Waking up Happy

In early July I met a man via Match.com. We dated until the Saturday after Halloween. I know this because he decided to, in his words, “end the relationship” via a text, two days after Halloween. I know it was two days after Halloween because he spent that holiday with my girls and me and our best friends. This was a man I told  my deepest fears and shared my deepest secrets. I introduced him to my circle of friends. I made myself vulnerable to him. And it hurt to be thrown out in the trash via a text with no warning and no explanation, especially after the amount of time and effort I put into the relationship. But I’m a lady. Manners matter. Pride matters. So, after I politely wrote back that I wished him luck, I deleted his phone number and all the photos we’d taken the weekend before when we went to Cannon Beach for his birthday. Then, I poured a large glass of wine and called my mother. After we hung up, I cried. Then, I went to a friend’s for some more crying and Chinese takeout. Later that weekend, I called friends and talked things through, got advice and reassurance, and love. Lots of love.

In the weeks following, I accepted more dinner invitations from friends. I curled up on the couch with my girls and read books. I watched the Seahawks win several more games. And, my USC Trojan football team started winning; this might be considered a small miracle given the first half of the season..but I digress. I became addicted to season 1 of the “Vampire Diaries” because Ella and my writer friend Jesse James Freeman convinced me to watch just one. “Just one, Mom, and you’ll be hooked.”

I finished my latest novel. I supervised homework and took Emerson to a doctor’s appointment for a persistent cough.

I received two bouquets of flowers from concerned friends. Another sent a popcorn maker to my girls – for our upcoming family movie nights – but mostly to cheer me up.

Friends called and texted and emailed.

The love poured in, as it always does when I need it.

All the while, I had this ache in my chest – the kind you get after a break-up. I replayed last moments. I wondered what happened, exactly? How does one go away for a romantic weekend and break it off five days later? How does one let my oldest daughter make him a birthday cake on a Tuesday and end things on a Saturday? I won’t know, of course. As Nanci Griffith says in her song “Late Night Grande Hotel”, “But no-one ever knows the heart of anyone else.”

But I can be angry. I can expect better. I can be thankful that someone so false and immature is no longer in my life. I can be glad that my children didn’t become attached to him. I can vow to find a man next time, not a boy. Yes, all this.

And with each passing day, the sting fades. Today I didn’t think of him when I woke up. I don’t think I have for a week now. I’m grateful, trust me.

However, in between realizing, in the words of Jesse James, that “I dodged a bullet”, and in the middle of experiencing all this ordinary life, darkness invaded. It came with a vision of the future. My girls grow up and go off to lives of their own. And I’m left alone writing love stories in the basement of some dark, damp house surrounded by cats, growing old and arthritic.

Alone.

This is called my greatest fear. And it wants to take over. It wants to smash hope and joy and gratitude.

Last weekend I confessed to one of my dearest friends that I was dreading the holidays. “Again”, I said. “Last  year my mantra was, ‘just get through the holidays’. It’s threatening to be the same this year.”

I also told her of my greatest fear – you know, the basement and cats and dying alone. She wrote back that one day, after I’ve truly accepted that it is a possibility I will grow old alone and come to peace with it, I will suddenly wake up one day – happy.

Well, here’s the thing. It happened. I don’t know how. The romantic in me wants to think it was my friend’s wish for me that did it. Regardless, I woke up two days after our conversation – happy. I woke up excited for the holidays. I woke up thankful for all the love I have in my life and for my health and for my work. I am happy. I may not have a man to share life with, but I have friends and family and my girls and they all want to snuggle up with me on the couch.

And none of them would “end the relationship” with me via a text after I took them to a getaway on the Oregon coast.

And you know what that tells me? Love the ones you’re with. That’s from a song too, but I can’t think who sings it. I know a friend who will, though. I might ask him. Because that’s my life – full of incredible, interesting people who know things.

I love the ones I’m with. Yes, I surely do. And I’m thankful for all the ways they love me back.