I leave the crowded mall hand in hand I think about that crazy old guy and what just happened and smile to myself.

For I realize. Well, Santa may not be real.

But love is.

And he was right. Looking for it.

Is not anything to be ashamed of.
*********************************************

But if you do bring me a boyfriend on Christmas, Santa? Please make sure he’s wearing more than just a bow. As much as I would enjoy that . . .

I do have children to consider.

Life

No mistakes . . . just lessons.

**********************************
Two girlfriends had break ups today . . . so I made break up brownies, and break up tacos, and we drank break up wine.

Check back on Monday, Dating Land fans . . . because I do have a story.

Muah!
Love,
Audra

P.S. Nick was spotted with a woman at the mall buying a whip. Yes. A whip. Excuse me while I hurl . . .

Dear Marilyn . . . I get it.

The truth is I've never fooled anyone. I've let people fool themselves. They didn't bother to find out who and what I was. Instead they would invent a character for me. I wouldn't argue with them. They were obviously loving somebody I wasn't.

~ Marilyn Monroe

******************************
A new story starts on Monday, readers.

Thanks for reading!

~Audra

Chapter Twenty Six; Live Strong

I run.

I started about four years ago. This former diva of domesticity and cookies decided to hit a treadmill and ended up inadvertently discovering just how life altering running can be.

And I’m not just talking about my ass. (Which experienced a significant alteration of its own to the tune of a size 4, thank you very much.)

I’ve since run my way through a divorce, dating debacles, and even a job loss. I attribute not just my survival of life’s suckier moments to running but also the capability it gives me to transform them.

And Nick’s departure was no exception.

I eventually did heal.

But not by retreating.

By running.

Oh, of course I cried. All of my September is a cloudy salty memory. But I punctuated my grieving by tightly lacing up my tennis shoes, cranking up my iPod, and sailing down the street on nothing but rhythmic breath and the measured cadence of my Aesics on the asphalt.

Mile after mile.

I ran out the pain.

I missed him. I cursed him. I loved him. I hated him. I second guessed myself. I wondered about this qwest I was on for love. It seems so futile sometimes.

Four weeks before I had arranged for my mom to watch my children on a particular upcoming weekend in anticipation of Nick’s birthday.

He was gone but the plans for my children to visit their Granny remained. So I took advantage of my freedom and signed up to run a 5K that was part of a larger-half marathon event. A symbolic gesture of my ability. To keep moving forward.

Even when all I wanted to do was sit down.

And sob.

I run 5K’s all the time. They’re kind of my thing. But today this race was different. Nick might be physically strong but when it comes to character and compassion?

This time.

I’m the strong one.

Because instead of staying home and lamenting the fact that I am not on his arm at the birthday party he'd spent weeks planning I am up at the butt crack of dawn.

Running a fucking race.

The starting gun fires. My running playlist echoes in my eardrums and my body moves in its rhythmical pace. The terrain is unfamiliar and far more hilly than what I am used to.

But I run on.

Because this isn’t the first time life’s put me on a course that I would not have charted for myself. It bends and lifts and plunges, forever unpredictable. Just like life. The trying times and the joyful possibilities. They are entwined and connected and dependent upon one another. And all of it must be navigated if the finish line is ever to be crossed.

Because the race doesn’t stop just because there is a hill.

And the road doesn’t end just because it curves.

In fact, neither does this sometimes tragic but forever beautiful.

Life.

Bring on the hills and let me see what's around that corner.

Because this chick runs strong.

And lives.

Stronger.

**************************************
It’d be poetic justice to report I not only finished first but set a world record wouldn't it? Maybe a little Olympic qualification? "Happy birthday, Nick. Who needs you? I’m a freaking rock star!" Yeah, not so much. But I did okay. Under a 9 minute mile and 4th place in my age division out of fifty some women. But running, for me, isn’t about the numbers. It’s about momentum. And energy goes one direction, babe.

Forward.

You are SUPER SEXY and I am DISEASE FREE!

Yes. It's true. I signed up for Match.com.

And that line in the title is an honest to god/swear on the bible/not remotely made up gen-u-wine email that I received from a potential match.

Some guy in Nebraska. Who's the same age as my Dad.

I know! Can you BELIEVE there is such quality in the online lonely hearts club? Where have you been all my life STD free old man? Let me fly there immediately, sans condoms, and run off into the sunset with so you can tell me all about what life was like in the 1950's.

Ew.

Gag me with my computer mouse already.

I am sure I'll have plenty oh match dot com stories for ya shortly, Dating Land fans. But in the meantime, I'm slacking off on the bloggin' during this Thanksgiving holiday, but if you miss me...tune in tonight (Wednesday!) to KFGO and catch me on the air.

I'm going to read some of my match.com correspondence. You can't make this stuff up. Listen online at www.kfgo.com.

Thanks for reading!!!

~Audra

What is love?

"Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get. Only with what you are expecting to give . . . which is everyththing."~ Katharine Hepburn

********************************
I apologize there is no blog entry today. I had the kind of weekend that inspires blog stories for later . . .

Ultimately what I fear most is that this journey so far is damaging my trust in others, and that much of it has been robbed of me already.

What happens when trust dissovles permanently?

And there is nothing left to give?

The answer to that question is what I am most afraid.

Of becoming.

Here's to love. And the trust in hope that allows all of us to do what Katharine Hepburn says.

To keep giving.

Everything.


~Audra

Chapter Twenty Five; Consolation Prize

I am kind of a sap. I save things.

But not indefinitely.

I shred bank statements, throw out my children’s artwork (come on, how many popsicle creations does a person really need?) and sort through the family’s clothes every season. I donate, recycle, and basically just throw junk out that no longer has any use.

But when it comes to sentimental items? That’s a different story.

I keep everything.

Birthday cards from my high school boyfriend, letters my great grandma sent me in college, some junky old Christmas ornament I made in the first grade that my mom told me was beautiful (even though it’s nothing but about ten sequins glued to a Styrofoam ball).

I have all that crap.

Organized. Labeled.

Saved.

I am kind of a hoarder when it comes to matters of the heart.

I don’t know what I am envisioning. My great grandchildren going through my life in boxes some day long after my funeral and seeing that I had some kind of a life with a little bit of love sprinkled here and there? Maybe I’m collecting evidence simply to demonstrate that I was here on this earth for a little while.

And while I was.

It mattered.

And so, when things with Nick ended I didn’t throw anything out. Not that I had much. But I had a few things. He’d given me a coffee mug with the fire department logo on it. I use it. (Hey, it’s a perfectly good mug.) Although I feel like chuckling every time I do. It seems to represent the parting gift for a game show I was on and didn’t win.

“Thanks for playing! Here’s your consolation prize.”

Once you get past the heartbreak it honestly can be entertaining, the tangible remnants of a relationship that remain.

I once had a boyfriend who left his blender at my house.

Weird.

I did return that though. I really didn’t want to think about him every time I made a malt.

What I mostly have as evidence Nick was here are texts and emails he sent me. I don’t ever read them. But I love words, and those are meaningful to me. I know I’ll delete them eventually. But for now.

I just have them.

I also have pictures.

Every one he ever sent me. And he sent me a lot.

A picture’s worth a thousand words. After all.

Recently, I had blackberry issues. And I had to take my phone in. The texts remain, but several of the pictures are gone.

One of the pictures I’d planned to use at the end of this blog.

It was of the daisies he’d brought me. Bright, white, and beautiful on my kitchen counter.

I don’t know why we women take pictures of flowers when we receive them. Probably a meager attempt to capture the simple fact that someone thought you were important enough to acknowledge your presence with blossoms. Flowers mark our most memorable milestones after all. Birth. Marriage. Death. They announce that something grand and large has just taken place.

So when someone gives you flowers for no reason? They are a symbolic celebration.

Of just you.

And that. Warrants a photograph.

I lost that picture of Nick's daisies when I had my phone restaged.

But then, the other day, I pulled a book off my nightstand I hadn’t opened in quite a while.

And a pressed daisy fell to the floor.

I’d completely forgotten. I’d saved it.

Ironically, I’d placed it between the pages of a book about the love story of Spencer Tracey and Katherine Hepburn.

I picked up the crumbling remains of that flower and nonchalantly placed it on the cover.

An affair to remember. The title reads.

Ha.

Nice.

I think to myself.

How great of a relationship was this? Is it really worth remembering? I mean really.

What’s so great about a guy who roars into your life on a Harley?

And then leaves you with nothing but electronic correspondence, a coffee mug, and a dead daisy?

Doesn’t sound like an affair to remember to me.

Sounds more like one.

To forget.

I threw the brittle petals in the garbage. And headed to my laptop to hit the delete button a few hundred times.

And oh yeah.

Anyone out there need a sturdy coffee mug?

Because I have one.

That I really don’t feel like keeping.

***************************************************
Yes . . . that really is the daisy in the photo on the cover of the book. What? I had to take a picture.

Oh, hey . . . I'm going to be on KFGO again next Wednesday, November 25th @ 9:00 CST. Hope you can tune in! I'll be talking about heartbreak . . . and healing.

Chapter Twenty Four; Wake Me Up. When September Ends.

Nick descended into my life with ferocious abruptness.

And that is exactly how he left.

For the first two weeks in September I cried a lot. After that, I just walked around like a zombie. Feeling nothing and still feeling everything. This horrible in between place called apathy that results when death comes prematurely to a promise.

I missed him. Well, I missed the idea of him. After all, what do you really have after just less than two months together? Get real. It’s not like I caught my husband of 20 years boinking his secretary. Whatever we’d had.

Was brief.

So what the flip was I bawling about?

What had I really lost?

Well. What is trust?

That’s a lot.

Because that is exactly what was gone.

Trust in myself.

In others.

Specifically. In men.

Everywhere I went. Anyone with a penis who even looked my direction was greeted with a glare that had, “Talk to me and I slap you, asshole,” written all over it.

For I’d also lost that hopeful little dream that all of us harbor. To meet that one person and know in one second that you are going to spend one lifetime together.

How ridiculous had I been? To secretly believe.

That it could happen.

To me.

That belief was executed that afternoon in the sunshine.

And the resulting funeral procession was a parade of one. Just me. Walking around in my life like a lost traveler who’d misplaced her map. And really not caring if I ever found it again.

Naomi was wonderful throughout my woe is me period. As were all of my friends. Of course, they took me hostage, took me out, and made toasts to things like castration.

Because really, they were grieving too. They’d fallen for Nick as well.

And now they too.

Felt duped.

“I think he’s just mystifying. The entire thing is mystifying,” was Allie’s assessment.

My girlfriends and I are gathered over a couple bottles of wine, hunkered down at a corner table in our favorite restaurant. Naomi’s contribution to the conversation is simply to mention castration.

For the fourth time.

And so goes my September post-Nick.

Intermittent chapters of crying. Interjected by girlfriend gatherings with our kindred spirits Merlot, Riesling, and Chardonnay.

Cheers.

To the beginning of the process necessary to take me back to the one place I must go if I am ever to give love a chance again.

Healing.

Chapter Twenty Three; Shattered

It is Sunday morning. Two days after Nick told me he needed time.

Seven days after we’d just gotten back together. And now, we’re apart again?

I just didn’t understand.

I watch the families filter into the worship space at church as I stand behind the microphone and prepare my sheet music. I’ve been singing in church since I was 14 years old, up in the choir loft of my small town Catholic church.

This Sunday is my Sunday to cantor, to lead the music. And I couldn’t be more grateful. When I have the chance to sing at church, I always feel a profound sense of peace, and the presence of, well, The Holy Spirit. And right now?

I could use all the holy I could get.

The past few days I had been trying to process Nick’s Thursday words. He needs time.

Time.

I could still see his blue eyes in my mind. Leaning against the entry way of the fire station. Pleading with me to just give him that one thing he needed.

Time.

Whenever I sing, I always choose one person to focus on, to dedicate all of my words to. Someone in the pews who looks troubled. It helps to calm my nerves and remind myself that I am not there for my own glory, but for the glory of God.

The night before, an email came into my blackberry from a woman in the congregation who had been widowed two years prior. Her husband had died of cancer at the age of 44. And this week, it would have been their 25th wedding anniversary. Just last night I’d read her words on his Caring Bridge Site, “Dear Murray. I never thought I would celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary sitting on this bench next to your grave in a cemetery.”

I’d wept as I’d read her account of so many vivid memories of their wedding 25 years before. The ceremony. The reception. Their first dance to “Under the Boardwalk.” But my tears were not rooted in pity. I was almost envious. What deep love they had shared. Although he had died, they’d had 23 years together.

In this life of mine, and in my failed marriage, I’d never even had one.

And this particular Sunday morning, there she was. Sitting in the pews before me.

And so I dedicated every note I sang to her. To her grief, and to the love for her husband that could not be extinguished by death.

I let every measure be a prayer of faith. Faith in love lost. And in love found.

Love present. Love past. And love someday.

And not just for me.

But for all of us on this human road.

A profound sense of peace overcame me at the close of mass. And as I left the church, an old man stopped to shake my hand, “Great job today, young lady.”

I smile.

I feel peaceful. And I trust, that no matter how things are supposed to unfold with Nick, they will happen as they are supposed to happen.

Ding.

My blackberry beckons.

Someone loves me.

My girlfriend, Allie, is inviting me to join her and her daughters for Sunday brunch at our favorite restaurant. The August morning is unfolding into a gorgeous summer day, and I can't think of anything more perfect than pancakes on a patio with a dear friend and our children.

My youngest daughter and I are on our way, but shortly before we arrive, I look down at my phone and see another text from Allie.

OMG! What are the odds? Nick is here. Table next to us. He is with a woman, probably just a friend. Do you want to still come?

My heart skips a beat. I can’t not go; my little girl is anticipating her pancakes.
At the next stop light, I decide to text Nick and tell him I am on my way. I don’t want him to feel awkward. Maybe he would like to leave instead of sitting next to me during Sunday brunch? I should be respectful and give him a heads up that I will be there.

I don’t even think twice about who he is with. In fact, I know a lot of his friends, I figure I know the woman and fully expect to recognize her when I arrive.

On my way to meet Allie and her daughters for brunch. U r sitting next 2 her? I would just not come if awkward but kiddo is looking forward 2 it.

He doesn’t reply.

Odd.

He always replies.

When I pull into the restaurant I see him right away, baseball hat, Oakley shades.

He is laughing away.

I take a deep breath.

Allie was right. What are the odds? This town is not a metropolis, but it’s not that small.

I hug Allie when I get to the patio, deposit my daughter in her seat. Nick’s back is to me, so I walk up to him and gently put my hand on his shoulder.

He looks up.

“Hey . . .uh, hey,” he stutters.

I mutter quietly, feeling bad for the unintentional ambush, “Um,” I start, “I sent you a text message letting you know I was coming?”

“Oh . . . uh,” he mumbles, “I . . . uh . . . my phone is in my bag, I didn’t see it.”
That’s strange. Nick’s phone is on him at all times. It is like an appendage. The only time I’ve ever seen him not use it was on our first few dates.

Odder.

I look across the table. This is not a woman I recognize.

“Oh, sorry. Just wanted you to know I was coming,” I say quietly.

Awkward silence.

“Um, do you want to introduce me?” I prompt him.

Nick just sits there.

The girl at the table smiles broadly and says, “I am Brenda,” as she extends her hand.

Nick mutters, “Uh . . . this is Audra.”

I grasp her hand and wait for Nick to fill in the blanks about who Brenda is and how he knows her.

Silence.

That explanation never happens.

I look at Nick. He is looking away.

I look at Brenda.

And inside my soul I am flooded with the realization.

Oh my god.

He is on a date.

This is a date.

Nick.

Is on a date.

I do not yell. I do not cry. I freeze inside and somehow manage to utter, “Enjoy your lunch.”

I move in what feels likes slow motion back to my table and sink in disbelief. Staring straight ahead.

“Oh my god,” Allie whispers as the truth descends in her direction, “oh my god. Is that a date?” she whispers in hushed tones.

I stare at her. And do not answer.

My face void of color.

My silence is loud.

“Are you sure?” Allie prods, turning her own head to watch this reality unfold just mere inches from our own table. Our daughters laugh and squeal away. Their little voices sound like they are at the bottom of a deep pit. I feel my vision closing in.

Brenda is smiling at Nick, his back is to me, but her face is beaming. She is animated. She is giggling. Her leg is tucked up and she is hugging one knee.

My livelihood is sales. I get paid to be intuitive. To read people’s body language. To decipher what they are thinking. Feeling. Contracts with clients depend on my ability to read people. And Brenda’s body language is loud and clear.

She is in full on date mode.

I turn away. The voices around me drown in the deafening sound of my own heartbeat.

Allie looks at me with pity, “Are you going to be okay? What should I do? Oh, Audra, I am so sorry . . . this is unbelievable. He just told you two days ago he needed time! Who does this?! How can he be doing this? Is he really doing this? ”

I just stare at her. I don’t answer. I don’t know what to do. The man who told me just two days before I am the second person in his life he’s felt this strongly about.

Is on a date with another woman.

Right next to me.

The next 15 minutes march by like the cruel methodical beat of an executioner’s drum. I simply exist. I simply do what I must. I take my daughter inside to the buffet. I have no idea what she had for breakfast that morning. She could have loaded up her plate with nothing but butter and I wouldn’t have noticed.

I remember absentmindedly putting two strawberries and a slice of French toast on my plate as my hands shook.

I leave the buffet line, walk back out the door onto the patio, and stand in the darkest sunlight of my life.

I have a perfect vantage point of Nick as I walk back into the August morning.

I will never forget this vivid moment. I am wearing a pretty floor length strapless summer dress with a wide ruffle at the bottom. I’d fallen in love with it the minute I first saw. And it remains one of my favorite dresses, its floral hippie pattern makes me feel like a free spirit every time I wear it.

I feel the breeze gently moving its wispy material, my hair twirling ever so slightly in that same wind.

And behind my aviator sunglasses.

My eyes lock with Nick’s.

And as I stand there in that beautiful sunshine, in my beautiful dress, I watch everything I believed to be beautiful about Nick smash into unrecognizable slivers of something completely opposite of beautiful.

And while it does.

I just stand there.

Holding my goddamned plate.

Of French toast.

What was probably two seconds is seared into my memory forever as a defining and eternal moment.

Of ugly certainty.

And pain.

The term “heartbreak” is a dramatic one. In fact, who knows if our emotions have anything to do with our literal heart? But they definitely are connected to something. Because at that moment, in that sunlight, on that patio, something inside of me exploded into a thousand shards of glass. And the fragments raced through every artery and vein, ripping and tearing at my matter.

Hurting me.

On a level I did not even know.

I could hurt.

When I reach my seat I want to scream, but I can’t. I want to make a scene. But I can’t.

So I do everything I can.

To just.

Keep breathing.

After minutes that seem like centuries, Nick gets up to leave. His exit requiring him to walk within six inches of my chair.

And so I do it.

I say something.

I simply must know.

“So, uh, Nick,” I quietly say from my seat as I turn to him and tilt my sunglasses up toward his face. I lean back in my chair, my skirt cascading all around me as I shift my entire body as dignified as I can.

He stops. And slowly turns to me. He doesn’t even say a word as I begin, “Uh, just wondering.” I pause. He says nothing. I continue softly, “How do you two know each other?”

He does not make a sound.

He does not utter one word.

Brenda, still smiling, completely oblivious as to what is happening, chimes in, “Mutual friends introduced us,” cheerfully confirming the horrible truth.

It is a date.

Allie turns away from the scene. She looks as if she is going to be sick.

I stare not at Nick, but into him. And flatly respond.

“Oh.”

He says nothing.

He only.

Turns.

And walks away.

I just sit there like the stone I feel myself turning into. And watch him leave. And soon hear his Harley roaring to life in the parking lot. His broad form hurtles past the patio and I watch him go. Baseball hat on backward, sunglasses into the wind, and backpack over his shoulder.

And that was the last day. The last moment. The last time. I ever saw Nick.

For I never heard from him.

Ever.

Again.
*****************************************************
Dear Dating Land readers . . .
Thank you for your committment to this story. I know many of you will ask me...what happened next? Honestly? Nothing. I sent Nick three text messages from the restaurant basically asking him to "tell me what I just saw" and that if that was a date "you are a piece of work." I also remember telling him to "Get some balls and respond to me." (Not one of my finer moments . . .)

He never replied. I left him a message later that afternoon saying, "My trust in you is gone. I never want to see you again."

So. Who was Brenda? Was it a date? I will never really know. Because Nick never replied. He never explained. I sent him one email that week telling him my heart was broken. And another email a week later acknowledging my blog and that if he ever feels uncomfortable about my writing about certain dimensions of my life, then he just has to let me know. I will take anything down he dosen't like. He never replied to either email. And he never contacted me again. And I never contacted him either after I sent those two emails. I simply wanted him to know that I pride myself on my professionalism as a writer and feel it is a gift. Never will I use my passion for writing to do harm. And so after I communicated that . . . there was nothing left to say.

Besides? What was he going to say? I have tons of texts and emails from him telling me how much he loves my writing. I wrote an entire blog about life and relationships before I ever met him. It is something he told me over and over that he loved about me, that I was a writer, and that I wrote so beautifully. I'm not some chick who emotionally vomits on the internet. I harbor very deep writing aspirations and my goal is the same goal of all artists...to find that human connection and create something beautiful with it, something that says, "Hey, I know how you feel. I've been there too."

And that, was ultimately my purpose for writing this story. To simply share some human pain in an artistic way, a way that connects all of us to the larger human family. And to one another.

As for Nick, really, let's not be too harsh. There's two sides to every story and he has zero representation here. None of us are perfect and we've all done/said things that have hurt others. If anything, let's not just identify with ME in this story. I think the real lesson is identifying with him. When have WE been "Nick"? How have we hurt others? I think all of us have, in some way shape or form. And that's the real lesson here.

We all hold the power to shatter another human being. With our words. With our actions. Let us be cognizant of that power, and delicate with each other's hearts.

The coming Dating Land chapters will be some residual commentary on this story of Nick and I. . . but ultimately, I am done writing about him. I will instead focus on what having Nick come in, and out, of my life, has taught me.

And yes. I learned a lot. About other people. But also, about myself.

As for that day, in the long run. It was a gift. I know the chapter got long, but I felt it imperative to comment on my experience that morning at mass. For I feel, the serendipity that allowed me to be seated next to Nick that morning was God. God wanted to show me something. Even if it was going to hurt. He wanted me to know. He needed me to know.

It is now two and half months later. And yes, I think I did basically cry for all of September. October was better but I just felt numb. And I certainly didn't trust anyone with a penis, I can tell you that much. However, time is on my side, and time does heal. I went on my first date since that day on the patio just this past weekend. And so . . . I am trying to move forward.

Thank you for your devotion to my writing. Here's to life...and its endless joyful possibilities....

Blessings....
Love,
Audra
P.S. MUAH! :-)

Chapter Twenty Two; Where there's Smoke there's Fire

“This is bull shit. A steaming pile of fresh bull shit. In fact, it’s the shittiest shit a bull’s ever shit. I’ll tell you that right now.” Naomi has just learned about my latest roller coaster plummet with Nick. And let’s just say she isn’t much of a Six Flags fan. “So where did this crapola leave off? Are you done or what?” she demands.

“Not exactly.” I shift my cell phone to my other ear. “He just wants time. He’s got a lot to sort through.”

“Time? Time for what? Weren’t you guys basically broken up all last week? Wasn’t that time? What the flip is his problem? Didn’t you just get back together on Sunday? What happened to Mr. I’m going to steal your tennis shoes so you don’t run away from me? What happened to Mr. I have to have your beautiful face on my blackberry as a screensaver? Was there an alien abduction we should know about? And did the aliens look like Katy Perry? Because he sounds like he helped her write the lyrics to that Hot and Cold song.”

“Funny, I had the same thought.”

“Damn right! Every time you call me I never know what you’re going to say with this guy. At this point he’s so unpredictable he makes my bi-polar aunt suffering from Alzheimer’s look stable . In fact? I give up. Please tell me you are giving up too. I teach high school and Nick’s drama would put most of my sophomore girls to shame.”

“No, Naomi, I’m not giving up. He was so brutally honest with me at the fire station, so vulnerable. I feel like it was a very profound conversation. I can’t just give up now. I feel like I am finally starting to understand him.”

“Mmmm hmmm.” Her disapproval is not subtle. “Yes, plastic please.”

“Are you at the grocery store again?”

“Heck yeah. I am raising sons you know. Feeding these guys is a part time job.” Her voice muffles briefly but I still can make out her orders to the bag boy. “Yes, I’ll take drive up, thank you.”

“Are you sure you can talk? Is now really a good time?”

“Honey, if I only talked to you when it was a good time I’d never talk to you. My life is more insane than an umbrella wielding bald Britney.”

And that’s an understatement. Naomi’s life is chaos. She works full time as a teacher and waitresses on the weekends to make ends meet. And I’ve never once heard her complain, at least not without a helping heap of coping mechanism humor to cushion the blunt edge of her reality.

“So what’s the plan? You’re giving him time aren’t you?” She mocks me by drawing out the word “time” like a warm piece of taffy.

“Yes, yes I am.”

“How much time is time? And what does that mean? Are you two speaking or what? Is this a day? A week? A year? Oh, good idea actually. Please tell me it’s at least a year. That way I can put it on my calendar in big red pen: “Drama Club Meeting with Audra.”

“We didn’t define a timeline and I didn’t feel like it was necessary. When I left the station he was so sweet. He texted me telling me I am unbelievably understanding and that I have such big heart. And we’ve been emailing a bit. So yeah, we’re still talking. I don’t think this constitutes breaking up, it just means we’re backing off a bit from seeing each other for the time being.

“Mmmmm. Hmmmm.”

“Stop saying that!”

“Stop saying what?”

“Mmmm, hmmmm. Like you think I’m nuts.”

“Ha!” Her laughter echoes through my ears. “Girlfriend, someone is crazy in this situation, and it is not you.”

“Come on.”

“Come on nothing. But I will say one thing. Nick has one thing right. You do have a big heart. A huge heart. Too big and too good for him. Because I’ll tell you something right now. I have a pretty good idea where all his ambiguity is coming from and I am just going to say it. Are you ready?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“No.”

“Fine.”

“Listen. I’ve been around the boy block and they’re not that complex. If anything, he doesn’t need time to figure out if you’re the one. He needs time to figure out which one.”

“What are you saying?”

“I am saying Nick’s still very much in this game. But you’re not the only pawn on the board. All signs point in one direction and one direction only.”

“Oh really?”

“Yes.”

She pauses but only briefly.

“Another girl’s got his attention and he doesn’t have the balls to tell you the truth.”

“Ok now I’m going to call bull shit. You’re wrong.”

“Let’s hope I am, honey. But guess what?”

“What?”

“Time will tell. Because where's there's smoke . . . ”

She stops. Letting the obvious dangle in the air for me to grasp on my own.

I surrender a sigh.

Pause.

And whisper.

"There's fire."

Chapter Twenty One; Say It To My Face

I have thought about this day a lot in the two months since it happened.

About how when I woke up that morning I was so happy that Nick and I had been able to be honest about this crazy momentum. About how we decided to continue to see each other. To just see where things go.

I’ve thought about the things Nick said that week. How he’d teased me for “running away” with my middle of the night email ultimatum. How he’d joked he was going to steal my running shoes so I couldn’t do it again. How he made a picture of us taken on our third date his blackberry screensaver. And about how happy we looked, smiling up from the screen with expressions on our faces that seemed to illuminate from some secret special place we had only just discovered within ourselves. How everyone who saw that picture seemed to freeze in awe. “Wow. You two look amazing together. I don’t think I’ve ever seen two people look happier.”

I still have that picture.

And people still say the same thing.

He wanted me to stay in his life. And all that week, I was consumed by the joyful possibilities that that reality presented. I was just given the chance to pursue a relationship with someone I thought was so honest. So smart. So kind. So interesting. And so real.

And even though it was August.

It felt like Christmas.

I’ve thought about how giddy my family and friends were to learn we’d worked things out.

About how even Naomi forgave his ambiguity, and made sure to remind me that if she is ever a bridesmaid that she looks terrible in fuchsia.

And about how all of that lasted.

Four days.

I’ve thought about how mad I got when I read that email from him on my blackberry. Telling me goodbye. That I deserve someone better. How he needs to go because if he stays he knows himself.

He’ll just hurt me.

I’ve thought about that roller coaster of emotions and I remember wondering how my life just turned into a Katy Perry song.

You’re in than you’re out. You’re up then you’re down.

I’ve thought about that afternoon at the fire station over and over. How I stood outside until I saw his pacing silhouette through the murky glass of the door. How I meant to knock. But instead pounded.

My little fists betraying my big anger.

How he’d walked out into the station foyer. His face twisted with emotion.

How I’d pressed my manicured finger into his starched blue uniform where his hard chest housed a harder heart and told him to say it.

Say it to my face. Fine. Tell me goodbye.

But tell me.

Why?

I’ve thought about how he’d taken me outside and sat on the curb. His head in his hands. As he tried to explain.

And how I tried so hard. To just understand.

I remember thinking I’d never seen him in his uniform before, and how that simple fact underscored how briefly we’d known each other. At the same time, I vividly remember having the thought, “His eyes are the same color as his shirt.” And how I thought that was so stupid to think that right now, how beautiful he looked.

I’ve thought a lot about that conversation. On the sidewalk. Where cars drove by. And construction noised hummed. How the world just kept going on around us.

Even though everything felt so halted. As if the earth had just decided to suspend its orbit around the sun.

I’ve thought about how Nick tried to so painstakenly explain to me the years he lived before he’d ever heard my name. Seen my face. And how those years made him who he is, a person he hasn’t yet shown me.

And he didn’t think I would ever want to see.

I’ve thought about how I sincerely, not desperately, pleaded for him to show me. Assured him that I wanted to know. That I could handle it. That I thought he was worth it.

And I’ve thought about the words he said. And the story he tried to tell me, an edited abbreviated version of his life that I could not possibly grasp in the half hour we sat crouched together on the unforgiving cement.

I’ve thought about how at that moment heaven decided to rain on us. Big drops of water splashing in our hair and on our faces. About how we didn’t move.

We just let it rain.

And how perfectly heaven scripted that part.

Because in my shock and confusion.

I wasn’t crying.

But the angels were.

Chapter Twenty; Joy and Pain. Sunshine. And Rain.

Nick texts me for the next 24 hours like nothing has happened. He’s witty. He’s charming. He’s missed me.

We decide to talk on Sunday. My house.

And this is the part.

Where Audra Strong Confident Woman becomes Audra Insecure Needy Girl.

Case in point, I agonize over what to wear. I want to look incredible. But it’s a Sunday and I am home. What am I supposed to do? Time his arrival so he catches me in my front yard wearing Vera Wang and remark, “Oh, this old rag?” when he comments on the sequined floor length formal attire I just so happen to be wearing while I weed the flower garden?

Exactly. Ripped jean shorts and a tank top it is.

Hey, if I can’t be stunning, I might as well be unintentionally sexy (intentionally).

When I hear the tell tale rumble of his motorcycle I feel like throwing up. I am that nervous.

And then there he is. Standing at my back door. Oakley shades, baseball hat, and a backpack swung over his broad shoulder.

I open the door. And he walks into my kitchen.

And back into my life.

“I missed you.” My voice cracks and betrays my vulnerability.

“Me too.”

For two hours we talk in the Sunday sunshine of my formal living room, hashing out this crazy momentum, what we’re doing, and how we feel. He talks more than I do and I listen, hinging hope on every syllable he utters.

So when he leans across the couch, puts my face in his hands and kisses me . . . I feel like the upside down place that my world turned into six days ago is suddenly right side up again.

And when he takes my hand and leads me upstairs I feel like this is the point where the next part of my life, the happy part, is starting. This is it. He is the one I’ve been waiting for all of my life. I know it like I know my name. Love is real. It is not a fairy tale. You can touch it, feel it, and taste it.

The sun shines all around us that entire afternoon. Bright and beautiful, lighting the way. And it shines every day that week. On my life. And in my heart.

Until four days later.

When Nick sends me an email that starts with, “This is the hardest letter I’ve ever had to write.”

And all the light in my life.

Goes out.

But I don't cry in the darkness this time. Oh. No.

Instead, Audra Insecure Needy Girl.

Transforms into Audra One Pissed Off Woman.

You see, this email came into my blackberry. And I just happened to be three blocks from the fire station when I read it, where Nick is at right now. Coincidentally sending me his "Dear Jane letter" from the same computer he sat at when he first friend requested me on Facebook.

So yep. I hit reply. But my words are anything but a surrender.

Come outside. And say it to my face.

**********************
In case anyone is wondering, the date I wore the shorts and tank top was Sunday, August 23rd. The blog is not real time . . . I WISH I could wear shorts in November in this part of the country!

Thank you for reading Dating Land, see you Thursday!
~Audra

Chapter Nineteen; Drowning

A few weeks before, I'd mentioned to Nick the great progress my little girl is making in her swimming lessons. During the conversation he'd commented offhandedly, “Can you believe some people don’t know how to swim?”

I hesitated.

I grew up on a land locked farm in Boonieville, where the only concentrations of H20 is found in low lying areas that trap run off. These murky muddy sloughs don’t even qualify as ponds; they’re more like mud puddles on crack. There is a fresh water lake in the town nearby but my busy farming parents didn’t have time to take my siblings and me there often during our redneck upbringing. Besides, when we did go that place was so foul we always ended up with “the itch” after splashing around in it for an afternoon. (If you’ve never experienced “the itch” you really haven’t lived. Let me tell ya.)

As a result.

I can’t swim.

Well, I can dog paddle. Okay, that’s a generous description. What I do is more like wild flailing of the limbs. It can’t be categorized as swimming. It’s just desperate anti-drowning motion, really.

And now here I am just a few weeks out from that conversation about swimming. Sitting at my desk, a sobbing wreck of myself reading this email from Nick.

Drowning.

In disbelief.

Of course, I write back.

But my thoughts are not well thought out thoughts. My words not well chosen words. Because come on, I am bawling, an activity rarely synonymous with dignity.

“I trusted you. I jumped. I jumped right into this lake of insanity because it felt so safe with you. But now, you are swimming back to shore without me. Knowing full well. That I can’t even swim.”

I punch the words out on my keyboard.

Flailing away. Trying to stay afloat.

But Nick doesn’t come to my rescue. His big strong arms do not pull me to the surface. Or throw me a life preserver.

And in his absence.

I sink.

For he doesn’t reply.

Not then.

Not ever.

For the next five days the silence is deafening. The only noise my own stifled sobs. Muzzled by the fact that I don’t have the luxury to be sad when I want to be sad; I have two kids who need me, whose world depends on my stability.

So I smile. Mute my emotions.

And carry on.

But every time I am alone. In the shower. Driving my car. In my bed.

I cry.

And while I do. I wait. For a call. A text. An email. For some sign that I didn’t just imagine the last six weeks of my life.

I miss him so much. Doesn’t he miss me? Isn’t he feeling this enormous empty hole?

Every time I hear a Harley on my street I run to my window like a dismal shadow of my strong self.

It isn’t him.

It’s never him.

But through it all I am hardly alone. In fact, I am flooded with love.

Because every day they text. Every day they call. Every day they email.

Are you okay? How are you doing today? Would you like to have lunch?

They are my saviors. My angels. My calvary.

My friends.

They circle the wagons of their hearts around mine. Take me out for a “break up dinner.” Naomi christens the gathering with a poem describing what she thinks of Nick’s impromptu departure. And you can only imagine the word she chooses to rhyme with his name.

We drink wine. I cry. They cry too. We drink to mystifying men. To confusion. To heartbreak. To the past. And to the future. To us and how weak we are as individuals, but how strong we are together.

But even with support stronger than a granite girdle.

I end up doing what we girls often do when boys leave us wandering around lost and confused.

I cave.

And collapse like an unstable mine shaft under the weight of this suffocating ambiguity.

I text him.

I think we should talk in person.

I justify that craving a conversation with him is warranted. If it’s going to end I just want to see him. I just want to hear his voice.

I don’t care if its weak.

I just want to know.

What happened?

He replies. My heartbeat suspends.

As I read.

I think a talk is long overdue.

Chapter Eighteen: Is John Mayer Right? Should We Say What We Need to Say?

I wait all morning for a response from Nick.

Nothing.

Not a text. Not a phone call. Not a smoke signal.

I throw myself into work, a welcome distraction.

At lunch time I cave and call Naomi.

She’s a teacher so I have but a sliver of time to get a hold of her during the work day, although I reserve those interruptions for emergency best friend situations only. Subsequently she picks up immediately and demands, “Who died?”

I condense the sequence of events as fast I can. What Nick said. What I said. What I did.

What I wrote.

“Holy. Holy. Crap.” The extra holy emphasizing her profound shock. You see, Naomi has long since fallen for Nick too, her stamp of approval solidified weeks ago as she watched Nick personify prince charming in every fairy tale we were ever brainwashed to believe as little girls. “What the freaking hell. I can not believe this,” her voice is hushed as I can tell she is leaving her classroom and exiting to the hallway where she can be a candid real person not a pretend perfect teacher, “Why the shift? What happened? And really? You wrote that? Oh my gawd, I can’t believe you said that, are you sure?”

“Yes, no, maybe . . .”I falter, “Ahhh, I don’t know. I guess, yes. Yes. Of course. I can’t do that, Naomi. I can’t audition. That’s crap, it’s not fair.”

“But, what if he chooses to end it?”

I let her question hang momentarily in the invisible air waves where our cell phones have transformed our voices into data. The truth is I find that possibility unfathomable. Maybe I am naïve’. Maybe I am arrogant. Who knows, but I just feel that what Nick and I have is different. Of course it started quickly but that doesn’t negate its authenticity. Does it? I don’t see what I wrote as a door for an ending he is going to walk out of. I see it as my laying down a patchwork quilt of honesty, a foundation of truth where we can build a relationship of compromise and trust. “That is not going to happen,” I firmly predict.

But maybe I say that not because I really believe it. Maybe I say it because I can’t imagine the alternative.

And then. Out of the corner of my eye I see it.

Nick’s name in my inbox, black, bold and bright on my computer screen.

“Oh my god, he wrote back. I gotta go, I gotta go,” I stammer.

“Okay, deep breath, I am sure it’s fine. He loves you, Audra. I know he does. He’s not going anywhere, that guy is a gem,” she assures me.

I hang up.

And read Nick’s email.

He confesses my words took him off guard. But then again, he says, after he let it sink in, not really. I’m a strong woman. Why would I respond any differently?

He spends two paragraphs telling me how wonderful I am.

And then.

I read words like razors.

“But I respect your decision to move on.”

My decision?

I didn’t read that right. I read it again.

And again.

And.

Again.

Oh my God.

Oh my God.

The screen goes blurry. I can’t see. I can’t breathe. My nose burns and my throat is choking on the tears that are erupting from everywhere inside of me.

And just like that.

Everything that was us dissolves, melting like a sandcastle in the waves. The past, the present, and the future all collapse into one another like dominos made of dust.

Nick is not choosing “keep things the same.” He is choosing something else.

He is choosing.

Over.

Chapter Seventeen; Midnight Madness

And now. We have the conversation we both knew was coming.

Nick outlines all his reasons for feeling hesitant. All the while he underscores how perfect I am, and that it’s not me.

It’s him. He says.

It’s him.

And even though hearing this bitter truth is more than mildly unpleasant, I just listen. He needs to step back. He started too fast. It’s just too much. Can we just slow down?

I ask for a definition of slow down.

He doesn’t really have one.

Mmmm, hmmm.

I say.

And then reluctantly I tell him yes. I can do that. I can slow down.

Of course I can. I would do anything for Nick. For my charming prince on a Harley who makes me laugh, tells me stories, and makes me feel so safe. Who misses his grandpa, whose adventures inspire me, who wants what I want. My heroic guy with the blue eyes and the smile that stole my sanity.

He is amazing. And wonderful.

Of course I will slow down.

Of course.

When we hang up, I go to bed, roll onto my side and pull a thick blanket of ambiguity up to my chin, my head cushioned on a pillow of doubt.

Sleep is elusive. A hazy haunted future keeps me awake.

Scenarios of what this new phase is going to look like twist around on the dance floor of my imagination. Every time I try to go to sleep, a picture of what Nick has asked of me slips onto that shiny surface, twirling and taunting me with what is to come.

And I feel sick.

Can I do that? Can I halt this? Am I capable of transforming forceful forward momentum into suspended slow motion?

Perhaps.

But.

I falter. The truth trips my optimism. It’s a crack in a perfect compassionate plan so wide that I lose my balance momentarily. When I struggle to regain my compose I look back at that crack. It’s more like a crater.

And see it for the reality that it is.

I don’t want to slow down. I don’t want to go in reverse. It feels unnatural.

There’s no pause button in life, is there?

That’s why I can’t sleep. Because the truth is:

I said I can do it.

But I can’t.

My internal admission releases the anger I’d hidden beneath understanding. I let it wash over me in a torrid of realizations all beginning with one word: Why? Why come into my life with such force and sincerity if it is unsustainable? Why establish such intense momentum only to suspend it? Why ask me to go with you on this senseless journey if you didn’t feel it with every molecule of your being?

I don’t understand.

I just don’t understand.

I lay in my slumber less existence for what seems like centuries. But I don’t cry. I just lay there collapsed in a bed of confusion blanketed with questions.

Finally, at 1:00am. The writer in me does the only things she knows how to do when life twists into knots.

Untie it.

With words.

I write Nick a two page email that I have no intention of sending. I simply need to rip these thoughts and feelings out of me and lay them out where I can see them.

Outlining with meticulous compassion how I am so desperately trying to understand him and respect his position but that it is tearing me into shreds projecting what he is asking of me. The irrational accelerated pace he established, and I agreed to, is the backdrop of our story. And I am not sure how else to be.

With him.

I explain my fear of what may happen. I will quickly transform from independent confident woman into insecure needy girl.

Trying to win a part I thought I’d already landed

I can’t do that. Well, I can.

But I won’t.

I will not be that girl.

“Why didn’t he text me today? Is he going to call me tonight? What does this mean? What does that mean?”

I will not do that.

Don’t ask me to do that. Don’t pull me along in this game where you are making up all the rules.

I have a say. And I am digging in my heels. That stubborn kid inside of me is saying no.

No.

I hate ultimatums but I feel that this is so terribly unfair. For crying in the beer, I can’t slide down a two story fire station pole. I certainly will not board a roller coaster, one that is threatening to careen of the tracks if I don’t smile politely all the while it does.

And then I just say it. I write the words that were keeping me up, the words that kept boiling away the water of uncertainty until only the grains of truth were left, bare and exposed.

Either we continue as is and just see where it goes . . . or . . .

. . . we call it off.

Same.

Or over.

You choose.

I tell him.

You choose.

I reread the words on the screen over and over. I print them out. I read them again ten more times at least. And each time I do I am more affirmed that yes, this is it. This letter is my thoughts. This letter is my feelings.

This letter.

Is truth.

I wasn’t going to send this when I’d sat down at my keyboard in my sweatpants and ponytail in the middle of the night. Nothing yells “crazy” louder than a post midnight email.

But I know that the dawn is not going to alter one syllable.

So at 2:30AM I quit hitting a wall. And instead hit the button that will prompt the answer I need.

Send.

***********************************
Dating Land will be hitting the airwaves tonight, Wednesday, October 21st, at 9:00pm on KFGO, the Mighty 790.(I know, this chapters says Thursday, October 22nd but I postdated the post . . . I love Back to the Future but I really don't own a Delorean or Flux Capacitor!)

If you'd like to listen online, the link is in the sidebar.

Thank you for reading . . . I don't think the story of Nick and I is all that different from many other people's experiences, but the universality of the human condition is what unites us all. Love, even when it's fleeting, makes the world go round . . . at least that's what I hear. Please stay tuned and check back next week for an announcement, I am considering publishing three chapters next week. This part of the story has been hard for me to relive and I honestly am having a hard time writing it. I just want to move on . . . yet I want to honor the experience as well, for I feel very strongly that even difficult things can be made positive if we let them. God can take even the saddest experience and make it into something wonderful. I want this blog to be that something wonderful. This experience was a profound one for me and I am humbled you are letting me share it with you.
God bless . . .
Audra

Chapter Sixteen; Dazed and Confused

In like a lion, out like a lamb.

And I’m not talking about the month of March.

The beginning of a relationship typically possesses untamed forward momentum propelled by the exciting possibilities of infinite what if’s.

Ironically, the endings of relationships are often fueled by the resulting anxiety of those same what if’s.

What if I stay in this forever?

What if it’s amazing?

What if?

It’s not.

What if holds both the power to ignite potential.

And extinguish it.

And so, when Nick’s text messages taper from gushing flood to dripping trickle.

I tell myself he’s just busy.

When I don’t have my children for an entire evening and he leaves hours before he should because he needs to go home and get things done.

I tell myself he’s just being responsible.

And although Nick’s whirlwind arrival was illogical, the senselessness of it all was so fun that I simply didn’t care. Now, I’m confused by the mysterious ambiguity. And strongly dislike how it is turning me from independent confident woman into insecure needy girl.

I don’t like it.

Not at all.

As the week wears on his communication seems more obligatory than spontaneous and genuine. He dutifully checks in. But that’s it. I feel like I’m on some girlfriend “to do” list, with “call Audra” falling somewhere between “dust living room” and “buy more Splenda.”

But all I do is continue to ignore the massive elephant now taking up residence in the middle of my mind, skillfully evading the monstrosity even though it’s growing so large that if I don’t acknowledge it soon it is going to take over my skull.

Denial thy name is Dumbo.

You see, if there’s anything I know something about. It is about endings. After all. I’m divorced. I’m 37. And I’ve been single for going on three years.

If I’m an expert on anything. I am an expert on leaving.

On how it feels to be the one to leave.

And how it feels to be the one left behind.

If you are the one contemplating leaving, you take hesitant measured steps toward the door as you try to secretly figure out if you really want to walk out said door.

When you are the one being left, you don’t want the person you love getting anywhere near that door. You make up excuses about why he or she is moving in the direction of the door. You tell yourself you are imagining things. You tell yourself you are even imagining that there is a door.

Endings start as silent secrets that no one wants to acknowledge.

After a week of this crap I finally cave. And call Nick on the proverbial “what the hell is going on” carpet when he calls me from the station to say goodnight.

“Hey, just wanted to check in before I hit the hay,” he methodically and dutifully says. I feel like patting him on the head and scratching him behind the ears like an obedient puppy while cheerfully exclaiming, “Good boy! That’s a good boy! You call your girlfriend just as you should, do you wanna treat? Does my good boy want a treat?”

I know.

I sound like a bitch but the truth is his lack of sincerity is absolutely killing me.

He’s working tonight but that doesn’t usually infringe on our ability to chat. Except for lately. “I can’t talk long,” he says, “I want to get to bed early. Looks like a lightning storm tonight so the alarms will be going crazy so I’m going to bed.”

He is ridiculously brief. I’ve had longer conversations with someone who’s dialed the wrong number.

“Wait a second,” I punctuate, sabotaging his escape plan, “I have a question.”

He sighs.

He knows what’s coming.

I take a deep breath. And murmur the question that I really don't want to know the answer to,“Why did I talk to you more when you were in Colorado than I do now?”

He sighs again.

And for the next twenty minutes, I finally hear the truth. The momentum and intensity that Nick established, the very train that he bought the tickets for and asked me to board when he stretched out his hand, grinned at me with that smile that lights up his whole face, and pulled me onto this journey with its infinite promises of joyful possibilities, is making an unscheduled stop.

At the station.

Of uncertainty.

Chapter Fifteen; Drew Barrymore and Dream Sequences

Nick, my “official” BF, decides to cut his vacation short by two days. Proclaiming via text that he can’t stand to be away from me for one more second.

And so he does just that.

Fourteen marathon hours on a Harley back home. In one day.

Just to see me.

And as for our highly anticipated reunion? Let’s just say I am pretty certain it may have rivaled Nick’s grandfather’s return to his bride after serving for three years during World War II.

And so it begins. The cloudy hazy clarity of the relationship I wasn’t planning on having. With the man I was not so enthusiastic about going on a blind date with just four short weeks before.

From unexpected.

To entwined.

And let me tell ya, the next two weeks puts the sap crap romance on the Hallmark channel to a sobbing shame. Here, let me illustrate. Pick the cheesiest love song you can think of. Actually, I recommend Colbie Caillet’s Falling for You. Its lyrics materialized on the air waves the same month that our story began. In fact, pull the track up on iTunes right now. I’ll wait. La, la, la, la, la. Got it? Okay, good. Now, play the following scenes in your mind to said sappy soundtrack:

“And . . . Action!”

Nick effortlessly whisking me over his broad shoulders and carting me down the steps of his modest home because if I am going to date a fire man, I need to be fire man carried!

Hurtling on his Harley through parks and forgotten corners of this town like two adventurers without a map or destiny, my blonde hair leaving a comet-like trail behind us. ("Cut!” Director’s note: Drew Barrymore is playing me in this flick. Well? If this is like a movie then I’m in charge of casting and what girl doesn’t want to be Drew Barrymore? Well, except for that one time her free-spirited nature contributed to her marrying Tom Green the weirdo. Minus that momentary madness/drug problem/loss of sanity, all girls want to be Drew. As for Nick, he’s probably a hybrid of Mathew McConaughey and Jude Law with a dash of Bruce Willis.)

“Places everyone . . . Action!”

Reclining in lawn chairs around a fire pit one summer evening with his neighbors, Nick holds my hand and strokes my wrist with his thumb, gazing at me with a look that says, “I can’t believe you’re mine.” (As for the neighbors in attendance, the wives note my attentive man and shoot glares so sharp at their distracted husbands huddled in testosterone-infused conversations about sports and beer that I think I can hear the night air being ripped and stabbed.)

Nick kisses my wrist.

I melt like an Al Gore glacier.

“Cut! That’s a wrap, folks. Nice job, nice job.”

Fade out Colbie Callait . . .

The days blur together in a kaleidoscope of similar scenes. And all the while I keep waiting for everything to go dark. Thinking one day I will wake up groggy and croaking out a request for water. Someone will put a plastic cup to my lips and I will hear my mother weep, “She’s waking up! Get the doctor!” And all of “this with Nick” will not have been real but a drug induced coma.

People will tell me I was in a terrible car accident last month. I’ve been asleep all this time. But thank God I’m alive.

Yes. Thank God. I’m alive.

And alone.

Only this time it will be worse than ever. Because I’ll probably be permanently scarred and missing limps from said car accident and destined to search for future dates on DisfiguredSingles.com. Eternally hoping someday my one-armed no-legged prince will find me and wheel the appendage-challenged nub of my former self off into the sunset on his scooter chair.

But that doesn’t happen.

I am not sleeping. I am as awake as awake can be.

And my life is as real as real can get.

One afternoon Nick asks, “Didn’t you always wonder what everyone meant when they told us, ‘Someday you’ll meet the love of your life and you’ll just know.’’ Didn’t that bug you? What the hell is that supposed to mean, you’ll just “know” anyway?”

“So?” I prod.

“So now I know what they were talking about,” his confession cementing his presence in my life.

For two weeks I live like this. This sigh inducing surreal reality. It’s different from anything I’ve ever experienced. In fact, “different” is the only word I can come up with to adequately describe what is happening. And it has to be different since me, queen of nerdy wordy who uses a keyboard as a paintbrush, can barely find the words to articulate it.

But alas.

Life ain’t a fairy tale, folks.

Let’s revisit Colbie Cailet once again . . .

Only this time, the song is being played on a record. Not an iPod, cd, tape, or even an 8-track. A good old 12-inch black vinyl vintage record.

Close your eyes. Hear the music. But this time, just as the song crescendos the needle skips and scratches the ebony surface, grinding the melody to a screeching noisy silence.

Good bye romantic cinema sequences.

Good bye dream-like whispers of devotion.

Good bye my charming prince.

Hello reality.

Chapter Fourteen; Words in the Darkness

The week Nick is in Colorado he texts and calls me so often that it hardly feels like he is gone.

His virtual presence seeps into to every hour, minute, and second of my life like warm honey spilled onto a sunny breakfast table, crawling along sweet and sticky and filling in the cracks and crevices that I never before detected on the surface of my life.

“You have new picture mail,” the words say.

Over and over.

Hiking a mountain. Playing with his best friend’s dog. Rafting down a river.

He sends it all to me. Sharing every escapade and exclaiming all along. He wishes I were there.

Next year. You have to come.

He says.

I will.

I say.

I will.

Every night he calls with the synopsis of his adventures. And we talk long into the night.

Each night.

Nick’s voice is next to me in my bed. Deep and solid. I anchor myself to it and fold arms and elbows around extra down pillows unconsciously filling in the physical space where he is not.

I love the happiness that escapes his explanations, the unmistakable elation that he doesn’t even try to hide as he tells me about how much fun he is having. How much he’s missed his best friend, and how excited he is to see him again.

And every night. He misses me. He can’t wait to see me. And he asks me. Is this really happening? Do we both really feel like this?

Feel like what? I want to excavate. But I don’t.

But just a few days before he is supposed to come home, after a week of incessant and constant connection, his voice reaches over the miles and asks me a question.

Can we make it official?

Official?

I repeat.

I want you to be my girlfriend, Audra. Why not? I don’t want to date anyone else.

Just you.

He emphasizes.

Just me.

I laugh. And negotiate.

Only if I get to wear your letterman’s jacket.

And then add.

Plus you realize, this means you’re taking me to prom.

Deal.

He says. And I hear his voice smile.

And then.

It happens.

The very emotion I have imprisoned behind bricks and bars called rational and reasonable is staring me in the soul.

Nick is saying it. He is saying the words that I have been so afraid to whisper inwardly to myself.

To me.

He is saying them.

To me.

And in the darkness of my bedroom. The fortress within me disintegrates.

I tuck my knees to my chin and curl my body into a ball of disbelief.

As I weep.

With joy.

Chapter Thirteen; I'm Not Telling

I keep my feelings to myself.

Deny them when Naomi starts excavating me with more precision than an archeologist on a dig for an elusive fossil. Tell myself I am just a little infatuated. Stuff my feelings in a hypothetical sock and bury them deep under the mattress of my soul.

In other words even though I know I have fallen in love with Nick I will never admit it. Chinese water torture couldn’t drag this amore’ admission out of me.

I’ve really only felt this way once about one other guy I’ve dated since my divorce. And I dated him for six months and never once considered dropping the “L” bomb on his hockey hair head.

That’s crazy talk.

And two weeks in?

Yeah. That’s putting myself on the straight jacket highway to a padded wall existence. And I’d much rather keep this insanity to my insane, yet safe, self.

“You know, I think you’re in love with him, Audra. I really do.” I am at lunch with my friend Ava and heat seeking emotional missal that she is; she calls my bluff with grace and diplomacy.

I reach across my chicken and cranberry salad, grab my chilly glass of iced diet coke and gulp down two huge swallows before innocently lifting my eyebrows and inquiring, “What makes you say that?”

If Audrey Hepburn had a clone, it would be Ava. She personifies elegance. She teaches the gifted and talented and her passion for her work glows like a halo around her only adding to her regal demeanor. She is as articulate as she insightful, as kind as she is perceptive.

Which basically? Makes me crap my pants.

She’s on to me.

She laughs at my question and repeats it in playful mockery, “What makes me say that? My goodness, you talk about Nick all the time. And your reasons for doing so are full of integrity. You like his soul, you admire his life choices, and you respect him immensely. Call me crazy but that sounds like love to me,” she teasingly yet seriously assesses as she nibbles on her pasta.

I take a gigantic bite of my salad and just say, “Hmmm,” in a pathetic effort to buy some time before being forced to give up the gig.

You see, if anyone can assert that love could be possible this early on in the heart palpitation phase, it is Ava. Her life is a storybook that even Nicholas Sparks would swoon over. Her marriage could possibly have inspired Taylor Swift to sing, “You be the prince and I’ll be the princess.” Her husband, Jim, proposed one month after their meeting. And six brief months later they were married.

And the outcome of that 100 yard dash to the altar? Yep. You got it. Twenty years of happily ever after this summer. And I am not exaggerating on the happily. Their longevity is not a story of toleration and duty but one of genuine love. Trust me, being around them is gag inducing. Two people could not have been a better match had they been born Siamese twins.

So if anyone can look at me across the table and brand my sanity sane, it is Ava. The whirlwind Cinderella herself.

But I just eat more salad.

And plead the fifth with an exaggerated eye roll.

I may have finally let someone into my heart, but I am not going to have a commemorative stamp made up, declare a national holiday or do any tweeting on Twitter. Let alone escalate this to a lunch date confession. Even to Ava.

At least not just yet.

But as for Nick?

He has other ideas.

Because just a few short hours later I am staring at my blackberry screen reading a text message that articulate the very emotion that I have locked securely behind a façade of logical and rational thought processes.

It looks like the truth won’t stay imprisoned for long.

Nick has found the key.

Chapter Twelve: The Colorado Goodbye

I sit in the darkness of the summer night on my brick steps. And tuck my knees up to my chin.

And I wait.

Nick is leaving tomorrow for a week-long motorcycle trip to Colorado to visit his best friend who moved away last year. The summer night is as calm and content as child’s sigh as I shift my weight around on the hard surface in anticipation of our goodbye. My daughters are in the house sleeping and Nick is wrapping up his shift at ten so he can embark on his journey with the sunrise.

He’s sneaking in a quick goodbye to me before he goes.

As a dutiful Catholic, I’ve bought him a St. Christopher’s medal. Even though he’s gone on several trips like this, that motorcycle shenanigans still worries me.

I figure a little saintly intervention can’t hurt.

Just a few minutes after ten his truck is pulling up to my house and I stand up and smile widely. His dark form is soon sauntering to my steps and wrapping me in his arms.

“Hey,” he whispers and kisses me.

“Hey back,” I say.

We’ve only been dating two weeks and now he’s going to be gone for one. If I were to stand on the outside of my life and observe this timeline were it anyone else’s, I would surely gaffaw and do my best impression of barfing with the ridiculousness of thinking anyone could say or feel the words, “I will miss you,” after such a short time together.

It makes no sense to me. Yet it seems like the most logical emotion I have ever had.

But it is not me who articulates the insanity. Nick’s eyes lock with mine as he smiles and says, “Crazy as this sounds, you have no idea how much I am going to miss you.”

I bite my bottom lip and dive into the lunacy with him, throwing my arms around his neck and laughing as I reflect the words back like a giant mirror.

“I am going to miss you too,” I wholeheartedly admit and then add for emphasis, “So much!”

He clasps me harder and I tell him, “I have something for you before you go.”

Peeling myself from beneath his embrace I reach into my sweatshirt pocket and take out the medal, “To keep you safe,” I say with a smile.

And there in the darkness, with only the light from my blackberry, we sit down next to each other on my front steps and I read the prayer to him.

Grant me, O Lord, a steady hand and watchful eye. That no one shall be hurt as I pass by. You gave life, I pray no act of mine may take away or mar that gift of thine. Shelter those, dear Lord, who bear my company, from the evils of fire and all calamity. Teach me, to care for others need; Nor miss through love of undue speed The beauty of the world; that thus I may with joy and courtesy go on my way. St. Christopher, holy patron of travelers, protect me and lead me safely to my destiny. Amen.

I finish the prayer and he hugs me, thanking me so sweetly as he fastens the medal around his neck, “I promise to wear it the entire time. But more than that, I promise to come back to you. Safe.”

I remind him then of the story he told me about his grandparents and how they’d been separated for three years during World War II. I playfully assert that we can certainly last a week if they made it through that.

“Ah, yes, yes they did,” Nick purrs in my ear, hugs me harder and projects, “But if I ever had to go to war, let me tell you something.” I lift my gaze to his as he emphatically professes, “I’d move to Canada before I’d ever leave you.”

And at that moment.

In the darkness.

I feel so wanted. So protected. So simultaneously crazy and sane. And deep down inside of me, in this place where my soul has harbored this faint flicker of a dream for as long as I can remember, I start to feel as if maybe that misty hope is moving from wistful reverie to un-yielding certainty.

And I allow the thought to slip into my consciousness.

As I fall into the one place I’d always believed was real but never known.

In love.