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.