It Started at Goodbye

The piece that sat in draftland many years, revisions and decisions; should I or not? It’s okay now, trusting my readers and my heart.

After days and nights listening to oldies, reminiscing, fried egg mornings, sunny afternoons and gin and tonic evenings, it was over.

If it makes you happy, why the hell are you so sad? Sheryl Crow

Your fingers turned your mouth into an upbeat smile as I drove away. We knew it was complicated…a confusing, comforting, fun and games, what-just-happened-kind-of-time.

We’d both lost our spouses in the previous year and weren’t sure if we wanted to walk that sorrowful path alone or together. We were long-time friends from the way back…the four of us.

“How do I say goodbye to someone who’s been with me my whole damn life?” Dean Lewis

There was guilt.

Guilt that we cared, guilt that we were disrespecting the long love and marriages we’d had, guilt it was too soon.

Time went by with a now and then, off and on kind of rhythm…flowing like a river with fast moving currents, trickling down to a dry patch for a stretch.

All these years…ten…this has been the pattern. Never a couple, commitment or connection…but always chemistry.

What if I’d answered yes that night?

Seven months after your old friend’s death, you came to check on me. We had fifty some years of acquaintance… you were his best man, colleague, team mate, drinking and goofing-off buddy…just a guy in the background to me.

After hours of sharing stories and the details of our lives, gin & tonics, tears and laughter, you asked “do I want to be alone tonight?”

Somewhere in my foggy brain I knew what you meant; yes was the right answer since we’d sorta just met…from the sidelines of my life to my living room listening to me ramble.

I said no.

Awkward morning…just like in the movies. Don’t tell anyone we said over coffee. I drove him downtown to his meeting and shook his hand.

Flirty emails.

An invite to his lake house come summer.

Days and nights together…but I didn’t want to care, not like this, not yet, maybe not even him.

We were states apart. We stopped the emails. Met at funerals, triggering our own grief again.

I needed to walk alone through mine.

To show my kids and grandkids how to carry on. To learn to live alone and grow myself up a bit.

Years went by. Eventually, I sold the house and moved back home.

We met up at gatherings, a few nights here and there. He found a girlfriend, I tried Match, dated a few…never finding anyone who measured up to the bar set so high by my husband and his pal.

Times of little trickles and drought but always an email away, a smile across a crowded room, a parking lot hug.

Funny how life grows us as we need it… independence and confidence I never knew I had. Trust and faith in his friendship would be okay in my head.

Song lyrics are a fun way to communicate… a kind of foreplay as we emailed favorite lines back and forth. Even better was the floor play they led to rapid-river-times, the high before another downward plunge.

I fretted, I whined, I felt ghosted when sudden radio silence told me this was an off time. I was a high school girl all snarky-like…sending memes and bidding farewell.

I worried this guy was getting too close to my heart. I cared but not that much. I’d had the love of my life…forty-seven years of forever love.

Another invite.

Weeks and months of hanging out together…happy, safe, comfortable…and then ‘goodbye, I’ve gotta go’ felt right too. We both had things to do, places to be.

We’ll sing in the sunshine, laugh every day. Sing in the sunshine, and I’ll be on my way. Gale Garnett

Now we know. This is why it works for us.

Lie down together, yes, but the trust, honesty, understanding, patience, our accomplishments appreciated, our own homes and lives and growing old…growing along to the rhythms of a river…this is enough.