Second Marriages

The sound of the future arriving, turns out, makes no sound at all....it comes in totally silent, and then, there you are....in a place you never thought you'd be, or now, would ever want to leave....like mixing paint, you can't ever un - mix it, like breaking an egg shell, you can't ever put the egg back together again, can't ever put the cork back in the opened bottle of champagne, BUT, breathless, even with your coat buttoned up the wrong way, you can arrive at the future, even, with tears in your eyes.......part of me feels, part of me even knows it for certain.....June 2013

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

trading places

Maybe I needed the time to slowly heal and accept, and then I needed the time after that to celebrate and see the possibilities again. I needed mornings spent sipping coffee, and evenings spent writing thoughts on a page. Filling page after page with smudges and stained thought. Later, I wrote in my journal that I felt “removed, relaxed, a slight sick feeling in my stomach”. I did not cry, I noted proudly, until I was walking through the tunnel from the gate of my past life.

I stood mesmerized, holding the paper (divorce decree) in my hand tightly, the one that held the power to allow me to move on, to get over my delusions of   life. I didn’t know it at the time, but I found peace in that piece of paper, a sense of quiet inner security. Calmness I had never felt, or shared before, until now. There was peace in the ending. That night, I didn’t notice how quiet winter had been, until spring came along. 

These nights, I fall asleep to birds chirping, and this morning, I woke up to more of the same.

A funny sort of quiet has settled over my life. It is the quiet of two very happy people (my second marriage) smiling at each other over steaming cups of coffee. It is the quiet of a corner house at the end of a quiet street. It is the quiet of the chaos being over, and the quiet of peaceful happiness seeping in through floorboards.


It is the quiet of a few plants nearly dying every few weeks and then graciously coming back to life when I remember to water them. Much to my surprise, a certain hand-me-down orchid has been quietly sprouting tendrils right and left despite my careful neglect. It is the quiet of tiny red leaves beginning to open up on the stems of my roses, which will all burst into blossom to new roses in a few weeks.



**We heal at different points, we move on or stay for different reasons, and our needs are uniquely our own. We must own all of these realities and decide for ourselves what is best for each of us in the end.


Quietness is a beautiful thing!

   

Friday, January 31, 2014

My Mind's Eye

Nervousness, twitching, furtive clock-watching. What would he think of me?

A few months later, I found out. A second life for me,(for us,) sprung out of a complete nothingness on that first blind date.

Now I am with feet on the ground, and head in the clouds. I know that the pedals of my past life and history still creak a little bit, and so, I mostly block out those sounds that used to pester at me. I look at our wedding photo on the far wall and how many other framed photographs of us that now are born on all the opposing walls. And I try to puzzle it out, as everyone does, if she is honest with herself, why it should be that I am here now, in this place of happiness, that I have out paced and out lived the dead wood of horrible things. 

Layers of time and meaning accumulate as my mind’s eye all at once images an old photograph of me plucking at the stitches of my since gone injuries. I did not come from a family that ever had much to offer one another as far as emotion or love, condolences or gratitude, frames of sadness and unpleasantness is mostly what framed our existence together. That same broken foundation then followed me, thus matriculating itself into my first marriage, where it hung around, for years upon years. A very broken marriage, where pieces of it's jaded glass often cut right into my flesh.

 But here, today, even all of that I now hope to put aside, to breathe in this notion of happiness, the longed for peace found with this new human being that now holds my hand, and walks by my side.

My newest engagement ring and wedding band now impart a stinging blend of comfort and sadness harbored within them for me. These inanimate, un - breathing trinkets remain, untouched, echoing not, those same desperate voices and sounds of the past, but a new trilogy of what lies ahead as I reach with an open hand.... and an even larger open heart...to let him in!

 **Dear Second Husband, 
I kept a journal during my first marriage. There were not many days I

did not write in it. Every thought, every action, every word of my

life, yup, jotted down in hard black ink. It's like there were too many cobwebs in the closet, and this was my way out. When it ended, I began to breath again.

THEN, I met you.

When you scared me, I found courage.

They came like waves. The sweet experiences we shared in such a brief time.

Our two-step, our duet, our language, I liked you. I bought you that toothbrush, because I knew you were here to stay. I married you, because you have enduringly colored my existence, and I thank you.

**

And there he was, pressed up against me, bone to bone, flesh to flesh, blood to blood, and a heartbeat that pressed so firmly into mine, it became as one..


**No Going Life Alone
Uncertainty is one of those mixed emotion words. As I look forward at the next few months followed by the extending void of the rest of my life uncertainty inspires my mid - life youth, risk-taking, adventure-seeking, chance, and jumping in head-first. Its less satisfying other side provokes anxiety and worry, stalling forward momentum. However, admittedly, there is no escaping either side, as a thoughtful friend gently reminded me, almost everything in life is uncertain. Someone, clearly more comfortable with uncertainty than myself, stated, “uncertainty touches the best of what is human in us.” I feel it grabbing at what is most human about me, but perhaps not always the best part of me.

The past is past and the future is not-yet-known, and, really, that is all I have
to roll with, as I slowly roll along, and life unfolds.


** Find Your Person
Firm believer, that, at any stage of life, it is important to find your person.
 To find your beacon. Find your partner. That one person who believes you are not crazy for wanting to be an astronaunt. That one person, whom never blows out your candles. Find your path. Just one person, who believes 

you are not  looney - bin crazy. A person who holds your magic. And shares in it. 

Someone who never turns off the light?

** New Life
I was anchorless to the point of adrift - weightless to the point of exhilarated. Over time, the relationship has become filled with the buoyancy of firsts and the gravity of love. And on that first day, I met you, in a kind of way that would make it impossible for me not to consider myself blessed, life became magical, and time transformative. Each of us has arrived with two - ish suitcases, the hidden load is that of the memories of the entire elsewhere’s and people we have loved. Neither of us has unpacked. In a sense, we do not need to. There are memories spilling out of everything, slowly filling the empty space. Before you, and us, and love

**Blessings of Solitude
I lay in watch of the ceiling, a way of communicating with myself, of filling in the blank pages. Perspiration trickles down between my breasts, we lay together, not touching, but there is an affinity there. If we always knew what life had in store for us, what would we do differently? Would we indulge more? Or restrain ourselves sooner? Would we break every rule, transgress every line, or simply roll over in the bed, and find a place where the sheets are still cool? My words disappear the moment they are spoken, the moment they are barely recognizable I close my eyes, and fall asleep, not wanting to be saved from the secret solitude I now wander in.