that next passionate kiss

I sensed recently that friends are getting tired of my 'dating kaleidoscope'. Someone will ask "How are things with Linda" and I'll reply "You mean Wendy? That didn't go anywhere. Oh, oh - you mean before Wendy - Linda - yeah, that didn't go anywhere either. Later this week I have a date with Janice - we'll see where that goes."

Whereas I used to be focused a lot on dating, Over the Winter I did shift to just getting out and having fun with friends. I skied about a dozen times this year - probably the most I've skied in fifteen years. I've been just as apt to make time to meet with old friends and new friends as I am to seek out the next date.

Even though I'm having fun getting out and doing things and meeting new people I can sense a little frustration about dating in general. I know finding "someone I'd like to keep seeing" may take time. In early February to keep focused on the future I wrote on a pad of paper on the kitchen counter "I can't wait for that next passionate kiss."

"Welcome to Holland"

I have a friend who is a young widow and who also works with differently-abled children. I shared the book "Expected Adam" with her, it's about a couple whose child is born with Down's syndrome. The parents go from being clueless, to realizing the gifts that Adam brings to their lives. My friend shared with me this short piece which describes the experience of raising a child with Down's Syndrome. It has a lot of parallels to being a young widow - I guess the message being that life doesn't go as planned, but there are always new adventures, there are always new things to learn, there is still happiness to have. To enjoy all these things you just need to keep your eyes and heart open. What a fine way to express that it's "about the journey not the destination...." :)

(P.S. I thought momentarily of trying to write something similar about being a young widow, but then the original author wouldn't have gotten their credit. Plus it had some weird analogy, like your spouse bails out of the airplane over the Atlantic...you'll understand after you read it...)

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WELCOME TO HOLLAND by Emily Perl Kingsley (c) 1987.

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.
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Grieving at 2 years

Well, Sunday night was a little sucky. :)

Monday morning things were great. Got up and out of the house for a flight in the morning, and then skiing in the evening. As I got things together Monday morning I was back to my usual upbeat self. I was actually surprised at how low I'd felt Sunday night, but not too surprised that I'd bounced back on Monday. Resiliency is a beautiful thing!

I can say that I don't know how all the emotional stuff is programmed in our brains. In some respects it's nice to know that it's there, and maybe it's even better seeing how it heals itself!

I don't know?

Well, as usual I thought about my answer "I don't know" from the January 24th blog entry, as I was driving last week. "I don't know" why I could be feeling so sensitive that day in Bennington, Vermont? During the day at the slopes I had thought about how this place used to be a favorite place for Robin and I to ski. As I drove out and back I had thought about how Robin and I had driven this route before. Well, so maybe (as usual) the intensity of the feeling was related to things I was thinking about that day. The realization made me smile and laugh out loud.

I also knew the two-year anniversary of her death was coming up. I don't seem hung up on the concept logically, but something emotional seems to be attached to it - to a specific day, to a specific time. Funny, last Fall I had an event in which I saw something and thought "Robin would have thought that was funny." It was different in that it seemed like the logical and emotional sides of my brain were finally in alignment that day. All together they thought about her in the past tense, and it all seemed in tune. Somewhere inside there was the recognition that Robin existed in the past and was no longer here. But that day in Bennington different parts of the brain were activating. Parts that still hadn't acknowledged, or wouldn't let go of her. If that's the case, then for how long do those feelings persist?

Today I went flying and as I was putting the plane away I was not feeling my usual chipper self. I was actually feeling down. Where did that come from? Well, technically I do think of today as the anniversary of her death. Screw dates, Sunday evening after Valentine's Day is when she died, so that's today. Jonathan called earlier and I really didn't feel like calling back, but I knew it would help. We talked for an hour and a half. Part way through we talked about Robin and reminisced about funny things she said/did. When we both started crying I referred to Mike Meyer's Saturday Night Live character on "Coffee Talk". I said "I'm verklempt, talk amongst yourselves". We both had to laugh at that.

It was good to share some time. I noted that I was going to order out for dinner. I got Mexican, Carne Asada. Usually quite spicy and flavorful meat, plus spicy exotic salsa! Tonight the meat tasted like leather. The salsa tasted watered down. I ate twice as food much as I normally could. I drank twice as much wine as I normally would. Nothing seemed to make even a dent in the void I was feeling.

Needs being met

I was talking to Alex yesterday and noted that I don't seem to have the same drive to date anymore. Not that I'm avoiding opportunities but activities like internet dating don't have the same draw. I pretty much do group activities a couple times a week where I'm meeting up with old friends and making new ones. I'm out at the airport pretty regularly flying or giving instruction. I've been skiing about once a week. Alex noted that "as humans we all have some amount of need for social interaction and it sounds like mine's being met".

I've also recently felt the familiar sense of a phase shift. My trip out to San Diego in late January marked the end of a phase. Maybe I'm not being reflective enough but I wasn't really sure what the phase was about in December/January. These days I do seem to prefer to simply meet new (women) friends rather than have a focus on finding a date.