Construction has resumed on my cyber-pyramid. The news wasn’t so good for my laptop that quit and walked off the worksite. My external hard drive didn’t totally have my back. I lost a lot of writing files but managed to keep my collection of the odd and silly and useless…go figure.
I’m drafting new blueprints and plan to forge ahead with another game plan. They would only issue a learner’s permit for me and this new computer, as they lost me after “Can I help you?”
I’m back on track and feeling all warm and fuzzy. In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d share a romantic story of my own…get out your mini-violins.
This is an excerpt from a book I’ve written about my dating experiences. Remember…those who can’t…teach.
Killer Grin
If your heart isn’t in your mouth and your stomach doesn’t drop when the roller coaster hits the top of that first big hill, then you know it’s time to get off of the ride. I find myself pushing the car along the tracks just to keep it going. I’ve stayed too long at the fair.
My friends were tired of asking me when my book was going to be finished. Truthfully, I had no final chapter…the one where I ride off into the sunset with the man of my dreams and live happily ever after.
I’m prepared to ride off alone…I already have my own horse. I just don’t want to spend any more time in solitary confinement. I’m not that interesting to myself.
What IS love? It’s unexplainable and unpredictable. You don’t know when it’s coming and you rarely see it leaving until it’s too far gone. It is as painful as it is joyful. It’s disappointment runs as deep as its exhilaration rises high…and yet we all want it and are willing to take the risk. It takes a lot of courage to keep looking for love even if it continues to elude you.
Love is blind and deaf, and a lot of the time…really really dumb.
I read somewhere that our DNA calls for us to be attracted to one type of person and by instinct we spend our lives searching for that match. We grow impatient and settle for close enough or good enough. Unless our DNA match is searching for us at the same time and we happen to be in the same place then we are never destined to meet.
Love becomes unfinished business.
There are those who find their needle in a haystack. They recognize their cosmic connection and can’t keep their hands off of each other until the day they die. They don’t have to keep trying to refill their hearts, because for them, there is no one else.
Was my failure to find my DNA match holding me back? Is close enough good enough?
I was stuck in neutral and I couldn’t figure out why.
And then one day something happened…just like in the movies.
I was working one of my catering jobs at an office opening. The guests were nice and the staff was really friendly. The other bartender and I were setting up glasses and wine at the receptionist’s desk. A tall cutie pie walked up to the bar and struck up a conversation with me. My boss had mentioned that there was a guy who worked there who would be perfect for me…and I figured this must be him.
We all continued talking while I crawled around under the desk cleaning up the glass I’d just broken…what else is new? When I stood up, I noticed a man by the door.
He was standing in a Valley of the Dolls…beautiful blondes with ice-cube sized diamonds and hair that wouldn’t move in a tornado. One of the Glamazons said something to him and he grinned.
It was an ear-to-ear slash…so sexy, so bold and confident, and so so distracting to me. I gave some serious thought to marching across the room and kissing that grin right off of his face. ?!?
Another group of people came through the door and I lost sight of him in the crowd. I just knew that if I had gotten close enough to him he would have smelled fantastic.
Later that night I went home and Facebooked the name of the guy that I had been chatting with at the bar…the one my boss wanted to match me up with.
When the profile picture popped up, it wasn’t him at all…it was Killer Grin. Uh oh. I held my finger over the friend request and hit send.
Though I’m sure he had no idea who I was, he accepted the request. And then my old friend failure to yield appeared and in an historical moment for me, I sent this man with the incredible smile my phone number and wrote: “You should call me sometime.”
This was WAY out of my comfort zone. I was not used to doing the pursuing, but I knew that if I didn’t do it, I would wonder for the rest of my life what it would have been like to kiss that grin…
and now I know…
it was amazing.
I was finally struck by lightning. It simply hadn’t occurred to me that he wouldn’t feel the same way. And that’s how quickly he went from taking my breath away to knocking the wind out of me.
My path had crossed with a man who was just beginning his middle-aged crazy. He wanted for nothing and needed everything and had to continue in his own direction. I could have pointed out the quicksand to him, but he would have run into it anyway.
It was something he said to me that told me it was time to end my book. “I wonder about the missed opportunities because I stayed too long.”
I knew exactly what I was struggling with. I had stayed too long waiting for the right moment, for my happily ever after and because of that I was missing my happy right now.
The journey away from my divorce was never about finding the man of my dreams. It was about putting Cynthia back together again. What began as validation has become redemption. There are no missing pieces that matter. I am whole and I am happy.
In reality, only some of us get happily ever after. But all of us can have happy right now…and I’m okay with that.
Months later I was asked to work a party at Killer Grin’s house. I was looking forward to seeing him again. I was curious to see if that smile still had the same power.
We walked up to his front door and he opened it…and there it was…my undoing…that grin. Kryptonite to me.
I don’t like the taste of bittersweet. It doesn’t go down easily, but it’s part of it and I would rather swallow it than spit it out. Killer Grin and I spoke for a few minutes in his driveway. It was a gorgeous fall evening and it felt “right” and I wished that he would kiss me and for a fleeting second I thought that he might.
But that only happens in the movies…right?
I doubt there will ever be a time that I won’t want to kiss that grin right off of his face. This amazes me and when I think about it…it makes me grin too.
I’ve never carried a torch before. I can’t tell you if the weight of it changes or it gets less bright as time goes by. I’ll have to let you know.
I took a chance and I put myself out there…and I’m still standing.
I heard a popular television matchmaker claim that women past a certain age are “hard to place”. Really? I continue to fly in the face of it…I can hold my own.
I’m smart and I’m funny and even though I’m no longer one of the most beautiful girls in the room, I’ve figured out that the secret to being the center of attention is by making everyone else feel that they are.
My story…like yours…is unfolding in its own beautiful and mysterious way and I still believe that something great is going to happen.
Now is the right moment. Take chances. Today is the best day.
Day Three Hundred and Eleven…Happy Valentine’s Day…love keeps us moving…
Cynthia Neilson