Hello dear friends. I suppose I should write.
“Do one thing every day that scares you.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
No, I haven’t fallen off the planet (although the idea does have a certain appeal, especially after watching the news, or driving home in rush hour traffic). But writing these days is difficult because my thoughts are full of hearts and flowers and sappy smoochy stuff:
“‘There’s a silver lining I’ve been looking for,’ she whispered, and then she was kissing him as she never kissed him before, and Harry was kissing her back, and it was a blissful oblivion, better than firewhiskey; she was the only real thing in the world,” – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J. K. Rowling
I have found love again. (<— That’s a sentence I didn’t think I’d be able to write again. Life is so unpredictable.)
Writing about being in love is hard: most often, one either comes across as the equivalent of a gallon of maple syrup ladled all over your perfectly fine hamburger of a life or like the kid who comes to school with The Next Big Thing before anyone else can get their hands on it. Pure sap or unbridled braggadocio. Life can be maddening that way.
“I was nauseous and tingly all over. I was either in love or I had smallpox.” -Woody Allen
Life’s funny, too. On paper, my boyfriend and I are absolute opposites, so, sure enough, we are completely drawn to each other. He likes guns and stuff that blows up and sarcastic puns and Little Feat and hockey and fast cars. He likes old Clint Eastwood movies. He has an odd nearly clinical aversion to horizontal stripes. I like flowers and books and butterflies, The Wailin’ Jennys, observational humor and poetry. I like old Humphrey Bogart movies. Oh, and there’s this: I wear horizontal stripes (shh…don’t tell him! No, really, I’m serious!).
But, despite these seemingly overwhelming obstacles, we work, because underneath where it matters, his core values align with mine. He’s kind. He loves his children deeply. He’s funny and smart and principled and generous. He’s a brilliant writer, a good listener, thoughtful, and thought-provoking. The fact that he loves a good cup of coffee, looks absolutely dashing in a cowboy hat, and enjoys a nice cigar and an adventure every now and then is not lost on me either.
“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next.
Delicious Ambiguity.” -Gilda Radner
Falling in love in one’s forties is weird. I feel both like a young woman and an old soul. This funny life has taught me a lot thus far, mostly that I don’t know much.
And that’s okay. It just means there’s lots more to discover.
“There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.” -John Lennon
Now, we’re in our red wagon, flying through the woods of life together. It’s both wonderful and terrifying. I’m so grateful to have found someone to explore this wonderful world with; there is so much to discover.
“No great discovery was ever made without a bold guess.” -Isaac Newton
P.S. Seriously, don’t tell him I wear horizontal stripes. Orange ones no less. I’ll never hear the end of it. 
