I had met a man while I was still married and working at a massage therapy school. We instantly had chemistry and had the most fascinating conversation about everything from Nirvana to Bernie Sanders. He was younger than me…much younger…20 years younger. He was jealous that I had seen Nirvana and I was jealous that he had the guts to backpack to California and Mexico at the age of 19 and seemed to have lived at least 4 of my lifetimes by the time he was 21. While he was a student we had brief conversations here and there, and after a few months, I left that job and I heard that he left school soon after due to some family issues that needed his attention.
We followed each other on Facebook and commented here and there, but a few months later he texted me out of the blue to ask if I was going to be at concert that he at. That began months of texting and a couple of meet ups for drinks and conversation. When my marriage was over, we met for drinks and began the most surprising and amazing love affair that I could imagine. I had never felt the things that he made me feel. I had never experienced that overwhelming, passionate, “they make movies about this kind of love” love before, and it was just that-overwhelming. He told me that he had been in love with me since the day we met. He wanted to spend his life with me. He said things that I had only fantasized about hearing a man say to me. The fact that he was younger than me, gorgeous, could have anyone he wanted, and had his whole life ahead of him, made me suspicious – why is he spending his time with me? So I asked him: “Why do you want to be with me?”
He began to tell me all the reasons he wanted to be with me. And for the first time in my life I had someone see me. Really see me. See the things that I didn’t like about myself as interesting and powerful. See the strength that I had as something rare and amazing. See my age as a benefit, not a curse. He didn’t see me as broken, or damaged. It was my scars that made me beautiful. To finally have someone treat me as if he had found a treasure was unnerving. It was unexpected to find this depth in someone relatively young, and to this day, I still find it difficult to believe everything he says about me. But the scars aren’t so fresh anymore, and the tremendous self doubt is ebbing, and I’m starting to believe.
Beginning a new life with someone so amazing was exciting and scary and at times uncertain. I had already told him that I may be unable to have children, so if that is something he couldn’t live without, he needed to be honest with me and with himself. I had someone take the choice to have children away from me, and I found it hard to forgive. I didn’t want to be the reason for a sense of loss or missing out or pain, down the road. He assured me that he was ok with not having children and floated the idea of possibly adopting someday. And then he said something that would be prophetic-“maybe you weren’t the reason you didn’t get pregnant. And maybe if it’s right, you’ll get pregnant.” I blew that idea off, but the thought was now in my head. Maybe it wasn’t me that was “broken”. Maybe we could have a child. Maybe.
We moved in together and reveled in our new life together. He met my family and friends-who loved him- and he went back to finish massage therapy school. We started to think about trips we wanted to go on and goals we had for the future. Then on Mother’s Day 2018, Kevin and I got the surprise of our lives and EVERYTHING changed.
LUNAR PHASES 