Life, Part 2.

​It’s been awhile, friends.  I’ll admit I’ve been in hiding, purposefully holding back, absorbed in the swirl of my new life and uncertain how or whether to share it all.  

There is the one part of me that wants to write:  “Guess what guys, I’m in love!”  And the other part that wants to keep it all to myself for just a little longer.  It feels scary to announce something so bold, so soon.  I’m not sure how to explain it all.

But It also feels true.  And truth is where I like to be.

So guess what, guys?  I’m in love.

It all happened quickly.  On June 22, I wrote The Other Side of Surrender, about the difference between surrendering my life, and reclaiming it.  I acknowledged a sense of worthiness that seemed to be missing -- You lost it because you didn’t deserve it -- and was determined to turn that around.  I am not going to surrender, I said.  My life belongs to me.

One month later, Life Without George turned 3.  I had spent the prior week entertaining prospects from an online dating site, a decision I’d made with a fair amount of trepidation, but a greater amount of certainty.  It felt imperative to explore the feminine side of me that had been dormant for a very long time -- I needed to sit across from a stranger, without a child on my lap, and discover who I’d become.  What words would emerge from my voice?  It had been three years without George, and I hadn't been on a single date.  It was time to find out.

Truth be told, finding new love was something I hoped for soon after George died.  I knew I wasn’t done, and I knew I wanted to find it again.  But as the months and years passed, I acknowledged that what I now required -- a love as authentic and unconditional as what George and I shared -- might not be the kind of thing that happens more than once.  Once is more than some ever hope for.  Twice is simply asking too much.  

I also wouldn’t have settled for less.  Having known the possibility of a love like ours, there was no going back to the ordinary.  I became attuned to the idea that my future with Nova may not include a partner.  My life was clearly about her now.  

But on the day after George’s 3rd anniversary, July 23, I met the first and only man I hope to meet online.  We had exchanged a few messages; he asked about the book I’m writing.  Eager to test one’s response to my unique life circumstances, I replied.  A few days later, I invite him to meet me in the park in front of our house, it’s the neighborhood’s summer concert and I’ll be there with Nova and some friends.  Coincidentally, he lives just blocks away, and when I turn to see a slender figure, scanning the crowd with bicycle in tow, I know it’s him.  I wave him over.

He sits on our little patch of blanket and we begin a conversation that continues to deepen with each passing day.  There is no pretense here.  We ask honest questions, and we give honest answers.  We speak our fears.  We acknowledge our vulnerability.  There is an instant familiarity between us -- have we done this before? -- and an explicit desire to understand what lies beneath the surface.  I am in awe.  Within weeks my life takes on a new direction, and I can’t help but follow the call.  

The exhilaration of new love is not without its challenges, and I quickly realize there is work to do.  The connection I experience with this man pushes my boundaries, threatens to invade the space in my heart reserved for George, requires me to question my devotion.  I also know too much now; I know that heartbreak is inevitable, that we are not in control of the big things, that even with the best of intentions, things can fall apart.  That, eventually, we all must say goodbye.  

My need to hold onto George and my need to protect my heart, and my daughter’s heart, sends me into spaces of deep reflection, tears, spontaneous grief, uncertainty.  We sit together, me and this man, and we talk.  I tell him everything, and he receives it all.  He makes it safe.  He does not hide.  He holds me in the darkness, and through his presence, I find my way back out.  Again, and again, and again.  This, I realize, is the work I can only do through relationship.  He, I realize, is the man who was sent to heal me.  

And George, undeniably, continues to light my path.  He continues to bestow gifts upon my life:  our daughter, his family, this home, my new love.  The life that ended when George left this earth has been transformed into an entirely different landscape; one that, with perseverance and patience, has begun to find joy and fulfillment again.  This is a new story unfolding.  One that is made possible because of, and through, my beloved teacher, GHFS III.