Five Million Steps

I haven’t written about something because… I’m actually not quite sure why. Perhaps I thought putting words to it here would make it disappear and I wanted to keep fanning that little flame of happiness. But now it IS over, so I feel empowered to give it an enormous postmortem rumination.

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For eleven years, I knew that Chris was going to almost certainly die before me while the kids were young. That’s a long time to know something awful is going to happen. Still, over those years I had no comprehension of what it would be like once that happened. Of course not, nobody knows what his actual death will be like and nobody knows what it will be like to support someone through that and live on afterward. You cannot prepare.

Or, perhaps I should say it this way - you cannot fully anticipate the pain and, even if you could, you certainly cannot prevent the pain. Even a perfectly timed and executed brace position cannot noticeably soften the impact of a crash landing. There was no way to anticipate the complexity of the many other grief feelings, either. 

Let's talk about waiting. Not the waiting before the death, the waiting after the death.

The heart yearns for what it wants, and so the heart holds out an irrational, steadfast hope that its desire will come back. The heart waits patiently, rhythmically, quietly for a long, long time.

Now the brain is ready to move forward well before the heart, because the brain can absorb information and put pieces together. The brain lectures you that it heard him take his last breath, felt his body turn cold, and saw him being prepared for his final transport. The brain screams at you that he can’t come back, he is not coming back, stop waiting for him to come back!

The brain knows he is gone forever, but the heart… The heart simply cannot believe that he is gone, so it ignores the brain’s exhortations and just keeps quietly, stubbornly waiting.

And so it goes for weeks and months, there is a constant state of waiting. Finally, the brain gets tired of it and wants something, anything, to happen; the brain decides to DO SOMETHING! to shock the heart into a different rhythm.

The brain makes you compose an online dating profile about 14 months into this new life…

Yes you, the eternal nerd, the 42-year-old, style-less tomboy with white streaked hair. You spend about five minutes on it because it seems stupid and futile. Who would want you? Is there anyone out there worth trying to find? Let’s get this over with and then laugh about the horror later.

You post some pictures, write some vague description of yourself while trying not to put identifying information in it, answer silly questions, and then you are live on the app. The next step, swipe right on the guys with profiles you like and left on the losers. This feels awful. What’s worse? People are also judging you in a five (or fewer) second appraisal.

I hid in the bathroom and scrolled through guys. No way, no, ok fine maybe, yes, yes, no, no way, oh why would you post that no way, maybe yes, no, no, yes. Left, left, right, right, left, left, right, left, left…

Oh, so now you’ve matched with a bunch of people, nothing will happen until you message them. Here goes… It was all confusing to me. I put time and thought into my little messages, and many people don’t write back??? I was flummoxed and annoyed.

About 12 hours into it, I saw a profile that interested me more than others. Everything about it was great. The picture was normal and showed a nice-looking guy, a scientist from the Midwest who loves dogs and believes that kindness is important. We matched. I wrote him a short, casual message emphasizing our commonalities. He wrote back and I was kind of excited. It was easy to write back. He replied. We went back and forth numerous times and found that we had a lot of additional things in common. We exchanged pictures of our dogs. One of my friends who became my online dating coach suggested meeting any prospects relatively early, so I decided to take an upfront approach. On a weekend morning while drinking my coffee, I sat for a minute and closed my eyes, then opened them and typed the following message:

“Hey GUY, I’ve had fun chatting with you and I’d be interested in meeting up. However, I just want you to know that I’m single because I’m widowed and I have two kids that I’m solo in charge of. It’s not a standard situation so it’s totally okay if you’d rather not.”

My brain forced me to send it… Nothing ventured, nothing gained. GUY deserves to know what my deal is and I needed to stop waiting. I could perhaps make something new happen.

Unbelievably, GUY was in!

Oh crap. What have I done??? What if he is a serial killer? Have I rushed this? I entered serious internet sleuth mode. I found him after quite a bit of effort. He had represented himself honestly and he seemed like a decent person from what I found. Also, he agreed to meet me during the day near where he worked so I probably wouldn’t get abducted. Still, I was freaking out.

The day of the first meeting, I dressed carefully. I did not wear the chain with our wedding bands, but instead wore a decorative necklace for the first time in forever. I also brought a bunch of silly things to work to make sure I could slip into the restroom to fix myself up and look as good as said 42-year-old tomboy can. I almost vomited as I drove over to the meeting place; I considered not showing, but that would be rude and he had been kind. I texted a friend to let her know where I was and waited for him.

I saw him from a distance. He looked kind. I’m not entirely certain about this, but I think he knew I was extremely nervous and he made me feel at ease. We had coffee and talked for about an hour. It was a remarkable conversation, there were no awkward pauses and not much surface chit-chat. We talked about things that matter to each other, some of them quite personal. At the end, we exchanged real phone numbers and a hug. I thanked him for making my first experience with online dating a positive one and he said he had a good time, too. I walked to my car with a goofy smile on my face, texted my friend that I was safe, and drove home. I wasn’t sure if this would go anywhere, but I was happy to have connected with my kind of person and was also super proud of myself.

Later, GUY texted to say that he’d had a nice time and would enjoy seeing me again. We made plans for a week later. We messaged quite a lot in the meantime, then that day came and it was also very nice. We walked our dogs together at my favorite off-leash place a few days after that. We always had plenty to talk about. We took it slow and I was so grateful to him for that, this was all so new to me. We kept messaging and were getting to know each other.

And then… It became clear that the coronavirus was going to change life drastically. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to carry on with this, see where it would go, but we had to be safe. Messages were the main form of communication. Both GUY and I kept reaching out to the other. I honestly think we both liked the other but were not sure if that was like as in friend, or like as in potential relationship. (Sounds a bit like middle school, doesn’t it?)

We kept each other company, virtually, through many weeks of lockdown. We expanded from messages and used FaceTime, Skype, and emails, too. We shared some online events together, talked a ton, and truly let each other “in,” or at least I did. We saw each other only briefly in person, distantly, from time to time. If I went to the store, I would see if he needed anything and drop items off, a few times enjoying minutes of chatting outdoors. He brought me milk to stretch my time between grocery trips. As time went on, we went for a few socially distant walks with masks and dogs.

It was honestly a beautiful coronavirus companionship.

Still, I wondered if GUY liked me. (Told you this was middle schoolish.) I think that’s to be expected, though, we met on a dating app after all. I valiantly tried to figure it out but couldn’t find an unambiguous answer. Perhaps there was no answer to be found due to the crazy circumstances; we had not spent enough time together in person for either of us to know about the prospects of a real relationship.

As the state began to open up, we decided to meet up a few times. We had fun and talked easily, but in making plans and spending some hours together in person, our differences came into sharp focus. I’m not a logistically easy person to date in my new normal life but without school, babysitters and playdates, forget about it. Plus, parenting grieving children and trying to date is terribly hard. GUY was understanding, truly he is kind. It just forced us to see these and other differences between us. We both genuinely cared for the other, but a romantic relationship is not in the cards. We amicably broke things off a few days ago.

My heart is sad for this loss, but my brain knows it was 100% the right thing to do for both of us.

Did you catch that? My heart noticed GUY; my heart knew it wasn’t Chris and still warmed to GUY. It’s too soon to say whether the needle was moved on the waiting front, but this is monumental.

Oh, but the fallout is interesting… Missing those messages from GUY, new waves of grief for Chris, nothing to look forward to with certainty. Happily, though, my brain is not screaming anymore.

No, my brain is being gentle with my heart now. See, heart? Chris is gone. He is gone, but there are many people in your life, old and new, who have shown you incredible love and care. Some will stay and some cannot. You have to see now that your life is far from over.

My heart replies that goodbyes are too hard, the sadness seems worse now, it doesn’t know what to do.

My brain assures my heart that it does know what to do, for didn’t the greatest loss already occur and yet I’m still here? Didn’t I begin to survive without Chris by first releasing his icy, motionless hand and taking one step away from his lifeless body, then another, then leaving that room?

That is what you already did here, says the brain. You said goodbye, ended the call, and took one step away, then another. You are on your way. You can look back and see everything at first, so do it if you must. Smile over the good times, learn from the mistakes, shake your head at the pandemic puzzlement, be grateful for the incredible personal growth that this experience generated. With more steps and time, this person will become more distant and that’s sad, but he is not dead. He can still be a friend.  

You know you will make it through, says my brain. You know this because you’ve taken at least five million steps away from Chris and you’ve taken at least eight million breaths since his last, and somehow you are still moving, still breathing, still living. Look how far you have come. Just look! You are truly a different person now, better in many ways. Chris would be proud of you, he really would.

Keep taking steps, keep breathing, keep going, keep growing, keep trying, keep loving, says my brain.

Eventually the people and things you have to leave but still care about are out of sight, but the brain won’t forget the important things and neither will the heart – kindness, life lessons, love.

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This experience constituted HUGE leaps among those five million steps of my new life. I never thought my heart would be ready for anyone but Chris, but my brain was right. The whole of me was ready to add someone to my life.

I also never thought that anyone available on the internet would be my type of person or entertain the thought of me, but I was wrong about that, too. What started as a cynical experiment turned into a worthwhile experience. GUY was special and worth my time. GUY also showed me many things about myself and kept me company through what would have been a terribly isolated time. I am so grateful to him for what we shared. He will never know how far he launched me down the road to acceptance, belief in myself, and a full embrace of my new life. I hope that I provided something to him in return, some laughs on lonely lockdown days and maybe a boost to his confidence that someone found him interesting.

It won’t be easy to find a new partner and I may never be successful. But oh, I long for connection and companionship. I will try again.

The first step is behind me, and taking that first step is always the hardest part.