So I’m driving to Chester Connecticut to attend the grand opening of Montgomery and Taggert, a romance bookstore, opened by two friends who shared a dream, and a love of romance.
I am listening to Lisa Tadeo’s Three Women, preceding watching the show. My goodness I love Shailene Woodley girl next door, but also bad ass! Florence Pugh is also on my radar of late. Reminds me of my childhood best friend, and probably crush although I didn’t realize it at the time.
I am writing this through voice memo, so I will clearly have to edit before posting something much more apt to do these days, than in the past.
The house was a flutter this morning with daughters and boyfriend. Although I am an “empty nester”, I have a very full life, and the birds are often still flocking home on the weekends.
I enjoy the flutter around me, as long as it’s at a measurable volume of course, and I have the option to enter into a quiet space or state at any time.
Wow, I just saw a whole group of bikers and several of them doing wheelies on the opposite side of the highway in oncoming traffic.
I just heard a line in the three women book that I really loved: The hurt doesn’t disappear it changes, it turns the manageable color of a bruise.
Recently in therapy, me being an introvert is being explored. I never would have fancied myself one, and if you had met me when I was younger or seen me in certain situations, you would not think so. But as a matter of fact, I am completely utterly refueled in my alone time.
According to my therapist, this is because I am unable to shut off my natural level of empathy, which pulls me to be considering the emotions, feelings, actions, behaviors, and what have you’s of anyone else within a 10 mile radius.
I am grateful for drives. They seem to be the place other than the shower, where my thoughts can float most clearly to the surface to be communed with.
I was helping twin A find her birth certificate this morning. Little by little my children’s important paperwork dwindles from my folder, and transfers to them. A very tangible piece of evidence of how quickly life is moving.
She was telling me about how she and her boyfriend are preparing to celebrate their fifth anniversary. I asked her if he is her lobster, and jokingly will have to put up with him forever lol. She is hopeful, of course.
And I have definitely learned that the length of a relationship is not nearly as much of a testament of the health of it, as society would celebrate or have us believe. I have allowed that to gaslight me in multiple ways over the years.
I much appreciate Margaret Mead’s quote about having three marriages, and all of them were successful.
I received Matthew Hussey’s Love Life book in the mail two days ago. I am already halfway through it. Lots of great advice whether you are in or out of a relationship at this time. His central thesis is to have the hard conversations versus avoiding them. Now that is something I can really get behind.
It does however fall into the easier said than done category.
So many times I open my blog to make a post because such a startlingly perfect epiphany came to mind. And by the time I open, it like a rare butterfly, it has already passed. I don’t let this stop me from writing any longer. I figure if I go on long enough, it may come back and alight on my shoulder.
You see now that I just named it (the block/ the blank).It came right back. I was going to talk about the ache.
Write to the block. Lean into the ache. Die to the page.
The Ache
And then the energy of that hits and everything just stands still, and I feel heavy like lead.
This is when you have to decide to keep going into it, speak it, explore it or whether you compartmentalize and move about your day.
I am fairly skilled in these options. But it is less easy to decide which one to choose.
This is all I’m going to write for now. I got pretty much the central theme out and I’m going to listen to my audiobook for 27 more minutes until I land in Chester Connecticut. Somewhere I have never been before, a date with myself on the brink of fall in New England.
How lucky am I?
Edit: this is now nighttime and I am home. One hundred pages deep into Book Lovers by Emily Henry. There is no shame in my love of romance. I am happy that was able to be rekindled recently.