Dance Me to the End of Love

I went outside tonight to let the dog out and noticed the stars in the sky. The Milky Way was visible again, cutting a path from almost due south to north. Over time, the constellations take their places and creep across the night sky, until Orion is back and the Seven Sisters rise in the east again. Soon it will be Winter again. Already, the trees are beginning autumn's first blush. The night air is chilly and in the morning, you can see your breath.

This will all happen again and again, long after I am gone. Forever.

But sometimes it feels like nothing changes. Each year is a slog and it feels like I'm getting nowhere. But I had to think tonight that things have changed. This year, there have been many, many changes. My son no longer lives with me. I lost that fight. I fought hard and spent more money than I had just to go nowhere with it. The system is broken, and not only will my children have lost out, but generations after them as well.

I have been unattached for the longest period of time so far since I was 17. Not chasing anyone. No talking stage. No situationship. Just getting my shit figured out. It has been an important thing to do. A year of working through it, in spite of my usual efforts of trying to fix things that of course were unfixable. The most recent one is engaged now; that was fast. That's three women I have been involved with. I used to joke with her about being the foster, helping rescues find their forever homes. I found some closure in knowing it was her turn. After a lot of insomnia last night and wondering why I don't get chosen, I realized I sounded like her for a minute. Yeah, I found out through the grapevine. It's only fair, since she still reads my blog and knows what I am up to. I'm just over here shaking my head. I don't need to know anything else.

I know why I don't get "chosen." Like so many others today, it isn't that I've "Given up" it's that I'm working on me. I'm not compromising anymore. I'm not settling for a life that is "adequate." I used to tell people I didn't plan on dating again unless I met someone who truly knocked my socks off. Or maybe someone who I could trust with an open heart. But now, I know what I would rather do. Unless it was someone truly spectacular, I'm going to just enjoy my own company for a while. I'm going to enjoy sunrises, and remember the chill of the air on my legs on a morning in St. Louis at dawn when I was young. Or the way someone gently sang off key in my ear as we danced to Chris De Burgh at Homecoming, my palms slick against her satin red dress. Or the loves that have come and gone from my life since. Kitchen dancing. Holding hands as we drive. Speaking in a whisper as though the moment was so fragile we could break it with our voices.

Shrill piping laughter of my kids who invented a hilarious joke or rode really fast down a hill on their skateboard.

It isn't a fear of never finding these moments again, it's a fear that I might forget how all those other times felt, the little details that shined through with each of them. A sparkle in an eye, the cool way someone held a clove cigarette, the silent belly laughs, the rants about out of state drivers or a big smile and a shy wave whenever I came home, or when someone was speechless when I said they were beautiful.

My biggest fear in life is forgetting. And sometimes I really have to stop to remember those beautiful moments. Even when they are shadowed in pain. I wonder if there will be another who has one of those details, like some thread connecting them all, some aspect that resonates, as though I knew another soul before there was time and like the rest of it, everything shattered and was spread across the universe in a jumble, and sometimes we recognize a part of what we loved in someone else, glimmering, standing out from all the rest.

Will there be another face to stand out of so many others in a dark room?

One of my best friends has heard my sad stories too many times. More than she would like to admit. She told me once when I was wondering what I do with all of these memories of people who are gone: My lost children. Those former loves. Family who are no longer with us. I said I wished I was like Leonard Cohen, who kept all of these people from his life in his songs and poetry. She told me I get to keep them safe in stories. She's a wise one. So, I write my stories and I keep those memories there for now.

I'm done trying to fix anything. There is a wide, unbroken world I want to see finally. A place of beauty and laughter. Of sunbeams that hang in tattered clouds, dappled on a grey sea. I'll try my best to remember those sweet moments, but sometimes it stings too much to look at them too often. Like someone sitting in an overstuffed chair, wasting the day looking through pictures of their youth when there is still so much more to see.

That is why.

It's not worth playing the game anymore, because so much of that just seems to be an attempt at a do-over. Righting the things that went wrong in a bad marriage, or trying to bring back that feeling you had when you were first in love with a new face. It's the same picture, it's the same You, just with someone else standing in place of another.

I would rather see what happens next. I can't fix what went wrong and I can't replace what was lost. It will never be the same again. It is never what you planned anyway. But you can open the next door and see what else awaits. To walk into a place so unfamiliar that you could be anywhere. You could be anyone.

It doesn't matter if I become a catch in someone's throat when they remember the little things and for a brief moment wonder where I have gone and if I'm still sad. Of course I am. I have the heart of a poet that I wear on my sleeve. But I'm somewhere else, lost on the infinite tides on my own adventure. I'm also happy. At last. Making all new memories.