And Finally There Was Love

The girl brushed her ordinary hair away from her ordinary face, placed her sunglasses on her ordinary nose and walked out the door to adulthood.

It is quite possible you may have seen her. If, that is, you frequented dimly-lit bars with ear-assaulting music. In air filled with cigarette smoke, exaggerations and outright lies.

The young woman could be seen frequently in such places. Losing track of her life.

But, she was there to dance. Period. Didn’t matter where: dance hall, bar, living room. It was her own world. In her element. And the beat went on.

And then….there he was. So handsome in his uniform. Worn so proudly. He was tall and very, very handsome.

He was her first. She had saved the honor of her virginity for him to claim on their wedding night.

(How many people can say that nowadays?)

And so it went. All passion. All promises. All dreams of happiness.

For a while.

Young. Stupid. That’s what they were. But they didn’t realize it at the time.

Finally, she walked out THAT door and ran. Far. Away.

And started over.

To be sure, there were those that would drift in and out of her world. Carrying their issues with them, like an old, faded picture tucked in the back of a wallet. They could only keep up the façade for so long. And then….well, the truth will out, as someone famous once said. Not someone famous enough to stick in my memory, though.

At any rate….the music provided alternately happiness, sadness, and diversion. And who could resist sweating out one’s feelings to the beat of “You Should Be Dancing”? Or drown in tears to “What’s Your Name?” 

Ahhh, the places the music would take her. In her mind. Where emotions hid until they were coaxed out.

One can go for a very long time pretending to be happy. It’s very easy. Lying works. Steering conversations away from the heart works, too.

(Maybe you can recognize yourself in her mirror. Maybe you have turned a blind eye to what you don’t wish to see.)

After that, she drifted in and out of meaningless relationships. Always hoping THIS time…. But, of course, nothing ever changed except her mailing address.

(We’ve all done that at least once, right? Be honest! I’m the only one who will know!)

She was still stupid.

Finally, the girl decided she’d had enough and with a sweeping motion, cleared out her heart, her mind, and her closet of unwanted emotions.

Gone.

It took fits and starts, but once she drew the invisible line in the sand, she set the terms.

And it worked.

For a while.

Again.

A new husband. And eventually a son arrived and with him came many wonderful years. A focus for the love she’d stored up seemingly forever.

But, as children will do, the son grew up. And out.

And, as her life would have it, there was nothing left to hold onto.

And all she could do was watch. He wasn’t a child anymore. He didn’t need her anymore.

Time to move on.

And she closed yet another door behind her.

The third time? Well, what a disaster THAT was.

Just when she thought she could NEVER be that stupid again.

It took only a few weeks for his makeup to wear off. And he got too confident to reapply it. You know the makeup I mean: kindness, thoughtfulness, love. Love? What a joke. And she fell for it.

Or did she?

Do you think somewhere in that muddled, desperate, mess of a brain that she KNEW?

(Haven’t you ever successfully lied to yourself even when the truth glared at you everywhere you looked? It only hurts for a little while. Wait. That’s not true; it hurts for a very, very long time.)

Oh, she knew. But in the meantime, determined not to be a member of the Three-time Loser club, she stayed. In the minefield. In the separate bed. In the charade.

Threats. Tears. Rejection. False hope. That was the worst. The thought that things could change. And for a while, they did. But still, lurking in the dark, deep back of her mind was the truth with its sad, disappointed face looking back at her.

(You’ve seen the face I mean, haven’t you? Does yours have a name?)

She had pushed it down so many times, the springs finally broke, and on the surface, glaring at her, was the damnable truth.

It was never going to change.

She hardly recognized herself in the mirror. Or her voice, when she spoke. Or her dreams when she slept.

In her own bed.

Alone.

And yet….she stayed, riding the rollercoaster of his rage. His touch made her mind scream and her skin crawl. Sometimes it felt as if even her SKIN screamed.

(Do you think you could fake your way through passion?)

She went about her life, believing this is all it would ever be. She had done it to herself. The advice she would have given to another failed to penetrate her own ears. Or her brain.

But you probably wouldn’t even notice. Others didn’t. She became that good at hiding herself within herself. She fooled them.

This worked for quite a few years. This “not giving a damn.” Her new attitude.  

And finally, it was time. Long past time, in fact. And scary as it was, it had to be done. So she put her grey hair in a clip and walked away as his final words chased her out the door: I will burn your house down! I will ALWAYS be watching you! Just when you least expect it…!

At first, it was easy to lose herself in the computer. After all, nobody knows who you REALLY are, do they? You can say anything you want. But after a while, even that grew tiresome. Just a game. A stupid game people play to amuse themselves to pass the empty hours.

And then….a message from someone wanting to be a friend. A male friend. Oh great. Just what I need, she thought. But there, staring at her from the screen was a face she had erased from her memory many long years earlier.

“Remember me?”

 OH MY GOD!!!!

The first love.

She didn’t answer right away. How on Earth did he FIND me, she wondered? So many questions. So much time gone by. So many changes.

They went in baby steps while she kept him at arms-length. Who knew what he was like now? Then the phone calls began. The voice. The sweet words. “I never should have let you go! I’ve been looking for you for years!”

Okay.

A few more weeks of phone calls. But she still didn’t dare allow herself to imagine this could be anything worth allowing in her life. Not now. Now when she was so vulnerable. Not when she’d given up hope that she could be happy. Was it worth the risk? So many things would have to happen. To change.

Her thoughts all began with What if….?

And the debate with herself was merciless. And constant. And infuriating.

“When can I come out so we can see if this is going to work?” he asked.

And a month later, she watched him walk to her front door. Her heart trying to beat its way out of her chest. Her hands shaking so hard she had to grasp the handrail for strength.

There he was. That walk. That swagger. That smile.

Had it really been 50 years since she’d seen him??? Yes. It had. And she’d still recognize him anywhere.

From there…well, you can probably guess the rest. They remarried a few months later, after living together to be sure the old feelings were still there, and they weren’t just two lonely old people trying to grasp at what happiness they could before they each closed the final door behind them. There was so much catching up to do. So much time playing the “do you remember?” game as they looked at pictures of their first life together. There weren’t many. But they were precious and although she couldn’t explain why she'd held onto them all those years, she was glad she had.

They spent many more years together. Happy. Needing nothing but to be together at the beginning and the end of the day.

It was everything they had been looking for. Waiting for. "Why were we so stupid back then?" Neither of them had an answer. They were just....happy. "Let's not think about what we've missed all these years. We're together now and nothing can separate us."

And then the fire engines came.

Remember:

“I will burn your house down.”

“When you least expect it.”