Romantic Love Asks So Much of Us
Here's to second chances
In this twenty-first year of my marriage, I am grateful for second chances—and for that long-ago version of me, willing to try again despite all the fears I could name.
By middle age, romantic love asks so much of us. What courage it takes to gather up past wounds like acorns and leave them in a basket on the side of the road. But goodness, keep walking and the freedom that comes with listening to our hearts and declaring, I surrender.
I know that I am lucky. I also know that, in my way, I was brave. I didn’t think that of myself at the time, but I see it now. In the early days after I had fled with my daughter, my life felt like a dissembled puzzle with missing pieces. I was so tired. Most nights, I tucked her into bed at eight and fell asleep minutes later.
This went on for months, until one day I awakened to the view of my new life. I can’t explain how that happened, but surely rest had a lot to do with it. I went to bed a little less exhausted and woke up to the song of mourning doves. They’d been cooing outside my window for weeks, but until that early autumn dawn, I couldn’t hear them. After that, living color returned to my world.
My marriage to Sherrod could not have happened had I not first learned how to be happy on my own. That was a decade’s endeavor, and when he sent that first email, I was not looking for a man to take up even an inch of my life. When we met for our first date on January 1, 2003, my life was already full. I am proud of that, still. I had worked so hard to build an independent life. Falling in love with Sherrod was about want, never need.
I was about to post this essay when our dogs interrupted me to go out for the third time this morning. This is a ploy, as they know I will give them their dental treats upon their return. Most times, they think they can just step outside, turn right around and stare through the door window, but I will not be used. I am that neighbor lady yelling, “Go potty! Go potty!” Treats are earned in this joint.
On my way back upstairs, this painting called my name from its spot in our living room. I felt immediately chastened. True, my life as a single mother was a happy one, but I bought this painting of an elderly couple about two years before I met Sherrod, at an arts festival I visited with my friend Diane. It’s titled Almost Home, by local artist Ed Gifford. I recall telling Diane that it made me feel hopeful. My heart may not have been searching, but it was opened enough to let in the view.
The week before Sherrod hit “send” on that first email to me, I dreamed about a curly-haired man sitting on my front porch. I couldn’t see his face, but I knew he was waiting for me. Make of that what you will.
Now we are growing old together. An amazing thing, I find, this tapestry we continue to weave together. I see my reflection in the mirror and can never reconcile that face with the young woman within who remains so very much in love.
Earlier this week, I was talking about second-chance love with a 44-year-old single mother who, to her surprise, has fallen in love. I told her I was one year older when I met Sherrod.
“Really?” she said. “I love knowing that.” She hesitated. “I think we are headed to marriage, but I don’t know, I don’t know. Never did I think I would marry again.”
I asked if he was good to her, and she nodded and shared several stories to prove it. She glowed.
I had to ask. “Was your life happy before you met him?”
She smiled. “So happy. I wasn’t looking for a man.”
I look forward to their wedding.
This card sits on my desk as I write. The illustrator is Gwen Van Knippenberg, and I have many of her cards stored in a hip-high metal cart full of stationery. This card, already one of my favorites, is now priceless because of Sherrod’s note inside, from two years ago. Of the dozens of cards, he picked this one to write about our marriage. It was not a special occasion, until he made it one.
Yesterday, he was about to pull on his coat and I asked where he was going. We’re together most of the time right now, so we’ve become that couple, always in rhythm. He starts whistling a song and I know to ask about his progress at the keyboard. (He’s writing another book.) He sees me brushing my hair with my good arm—I’m growing new bone in the broken one!--and looks for the car keys to drive me. That’s us now.
On Thursday, he said he had a few errands to run, but the look on his face gave him away.
No way, mister.
“The roads are icy, and I don’t need anything for Valentine’s Day,” I told him. “I know you love me, and you know I love you.”
It took a while, but I won that one. Until this morning, when breakfast arrived with a handwritten love note illustrated with two fat, red, smudgy hearts.
“I think I used your lipstick,” he said.
He sure did. It’s my favorite, Cinique’s Black Honey, and so far, it’s rubbed off on my fingers, our fitted sheet, and a page in the book I used to keep it safe. This tracks.
I hesitate to wish you Happy Valentine’s Day, because this is a fraught day for many. I’ve had my share of those. What I do hope for you is that you love somebody and feel loved, too, every day of the year.
I am 80 years old, married for 29 years to a man I should not have married- no abuse but utterly not right for one another - and I figured that in my lifetime I simply wasn't destined for love. Doing some Swedish death cleaning just this week, I found a locked box, pried it open (God knows where the key was) , and found a letter inside I'd written to a girlfriend long ago, about a time in my life when I was married and the man I was rapturously in love with had a girlfriend. But we two shared a moment when each of our partners was gone, as we sat in the local bar where all the theater people went after performing, when we held hands across the table and he told me he had loved me for a very long time. We never did anything, but all these decades and decades later, I was reminded that somebody did love me. And when I die, I want that letter tucked in beside me.
Connie, I had the privilege of being on the jury that recommended your column writing for the Pulitzer Prize, and with every column, I think, Man, we were right.
My first wife died when she was 53, and I was a wreck. I thrashed around for several years. Then I met Maria, and she saved me. Thank goodness for love.