I mentioned the story behind the title of my blog in my very first entry. But after several years, it might bear repeating. When Jessie was about three, I was wheeling her down our road in her umbrella stroller. We were approached by a neighbor, an old guy with a crooked back and a wry smile whom we often met out for his daily walk. As he passed, he said hi and I said hi and Jessie piped up from her stroller “hellogoodbyeonedaytheend!” She’s always had a knack for summing up the situation, that one.
I feel it’s ridiculous, but next week I’m going to turn fifty-two. Hello?? The phrase just a number certainly rings true for me. I no more feel fifty-two than ninety-five. Strangely, both of my grandfathers and an uncle died at that young age, so it has always been a number that carried a lot of weight in my family. I remember when I was a kid and my mom told me her dad died young: I thought, not that young! Now I think, holy crap, that young?!
Just over two years ago I got divorced, and that’s about the biggest Goodbye you can say, apart from the Last Goodbye. Being a hospice nurse, I see more of the last goodbye than most. So that’s goodbye taken care of.
On reflection, and especially if I live to a hundred and four, I think I’m sort of halfway through. I think I’m right at the start of One Day. So what does that look like?
I know I posted a few weeks ago about setting up my OK Cupid profile one Sunday morning. And I know I went a bit quiet after that on the whole online dating thing. The truth of it is, I have met someone. In fact, the first guy who messaged me that morning, about a half hour after my profile went up. We texted for four days, and I caught a bad cold and then we met for dinner in an Italian restaurant. I chose it because although it was right by the freeway and had a cheesy sign with a map of Italy on it, I’d eaten there once and it had felt like a little slice of Tuscany. Before I went in to meet him, I sat in my car listening to Song for a Friend by Caamp. Don’t count your heart out baby, you’re good for another round. I listened to it to give me courage, but I also remember thinking that my life was about to change; that this was the last five minutes before my life took a whole new turn.
After dinner, we kissed in the parking lot and I instantly gave him my cold. He was a champion: never complained, said it was worth it. I drive by that restaurant most weekdays between patients and I think about OK Cupid and how the phrase beginner’s luck doesn’t even begin to cover it.
I remember when I read Eat, Pray, Love. I was enthralled and entertained by the Eat section. Italy, heartbreak, food, tears, laughter...what’s not to love? Pray was a little harder to get through. The ashram was very fascinating but the spiritual awakening a little tedious after a while. And love? I just lost interest. I mean, I was thrilled for her. After all she had been through I had lots of sympathetic joy that she met someone and it was fabulous. I just didn’t really enjoy reading about it. It was as though the spark was gone. The edges that kept her brilliant and funny were worn smooth by her new bliss, and the book just went off the boil.
A new love affair is hard to write about in a way that might interest anyone besides the two people concerned. Best kept to oneself, I think. Suffice to say that both of us deleted our OK Cupid profiles during that first dinner and we haven’t looked back. So there’s that.
One Day is looking pretty damn clean and sparkly from my vantage point. I’m about to turn a new age, the year is still fairly young and shiny, and Spring is just starting to show her colors and do a little dance on days when the rain lifts. There are daffodils and poppies, the acacias are golden and the magnolias beginning to open out their crazy big blooms. The world is tilting alarmingly towards derangement. But I have feelings in my poor old worn out heart that I never thought I’d be lucky enough to have again, and being a hopeless optimist, I’m very inclined to agree with John Lennon that everything will be okay in the end, and if it’s not okay, it’s not the end.
However, I’m also particularly vulnerable in my weakened state to inspirational quotes off the Internet, which is a very clear sign to me that I should hold off writing about love. But if you can forgive me one, the one I’m holding to right now because it perfectly expresses my cheery hospice nurse philosophy is: love fiercely, because this all ends.
Or it all ends when you love fiercely; do it again. and again. until it ends. fire-cely
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