The One

When heartbreak comes-a-calling, and it does, several times in a lifetime, if you are in search of “The One”, the pain can be exquisite. Art is created of this pain. Poems and song lyrics pulsate with this pain. Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and War and Peace, were all inspired by a heart decimated by this pain. And, if you are like me and have had your heart pulverized numerous times in your lifetime, it may have crossed your mind that maybe, just maybe, you weren’t cut out for the relationship racket.

After my latest love affair of four years ended unceremoniously over a video chat, I told myself, and anyone who was willing to listen, that I’d take a year to heal my wounds; a year to recover, strengthen my spine, clear my thinking, calm my emotions, and screw my head on straight. I was done with romance. I was done with men. “F*ck this!” I wrote in my journal on more than one occasion.

I planned to do the smart thing and date myself for a year. I had big plans to write a memoir about this epic relationship that had left me baffled about romantic connection. I daydreamed about taking myself to restaurants for elaborate meals (Covid permitting), to the movies (no romcoms please); I wanted long conversation with my inner child on the page, or with my girlfriend over a bottle of Valpolicella. I envisioned myself wrapped in the arms of Solitude inside a log cabin while I wrote maudlin poetry (a thousand Haikus, one for each shard my heart had broken into). Maybe, I promised myself, I’d finally finish that cross-stitch that I had started…let me see…thirty years ago, that was still haunting the back of my closet. Yep, I had big plans for this girl and then…

…he walked into my life. We had known of each other through a mutual friend (who just happens to be his ex-wife). We had even met once, across a kitchen table at the said friend’s house, when my then husband and I came to talk to them about what a loving separation could look like. (They had been divorced for many years and much to my shock, remained best friends.) Reflecting back on that meeting, I imagine Cupid angel in his corner of Heaven looking down at us, whittling his arrows and shaking his head in bored dismay. He knew it’d be another five years before he’d get to use his arrows—but I digress.

It was a few weeks pre-break-up of my relationship when my friend pimped (yes, you heard me) her ex-husband to me. “Why don’t you just talk to him and take a walk with sanity,” she said. “No pressure. Let me talk to him. I’ll text you his number if he’s open to the idea.”

For the next six weeks, his phone number sat unused in my contact list. It didn’t feel right getting together with another man while I was still hoping to rescue a relationship that, by this time, was beginning to resemble the Titanic in its final hour. And saying, Hey, my girlfriend thinks you’ve got issues and is hoping her ex-husband could shock me into leaving you by showing me what a healthy man looks like, just didn’t seem in alignment with my integrity.

But Cupid angel had enough of waiting. His arrows were about as whittled as they were going to get and it was show time (jazz hands). He and Destiny had a quick tête-à-tête and she agreed to arrange for one more massive betrayal by my partner. I mean, this one was for the history books (or maybe not so memorable, but after half-a-dozen or so others, it was big enough to break the proverbial camel’s back). There was no way I could un-see it. There was physical evidence of it, like steam trunks floating on the surface of the North Atlantic after the Titanic quietly settled on the ocean floor. Had I tried to minimize or justify it, it would have destroyed the last remnants of my self-esteem that was already hobbling around like Quasimodo.

The whole damn Cherub chorus was probably singing Hallelujah when I finally found the courage to end it.

I see Cupid angel looking down from Heaven, hands in prayer position mouthing, “Thank f*cking god, she finally woke up, folks.” (The Cupid of my imagination is cool and not against using spicy language to get his point across.)

So there I was, newly single, educating myself on all things trauma related, seeing myself in every article and video on narcistic relationships, trauma bonds, childhood wounds that play havoc in adult relationships, when he strolled into my life (or rather across the parking lot to meet me, where I had been waiting for a few minutes already, spinning a story that he wasn’t going to show, believing myself to be damaged goods and why in the world would he want to associate with a woman who was naïve enough to stay in an emotionally abusive relationship for four years...cue the violins).

He showed! And when I saw him—and I ask you to suspend your disbelief please—I felt Cupid’s arrow pierce my heart!

I know. I know. You are probably sighing and rolling your eyes, wondering if you should move on to the next article, but stay with me for a while longer. I’m a 55-year-old woman seasoned by two marriages and a number of long-ish relationships. I’m also a writer, a weaver of tales, who loves to imagine magic at play.

Before our meeting. We had been texting for ten days. It had felt like old-fashioned correspondence, where we slowly unspooled our histories and laid ourselves out for the other to see. This man…this man seemed…well…healthy. It sounds anti-climactic, but after having been in a narcissistic/codependent relationship with a splash of garden-variety addictions thrown in for entertainment value, the idea of a healthy man felt a little like winning the lottery.

As I crossed the parking lot to meet him, gravel crunching under my shoes, I remember saying a prayer to the Universe. I prayed for something bigger than my broken heart. I prayed for peace and beauty; for connection and integrity. I prayed for simplicity, serenity, and humbleness. I prayed for love.

Ask and you shall be given.

It’s been five months since that first walk through the River Valley. As you may have surmised by now, I did not stay true to the idea of taking a year off from relationships to date myself. Instead, I dove head first into what could be the relationship of a life-time with, “The One.”