Soul Mosaic

Why Waste Time?

One thing Ed and I are compatible about is that when we have decided to do something, we just get to it. No point in taking our time. So we were engaged in November 1987, and we got married in February 1988. Not a lot of time to plan a wedding, but then, we were both quiet and private people. It would be a small wedding – about 25 people. Very close family, and a couple of friends.

I got to work with the arrangements. Unlike all of my family, who were married by my uncle, a priest, we were to be married by the local Congregational minister, in a French restaurant named “Apricots,” which overlooked the river in Farmington. The vows would be said upstairs in the bar room, and the dinner would be in the large dining room right across the hall.

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The man at Apricots was efficient. I wanted a string quartet to play chamber music, especially Mozart. He arranged for that through the University of Hartford music school. I wanted a small cake, with the top layer being carrot cake – Ed’s favorite. Done. He arranged for the flowers. We picked out the meal. He had a photographer. I arranged for a picture with my grandmother the day of the wedding. She was living in a convalescent home near me, so Ed and I would stop there first, before the wedding, on our way to the restaurant.

Other than carrot cake, Ed’s one request was that the printed invitations be “engraved.” That is the method of printing raised-letter invitations using custom-made metal plates. That seemed like a beautiful idea so I found a printer to do that for us.

We splurged on our honeymoon and arranged for a 10-day Caribbean cruise, something extremely exotic for both of us. I took care of getting all the paperwork for the licenses, camera equipment we would take, and made sure we both had our passports ready.

The dress

Given the situation with my family, I shopped for my dress alone. That had some sad feelings. It is usually a big thing with mothers and daughters, bridesmaids, and friends. But that was not to be.

I didn’t want the expensive, fancy wedding gown. Remembering how my grandmother’s wedding picture showed her in a tea-length dress, I opted for that approach. While “fashion” was not my strong suit, I went to the nicest shop in town and eventually found an ivory, tea-length dress – understated elegance in my opinion. And as for attendants’ dresses, I wanted to keep it inexpensive. So I told them to wear a nice dress of their own.

The day arrives

Ed’s job, which was demanding, kept him at work late. He didn’t get home until 2:00 a.m. the morning of our wedding. As we dressed, I asked him if this one time, he would iron his shirt…never a thing he cared about. I promised I would never ask again and would even bury him in a wrinkled shirt. He laughed and complied.

It had snowed the day before, so wearing my wedding dress and dark boots, we headed to my grandmother’s convalescent home. She was ready and waiting, along with the photographer, and was all smiles. The people there even made sure to do her hair for the picture.

While the plan was to have the ceremony, then open the bar, I took one look around all the tense faces and told the host, “Open the bar.”

He looked at me, shocked, and said, “Before the wedding?!”

With no hesitation, I told him, “Open the bar. Give everyone a drink, and then we’ll get married.” It was the best decision. Suddenly, everyone seemed to relax and started chatting and smiling like they were sitting in a friend’s living room instead of a restaurant. In fact, one of my relatives, after the ceremony, joked that if church was more like this, he’d go more often!

In spite of our history, my father walked me up to the minister. I had been attending the local Congregational church in Torrington, and he was very happy to officiate at our wedding.

Pina coladas in the sunshine

Even though another snowstorm was due, we managed to make our early Sunday morning flight out of Connecticut before it hit. We landed in Miami and were transported to the pier by the cruise line representative. Everything for the next ten days would be taken care of for us. No logistics. Only choices: what drinks did we want, what food would we choose, what port tours would we take.

Waiting for the ship to depart, we sat out on deck, soaking up warm sunshine — such a switch from the gray snow-covered landscape we left a few hours ago.

It was absolutely perfect. Warm. Calm. With my best friend. Sipping pina coladas. Honeymoons are funny in that they are both a celebration of where you’ve come to in life, as well as the “calm before the storm” of life. And there are even moments that remind you this is a temporary bit of paradise. One morning, a few days later, I looked over at Ed and suddenly thought, “I just committed the rest of my life to him!” It wasn’t regret. Just the full impact and importance of what I’d just done. And the morning in the shower, when Ed’s brand-new wedding band, still with a sharp edge, cut his nose as he washed his face. He had that same moment of, “So…is this marriage?”

But at that moment, sitting there with the drink in my hand, I was totally relaxed. I leaned my head back to feel the sun on my face while soft music played in the background, and I recall the sudden thought that flashed in my mind, “How long will life let us be this peaceful before something disturbs it?”

The answer was, Not long. The period of peaceful fun was about to switch gears.

Meanwhile, in the rest of my life…

If my life from 1983 through the summer of 1986 had been a non-stop Nor’easter of a storm, the next two years, by comparison, were more like the calm of a tropical Caribbean paradise.

Regarding work, while I continued my efforts to sell articles and read more books on how to write effectively, my switch to the evening shift and working in the other lab departments was a major improvement. While still a struggle at times, the change offered different co-workers, more variety as every week I worked a different department of the lab, and growing confidence. By getting back out into all the other lab departments, I had a chance to reinforce my knowledge and thus, feel much more skilled at my work.

Hobby-wise, I continued to paint as well as explore other mediums, such as pen-and-ink, charcoal, and watercolor washes. And business-wise, I took the opportunity to refinance my condo mortgage when a better interest-rate was available.

For the moment, my parents were still away, living in Texas, where my father’s job had taken him. That was a relief for me. I could explore my feelings about them in therapy, as well as slowly learn about boundaries and effective ways to live, without the pressure of having them nearby. I will also confess, I didn’t know what I felt about them. A few friends were losing parents, some way too young. And parents whom they loved deeply and had good relationships with. They struggled with why their parents had been taken away. I was struggling with why did I have mine, who had been nothing but pain. Why were mine healthy and alive when I wished to be free of them, and others, who still wanted their parents with them, lost them?

And God? I was still pretty angry at God. For sure, I had no use for any form of organized religion, and I kept God at arm’s length. But…there was a longing for some kind of spirituality. I wasn’t quite ready to delve deeply. But it was there, gnawing at the back of my brain. I just sort of kept the whole area “on ice.”

That said, I was finding a way to be more comfortable with “leaving religion” as an open question to be explored “later.” And now and then, I would open a bit to God. But if there was a relationship wall up at that point, it was with God.

And About Ed…

Here, life was good. Once we got back together, we stayed together. Weekend visits, trips camping in Vermont. Visits to museums and Boston. It was great. He even started accompanying me on Sunday morning breakfast visits to see my great aunt. She was the aunt who had lived on the third floor of my grandfather’s house. She was now living in a senior apartment building. And I had continued to bring her the Sunday paper, and she would make breakfast. I sensed her growing approval of Ed.

One Sunday when he wasn’t with me, she gently asked questions.

“Is he older than you?”

Even though Ed was almost 4 years younger than me, since he was mostly bald, I knew that was why she asked that. So I told her that no, he was actually younger. She seemed pleased,

“Has he been married before?”

I could see growing interest and approval when I answered, “No.”

So, she went for one more:

“Is he Catholic?”

I wasn’t sure how my 84-year-old, Slovak, Catholic aunt would respond to this one, but I said, “No.”

She seemed to consider this for a moment, but then must have decided that “2 out of 3” was good enough. So she always set a place for him at breakfast after that.

Another time, he and I spent a spring Sunday morning exploring a local greenhouse. I checked out the herb plants while describing the herb bed I’d had at home, which I missed. And then there were the concrete bird baths. I had indulged in bird feeders at my condo, and was learning to identify all the different breeds.

Later that week, I came home to a message from him that told me to look on my back deck. There, waiting for me, was the unique leaf-shaped bird bath I’d been admiring that day at the greenhouse. Apparently, after finishing up a job with a software client, he drove across the state to that greenhouse, bought the bird bath, and set it up on my deck – a surprise for me.

He treated me like gold and told me I was “precious.” Every time he would say that, though, I would recoil. I found it impossible to take in that level of honoring. I wasn’t ready yet…and wouldn’t be able to hear that word about me for decades. In fact, only now. But still he kept saying it, and has always meant it.

Metal gas cans, control issues, and “tough trees”

One of the things about crafting a life after being so controlled and abused is that I never wanted to be controlled like that again. So the pendulum swings to the other side for a while. Frankly, even now that pendulum is still moderating. So I have my forceful “declarations” about things and my quirks. Ed will just nod and accept it without interfering. One of the things that has always been a gift is his ability to let me work it out my way, no matter how hard-headed I am about something.

He one time observed that, “When you decide to do something a certain way, there is no deterring you. You will insist on going directly through a brick wall and will pound your head against it until your head is a bloody pulp, before you will finally decide to take the easier way, get up, and walk around it.”

And…he is right. I have mellowed over the years, but I am still struggling. Another time, he noted that when Olivia Newton-John did her song, “Have You Never Been Mellow,” she did a special version for me entitled: “You Have NEVER Been Mellow!”

It is one of my scars, one I keep trying to ease. But he has never tried to control me, and gives me a lot of rope. That said, he does have his line in the sand, and I know where it is and respect it. When he has had enough about something, I don’t push him.

Regarding “outbursts,” I decided one day I needed to get a gas can for my car. Remembering my escapade in Litchfield when I purposely ran out of gas, I’d been meaning to pick one up. I knew exactly the kind I wanted — one of those heavy-duty, solid metal gas cans. The REAL type of gas can. Metal. But all I could find were plastic ones. I came home in a rage, venting about the demise of a society that no longer offered decent, real, METAL gas cans. That is now a joke between us, and even with my friends. They all know that when I am serious about getting the “proper, well-made” type of item, whatever it is, it has to be a “metal-gas-cans” quality object! And yes, years later, I finally found one…and it leaked! But I did eventually find another one that is solid and doesn’t leak.

Ed’s sense of humor extended to the “control issues,” such as leftovers in the refrigerator or other things I didn’t want to deal with. I would just ignore them until the item rotted, or whatever it was, no longer needed my attention. One day, he left a note on a very old “something” in the refrigerator: “Is this a control issue?”

And he never said anything about the Christmas tree I destroyed by leaving it in the cold garage for a week without water. When he came over and saw it, he asked carefully, “Shouldn’t it be in water?”

I dismissed the question with a cursory, “It’s cold out here. It’s tough. It can take it!” A completely idiotic response, yes. Just because it was cold, that didn’t negate its need for water to stay fresh. And of course, when I did pick up the tree to bring it into the condo, all the needles dropped to the ground like an extreme “Charlie-Brown” tree. He just smiled and then came with me to get a new one. My “It’s-tough-it can take it” comment is another family joke to this day.

He also never said anything about my bumper sticker then, which said, “If you don’t like the way I drive, stay off the sidewalk.” Nor did he lecture me about the speeding tickets, though I still think it was a dirty trick that the state was using snow plows and confiscated Corvettes as the “speed traps.” But all joking aside, yes, there was that sense of rebellion at anything “thwarting” my wishes. Not an attitude I recommend, and one I’ve spent a lifetime trying to heal. I’ll speak more about that later in terms of what I understand now.

My dogs – two small poodles – seemed to accept him. Well, one accepted him. The other battled him for the “alpha male” role.

My mother and the “pissing contest”

By the summer of 1987, Ed moved in with me. We had decided to give things a try at the “next level.” We were still pretty independent in our activities at times. In fact, the weekend he moved in with me, I was away with friends. Looking back, I know that while we had come a long way in bonding, I still needed “space.” But he was fine with that. And where intimacy was concerned, he accepted my boundaries and didn’t “push” if I needed space there, too.

My male dog, on the other hand, was not pleased that Ed moved in. In fact, one night, he resorted to a literal “pissing contest.” Ed was reading in the living room and heard “water running.” He looked up to see my male dog staring him down while he marked his territory right on the living room rug. Needless to say, it was the first of more than one tense moment where Ed had to get down at eye level and let my dog know who was the “top dog.” The other dog was a happy-go-lucky female who just reveled in running around and playing. She didn’t care who was there.

And then there was my mother. My parents returned to Connecticut in late 1986 or 87. Though they never lived in Torrington again, they were in an apartment in Farmington. When she heard that Ed had moved in with me, aside from telling my sister that she hoped Ed and I weren’t sleeping together, she asked me if I did that “on purpose.”

What she meant was that my missionary uncle was visiting for a month right at that time, and she considered my timing to have Ed move in to be an affront to them both. Frankly, it had never even occurred to me. But, at least she didn’t have to be “shamed” by my living in sin too long.

“Happy Birthday”

By the fall of 1987, we were moving toward making our arrangement “permanent.” We even looked at a few rings. One November weekend, right around my birthday, Ed approached me with a small box and, on bended knee, asked me to be his wife.

The ring was beautiful. He had gone to the diamond district in Boston, where he worked with a man to select the stone and a setting. That was so him. Unique. Special. Full of heart and thought.

With no hesitation, and full of love and certainty, I said, “Yes.”

It may have taken me a long time to commit. But once I committed, it would be for good. And that was going to be necessary for the challenges and blessings we would face in the next many years.

Looking like crap

I remember being very uptight waiting for Ed to arrive at my condo that Saturday morning. For sure, I had no idea how he would react to what I was going to share. I kept rehearsing things in my head for different ways to tell my story. But in the end, there was only one way — just put it out there…and hope he wouldn’t leave.

If that wasn’t bad enough, there was how I looked. I had spent the previous day at the shore and had a bad sunburn. Not just on my skin, but my lips. So on this, the very day I wanted to look my best as I delivered the hardest news, instead, I now had fever blisters all over my lips.

I just remember looking in the mirror and thinking, Oh great! The hardest conversation of my life, and I look like crap. So on top of what I have to tell him, now he’ll also think I’m diseased and ugly! How can this possibly go well?

When he got there, I immediately explained what had happened and how frustrated I felt. That whole “we finally get together after months, and I look like crap.”

True to that good heart of his, he laughed and acknowledged the irony of it all. He wasn’t disturbed by my poor sunburned lips. In fact, I remember him saying that it was good to be back at my condo.

So about your request that morning…

A lot of that day is almost a blank in my memory. Nervous tension, I guess. I have a vague recollection of sitting across the table from him. And of reminding him of his request on our second date: “So tell me about you! I want to know who you are.”

At that point, I remember taking a deep breath, and then I just “jumped off the dock into the deep water, hoping for the best.” I laid out for him why I had been unwilling to answer him, or to let him close. And I told him all I could think of about the abuse up to that point.

He sat there quietly and listened. I give him credit because he didn’t bolt. He heard me out. I think we went out for supper or something. Again, I think I was so drained from the stress of it all, I cannot remember.

Ed did tell me more recently that it did take him a bit to process what I shared. It was not a given that he would stay. But, in the end, he came back. Again. And again… for which I am eternally grateful.

Could a “normal life” yet be possible?

I was really sad that Ed had chosen to move on from our relationship. I kept wondering why he couldn’t have given me just more time. But…he wanted serious. I was terrified and just didn’t know WHAT I wanted. So, I guess I could understand. With reluctance, I returned to the dating service.

The real estate guy

Well, he was actually a high school history teacher in another town, but his real passion was real estate. He bought a house, fixed it up on his weekends, then flipped it for a profit. I don’t know if it was lucrative or not for him. If it was, he certainly didn’t spend it on dates or outings. We mostly just met up at the local diner or another fast-food type of place, ate, and argued.

I didn’t invite him over. He didn’t invite me over. Frankly, it was not that kind of relationship, at least to me. And…after the breakup with Ed, I wasn’t really in that place anyway. But, he was company.

He told me he liked me because I argued with him. I remember shaking my head at that. But we did argue. A lot of the things he said I just didn’t agree with and told him so. That apparently intrigued him. I just remember him as a decent person, hard-working, who didn’t share much about his life other than about his houses, which he was always working on. Sometimes I wondered if he had a secret family. But we would have dinner now and then, as I wondered if he would ever share more about himself.

One day, he called and said he wanted to share something special with me. We met up by the airport near Hartford, as that was central for us, then he said he would drive me to the place he wanted to show me. It was a nice afternoon, so I enjoyed the ride while we argued some more.

I expected we were going somewhere in Hartford, but after about a half an hour or so, I realized we were still going. Finally, we got to Middletown, and while I still wasn’t worried, I was now a bit more alert.

In fact, as we got off the highway, I thought of Ed. Right before we broke up, he had moved to Middletown – bought himself a condo there. As we drove into town, I thought that if I needed help, I knew I could call him, even though we weren’t together anymore. No matter what his situation was, he would help if I needed him. I knew that heart of his.

We headed down one of the main streets, past the playhouse on the Connecticut River. That’s when we turned off onto a side road, then down a quiet road with only a couple of houses on it. It was getting dark now, and I noticed that the last house on that road had its outside light on, though no one seemed home. Suddenly, I was getting uneasy. Unless we were visiting someone here, there didn’t seem to be any other destination around. My hand went to the car door handle.

Passing the last house, we turned down a dirt road on the right. I gripped the door handle and looked back to see where I could run for help. At the same time, the voice in my head was screaming: HOW could you be so stupid?! When you read about finding women dead, THIS is how it happened!

At that moment, he stopped the car, looked out toward the empty woods and the river in the distance, and said, “This is the saddest place in my life.”

The voice in my head responded with Oh great! Is this where he buries the bodies?

I was about to bolt from the car when he added:

“I had a chance to buy this piece of property, and I blew it.”

Property…real estate. I should have known it wouldn’t be about a woman.

He then drove the rest of the way down the road to the brightly lit parking lot of a marina. Apparently, he kept his boat there and wanted to show me.

It had all been truly innocent. This man, who never spoke much about himself, finally decided to open up to me and show his passion for the river, his boat, and how he longed to buy a piece of land and build himself a house on the river.

I was drained and shaking, and must have looked pale because he said to me, “Are you okay?”

When I told him what I was thinking as we drove down the dirt path, he was horrified and realized how scary this must have been for me. We laughed it off, and I calmed down. But if we looked at his boat, I can’t remember it.

We drifted apart after that. He was busy. I moved on. A little over a year later, I did get a phone call from him asking how I was and if I wanted to get together. I thanked him, but by then I was engaged — something I’ll get to shortly. He sounded truly sad. Offering congratulations, he told me that if things didn’t work out, to give him a call. I thanked him and wished him well. I do hope he found someone who was equally passionate about boats, rivers, and real estate.

The true gentleman

About the same time, a coworker fixed me up with a friend of hers. He was a really nice man, very kind. And I liked him very much. It had been a few months since my breakup with Ed, and I decided to try to be with someone again.

We went to his home, and things started gently and very nicely. But that voice in my head spoke up. It and my gut declared, This is wrong. I don’t want this.

I hadn’t expected that response in me. He was a nice man, we liked each other, and I wasn’t trying to lead him on. It’s just that in that moment I knew…I wasn’t that person anymore. I didn’t want “light and fun.”

Apologizing profusely, I told him I truly had wanted to be with him, but it just felt like this was the wrong thing to do.

To this day, I will be very grateful to that man. He was a true gentleman. You hear so often about date rape. And I certainly had put myself at risk without intending to. But he was truly gracious. I hope the Universe gave him someone who could bring him the happiness he deserved.

The dream…

The last straw after these two experiences was the dream. In it, I was about to get married. I was standing at the altar, about to say “I do,” even though I didn’t really want to be there. It seemed to be more a situation of “someone asked, and I said yes.” So I went ahead and said “I do.”

At that very moment in the dream, I looked across the room from the altar, and there stood Ed. Heartbreak and pain seared through me as my brain screamed: What have I done?! I’ve just made the biggest mistake of my life, and it’s too late!

I remember waking up still feeling that terror, and I was so relieved to know it was just a dream.

The most carefully worded card ever…

Very shortly after this, I was riding with a friend somewhere and shared these three almost simultaneous experiences. I lamented about how I wished I hadn’t been so afraid of getting serious with Ed, and how much I missed him.

She said the most useful one line in my life: “Why don’t you write to him?”

I had not considered that. I assumed he had written me off and moved on to someone else. But…what could it hurt to send a simple hello card?

Ed would later tell me that when he got the card, he read my note several times, trying so hard to glean any sense of what I was feeling. But he said it was the most carefully worded card ever, and so he just had to take it at face value and decide – should he contact me or not?

I had written it very carefully because I didn’t know if he was in a relationship, and I didn’t want to create a problem. But I held my breath, hoping desperately that, unlike my dream, I wasn’t too late.

To my greatest surprise, relief, and gratitude, he replied. I asked him to come to my condo to talk.

I had decided. My background was the real block between us. I had kept up my wall so that I would never have to share my story with anyone. But that wall had broken us apart. I was tired of running.

So. He had wanted to know who I was?

Well, maybe he would run, or maybe he would stay. But whatever his decision, it was time for me to take a risk and tell the whole story…

Those walls

Not long after that trip, we met up another weekend. He knew that night in Boston that I didn’t respond well to his declaration of love for me. I had explained it simply as I just needed to go slowly.

We stood outside his apartment one evening. He looked at me with such kindness and said, “I want to help you take down your walls.”

In my mind, the answer was instantaneous. Oh hell no, I thought. I just got my life under control.

The struggle as I stood there? Before me stood the kindest …truest heart… and one that I knew had been hurt by others. I did NOT want to hurt him…I could walk away from others, but …he was different. Yet I couldn’t risk upsetting the stability that I had just obtained.

“Couldn’t we just keep it fun and light, no serious ties?”

We met again for dinner at that “family-style restaurant” where I again tried to explain why I didn’t want to get serious. He listened. He was very quiet.

That January, not long after that night, we met on a weekend morning in Torrington. At a diner…which was just across the street from the Burger King parking lot, the parking lot he met up with me the first time he came to Torrington.

Looking at me with what seemed a mixture of sadness yet acceptance, he told me he was setting me free. He could see that I didn’t want to get serious, and he understood. Then he wished me well and took his leave.

I sat there thinking…But…but…

Looking back on that time from now, I feel such pain in my heart. True pain. For the hurt he felt. For the place I was still in, full of fear, yet not wanting to be apart.

Sniffing bags in the garage

We stood together, hunched over the trunk of his car in the Boston parking garage, sniffing the aromas of various white bags.

Closing up the bags, I said to Ed, “You know. This looks bad, us standing here sniffing all these bags. Anyone watching us would think we had something more interesting than coffee here!”

We both laughed, and one of us commented that while freshly ground coffee smelled great, it was too bad it didn’t taste just as good when you brewed it.

Given that Christmas was only a few weeks off, the coffees were gifts for several of our friends. This was an era before local coffee shops, so it was a rare opportunity to find so many exotic and flavored beans in the stalls of Quincy Market.

The first weekend away

Ed had been up in Boston all that week and the next for a software training conference. Since he was already there in a hotel, he invited me to join him for a weekend in Boston. That was the first time I’d ever spent a weekend away in a hotel with someone I was dating. Yet again, I felt no worries. Just excited to spend time with him and explore Boston. Between shopping, museums, and restaurants, we were having a great time.

In fact, that whole fall, getting together with Ed on weekends had been such a joyful time. We both loved food and history, went to museums, went horseback riding, and took walks in local nature parks. Sounds just like one of those classified ads. But truly, no matter where we went or what we did, being with him was peaceful and fun.

We kept finding that we had so much in common. And he respected my wishes. Some weekends, I didn’t want intimacy, just companionship. And he never pushed. I was always amazed that a man could actually accept and respect boundaries, ESPECIALLY around sex. So it made perfect sense that I was totally at ease going away with him.

Anyway, later that particular Saturday afternoon, done with shopping and frozen from the biting cold, we started back to the parking garage. Winding our way from Quincy Market, we turned down North Street, trying to get out of the wind. We suddenly found ourselves in the middle of a farmer’s market. Booths of fresh vegetables and all kinds of foods lined both sides of the street, and people packed the street. Vendors stood around 50-gallon drums that served as makeshift fireplaces, which we gladly made use of ourselves. In spite of the cold, it was a special moment. Just a small little world of its own, tucked into the middle of this bustling city.

Continuing down the street from one fire barrel to another, we turned down a side alley and headed toward a large intersection that turned out to be Union Street. There on the corner was this most amazing seafood restaurant in an old brick building — The Union Oyster House. Apparently, it is now a National Historic Landmark and has been a restaurant since 1826. In fact, according to the sign there, Daniel Webster used to spend many a night at its oyster bar, downing “a brandy and water with each half-dozen oysters, seldom having less than six plates.”

Absolute perfection

Between the charm and ambiance of the old brick building, its history, and the fact that it featured the freshest of seafood, not to mention that it looked incredibly WARM, we went in. And it was better than we dreamed.

The crowd inside generated a warmth that immediately started thawing our frozen faces. People were jammed everywhere, especially surrounding the wooden oyster bar. The old dark wood of its base supported a display that was mounded with piles of fresh oysters half-buried in ice, and surrounded with barstools. If only the place could talk, what stories it could tell. History just oozed from every wooden panel, and I half expected to see the ghost of Daniel Webster sitting there amongst the crowd.

The hostess took us up past the second-floor level that was filled with dark bench tables to a booth on the third floor. It was a bit quieter up there, so we could actually chat and hear each other. It was like stepping back in time to another world. Dimmed lights. Wooden booths and floors. Parchment-type menus. And the dinner itself. Warm drinks. Thick clam chowder. Baked stuffed lobster. And us. A moment of heaven on earth.

And then…

After dinner, with stomachs full and bodies warmed, we strolled back out into the cold and ended up inside a little bar called Frogg Lane, which is long-since gone. But that night we sat there bundled up and indulged in hot chocolate spiked with peppermint schnapps, and topped with Creme de Menthe-drizzled whipped cream. The night was absolute perfection. And then…he said it….

“I love you.”

And I quietly freaked out inside myself.

So, this is Torrington…

As he shared with me later, Ed’s “auspicious” introduction to my hometown was watching a fist fight in the Burger King parking lot while he waited for me to come by. I think that left him wondering just a bit what he was getting himself into. But again, he stayed.

I had invited him to come to Torrington for our second date, and rather than struggle with convoluted directions to a restaurant or my condo, I told him I’d meet him at that parking lot. It was right where the road from West Hartford came into town, and thus, the easiest way to manage things in the “pre-GPS” era.

Our first date at that “family-style restaurant” had actually gone…wonderfully. Beyond my wildest dreams. At least I thought so. We spent several hours at the restaurant, talking the whole time. Everything from our childhoods and jobs, to hobbies and life dreams. I shared my longings to be a writer and all my attempts to get that going. He spoke with excitement about all the exciting new computer technology he was getting exposed to, and all the unusual installations he visited to solve software issues. And this time, I was fascinated. Here was a computer person who could not only express what he loved about the digital world, but also explain intricate topics like he was telling a story.

It was just…easy, comfortable, safe. I couldn’t give you scientific evidence why. But my gut said so in spades. I’d never felt so in sync with another human before, like I did with him. So it was a no-brainer for me to invite him over when he asked about getting together again sometime. And we made that sometime, soon.

“So tell me about you”

The question was filled with genuine, kind curiosity.

“I want to know who you are.”

I rolled over, climbed out of bed, and said, “You don’t want to know who I am. Let’s go out for breakfast!” Heading out into the sunny day seemed like the best way to dodge deep questions.

Emotions swirled through me. I had never allowed any man to stay overnight at my condo before. If I invited anyone over, they had to leave afterward. Nobody got to stay over. And it’s not that I did that very much, anyway. And even then, it was only the gentle, sensitive types. Macho types could take a hike. I’d join a convent first before I’d give one of them the time of day. But no matter what, no one got to stay overnight.

However, this man? I never even hesitated to consider the question. He was such peaceful company, a sensitive person — I could feel that on a deep gut level — and just a fun person to spend time with and talk to. And he was an amazing lover. So I was both drawn to him and wary. That latter part was because I had the uncomfortable sense that this was a man I would not be able to easily walk away from. Not like the others. I intuitively knew that a gentle heart like his shouldn’t be trifled with.

The other men I had dated, I always kept up a wall between us. No matter how nice they were, I wasn’t going to get deeply involved. I wanted to remain in control and comfortable enough to walk away if they got too serious. I didn’t want to hurt anyone, but I wasn’t going to give up the freedom and relative stability I’d finally achieved for the upheaval of adding someone to my carefully arranged life. As far as I was concerned, I was content to keep things light, free, and fun. I would be happy with a long-term setup like that. A way to have a deeper connection and enjoy their company, without having to disturb my present peace and independence. Or discuss my past.

And that had worked just fine…until now. There was just something about him. The others were nice men. But he was nice on such a deeper level. How was I going to keep this under control?

All the self-caring touches

He told me later how, when he was in the bathroom, he noticed all the small, self-caring touches I had in there. The perfumes, the powders, even the bar of Maja soap – an exotic soap from Puerto Rico that was a gift from my uncle, who was a missionary there. I loved how it smelled, and I kept it in there just to inhale its fragrance now and then. I still do. I don’t use it. I just revel in its fragrance. And remember my uncle, too.

Also, Ed loved the flannel sheets on the bed. That was something new for him and a real treat. They were so warm, snuggly, and inviting. To this day, it’s strictly flannel sheets. We tried silk ones one time because they were supposed to be what everyone loved. Couldn’t stand them. Too cold…physically and emotionally. And all you did was slide around on them. Nope. Flannel only.

Years later, he told me how all those small sensory things impressed him. Told him here was a person who knew what she liked, and liked herself enough to treat herself to them.

But maybe if there was one true predictor of our supreme compatibility, it was that we both loved and had a lot of books. And he immediately noticed that we both had the same “log home and underground home” books. It was like two nerds recognizing a kindred spirit, even as the deeper significance was lost on us at the time.

So, while emotionally wary, I couldn’t resist seeing this “very different computer person” again…and again…

“I believe we have two lives. The life we learn with, and the life we live with after that.” — Iris, in the movie, “The Natural”

Read the ——- manual…

At 29, you could never accuse me of being wishy-washy or not willing to push the limits.

One sunny afternoon, I took a drive out into the backroads areas of Litchfield. I’d gotten to like that routine as a way to center and think. I had a new car and was trying to get as familiar with it as with my old one. I happened to notice that the fuel gauge hovered at “E.” On my old car, I knew from reading the manual that “E” meant there was about a gallon left and still a fair number of miles to spare. I wondered if this car did the same.

Now, your average person would have just pulled out the new car’s manual to check that, but hey, I just didn’t feel like stopping to read. Instead, with a streak of adventurous spirit, I decided to just do the “experimental” method and find out. Duh.

I ran out of gas. Out in the countryside of Litchfield. In an era of no cell phones. In a time when most gas stations were self-serve, and any kind of “rescue service” was hard to find. When I didn’t have AAA, and the nearest house was a half mile back down the road. So yes. I walked. Thankfully, someone was home, AND was even willing to make a call to a local station that still did repairs.

Suffice it to say that it was the most expensive gallon of gas I ever bought in my life when you added together the inflated cost of that gallon of gas and the service call fee. In any event, I learned that day, never question “E” again. “E” really did mean “empty,” not, “Hey, you better get to a gas station soon.” And next time, read the ——- manual.

But maybe the biggest lesson I needed to learn that day was the one I had been out driving around and thinking about – rules.

Why had I felt the need to push my luck that day in the first place? Why had I resisted reading the manual and instead just “rolled the dice?”

Rules. I had lived by so many my whole life. And they not only didn’t save me, they nearly destroyed me. I was angry and had thrown them all away. But was that serving me well? After all, there is angry, and then there is just stubbornly stupid. This ranked up there with shooting yourself in the foot to get back at the world.

I needed a new relationship with life, period.

A map to see what was?

When I was a kid, I came into possession of a topographic map of our town and the surrounding areas. I was fascinated. Here was something that not only showed you where various things were in relation to each other — north, south, east, and west —but also VERTICALLY!

Each of those rings stacked within each other told me if I was in a valley or on a mountain top, about to fall off a cliff, or amble on a level plain. Just the kind of thing I needed for my life.

I’d like to say I had the presence of mind to do something like this for my life then, but alas, I was still too unaware. I was just trying to stumble my way into new rules. And I would yet have a lot to learn.

But recently, I thought back to that map I had as a kid, and decided to look at my life during that period in a “topographical kind of way. Not just what happened and when, but what effect those events had on me.

What this tells me, what I was unaware of at the time and thus had no empathy for, was just how much damage all that chaos had inflicted on me. I saw the cliff I’d fallen off of when I saw that movie about incest that night in my condo. And just how deep the pit was that I landed in. Not to mention just how steep the walls of that pit were, and how hard it would be to climb back up.

By listing all the forces that pounded me all at once in that 1983-1984 time period, it left me amazed that I ever even tried to come back. And maybe a little less judgmental of that 20-something me. In contrast, looking at it all now, I am flat out amazed at her courage and tenacity. She was doing her best in spite of being a bouncing pinball at that time.

There is a saying that I’ll paraphrase: It’s not how far up you go in life, it’s how far down you had to start from….

New directions:

What I do know is that I came to the decision that I needed to get moving. I didn’t ever want to find myself that far off track again. In fact, I was proud to be simple, and if I couldn’t abide “complex,” that didn’t make me a baby. And…I had every right to be who I was.

I also needed to get back to focusing on my life and where I was going in it. There were some basic rules from the past that maybe were okay to keep. Basic decency. Love. Loyalty. But new things were needed… like boundaries. Never say “anything” again.

Regular life was resuming

As to my friend, we remained so for several years. It would be other things later that would finally break that.

In my outside life, work was getting worse. I had been working in the bacteriology lab now for seven years. I couldn’t do it much longer. That spring, I decided to take a solitary trip to Germany, a place I’d always wanted to visit. And a friend of mine had a brother there in the service that I could meet up with at some point on my travels. I went via a flight to Iceland and Luxembourg, then directly to Germany. I had no particular itinerary other than the one place where I would visit my friend’s brother. I drove around the countryside, saw some World War II sites and cemeteries, and thought.

It was, reflecting on it, a gutsy to just “wing it” on my own. I’d had German in high school, so I had a somewhat basic ability to ask questions at least. And for the most part, everyone spoke English. It was, at times, lonely and a little scary. But for the most part, it was beautiful, a boost to my confidence, and a breath of fresh air.

By the time I returned, I had decided I needed to make a change to my job one way or another. I started checking on pharmaceutical sales jobs. Looking back, I know I was not a good fit for that, but I was trying. And I kept doing my freelance writing, trying to sell articles to magazines.

Finally, a stroke of luck came late that spring — a second shift job opened up in the lab. It meant working all the lab departments — chemistry, blood bank, hematology, etc — and no longer doing the daily grind in microbiology. I applied. When the lab manager asked if I would reconsider and stay in microbiology, I told him I wanted the new position, or I’d quit and work at a burger place. So I got the job. THAT was a major shift for the better. Thank God. The second shift was all about emergencies, and getting back into all the lab areas versus only one. It also meant working with more of the other lab staff. It was a relief and made it possible for me to remain at the hospital job.

In that time period, I also finally resumed my dating service membership, which had been on hold for the last few months. It was a gentle easing back into life, and was working well. I met some very nice men, including one whom I dated for a bit and was able to be intimate with and experience no terror. There were others who were clueless that I didn’t bother with, and felt confident in saying so. I was slowly learning to trust my judgment, even as that quality would still take years to develop. But it was beginning.

Recover, repair, begin again…

The bottom line was that slowly, my life was starting to mend. The giant tear in my heart was finally pulling back together, even if scarred. A ripped apart heart will never, ever be the same. Not possible. But it can mend. And it will hold together enough to grow stronger.

That would be important because life was about to change again, dramatically, in August of 1985. The rapid changes would continue…

Pollywog revisited

So. In the months since being suicidal, I had managed to allow my friend to be a close emotional support. Something I never had before. And with her and her husband, I’d gotten beyond a major hurdle. But…what did that all mean? And did I even have the presence of mind then to begin to question things?

My friend observed where I was currently at: “You can’t keep getting sex from my husband and emotions from me. You need to unite the two in one person.”

As soon as she said that, I remember thinking, “Duh! How could I have been so stupid and so blind?”

The truth is, I wasn’t stupid. A harsh judgment again, especially given that I’d been “hanging on for dear life” to something that felt safe through the rapid changes over the last few months. But of course she was right. And I realized in that moment that I was like that kid back in the Pollywog class at the YMCA, desperately hanging onto the side of the swimming pool, terrified to let go and determined to just stay put and stay safe. But this wasn’t Pollywog, and I needed to start swimming on my own in my life’s “pool.”

Because there is only “now”

Looking back, I understand that this situation was a temporary thing. I probably realized it even then on some level. But at that moment, I was just “frozen,” appreciating the first semblance of solid ground I’d had in many months. And in my house growing up, I’d always had to operate from the “present moment” to deal with whatever mood Dad was in. So I was always reacting, not looking ahead.

In her book Of My Own Making, author Daria Burke spoke about how abuse and trauma narrow your focus so tightly that all you can see is the present moment:

“Surviving under such conditions puts a constant, draining demand on both body and mind…siphoning your energy as if simply making it through is a battle you fight over and over again….a cycle that leaves no room for rest or reflection….The brain, molded by the forces of environment and experience, turns its focus inward. The aperture narrows to the present moment…blur any vision of the future, making it difficult to see beyond the pressing needs of now.” (pg 72)

I certainly wasn’t in a place of reflection, seeing the bigger picture, or looking down the road. There had been so many changes, so much confusion over these last several months. I was struggling to handle the present, much less know what I needed to do next. The truth was that I had gotten in over my head in this….and I found myself asking myself: How did I end up here? And what had I done?

After the rejoicing, the shock and shame

In the light of day, blasted out of my narrowed focus on overcoming my sexual limitations, reality was shining a hard light on things.

This had helped me, but…had it been right? Ethical? What had allowed me to do something my old self would have never done? These were questions I would continue to ask myself for years to come, and the true understanding was years down the road.

In that moment, my reaction was simply a growing mixture of shame, horror, fear, and guilt. Shame and guilt, not so much for a same-sex encounter, or even the threesome, but more that I had been alone with her first, without her husband knowing. And that, by my old rules at least, was adultery. How had I let myself do that?

My one realization was that it had been driven by intense need and fear. The POWER of those needs took control, and I ended up doing things I never thought I would. At the time, I even shrugged off the red flag that maybe this wasn’t the best or a permanent choice when my friend had said, “Don’t tell your therapist about this.” All of it shook me to my core.

The person I was in the past was that devoted Catholic who followed every “Thou Shalt Not.” But I did. So, then, who WAS I NOW? I had thrown out all the rules in my life because everything from my past seemed a lie or a failure. And God had failed me. Still, I found myself questioning if having no rules was really the right answer in life.

I’d been like a pendulum in the wind, swinging wildly, struggling to hang on. I’d gone from one perception of reality to having it blown apart. From suicidal to hanging on, but lost in a pit of confusion. I may have clawed my way back from the edge of life and death, but…to what? I had stayed alive but crashed on the shore of relationships.

I couldn’t shake the guilt. Yes, we were all consenting adults, though, again, that first part left out her husband. And unlike childhood, I wasn’t a “victim.” While I was vulnerable, that didn’t make me a victim. Given my emotional background and my history, this all made perfect sense. In that moment, I simply knew that with no solid ground under my feet, and no moorings or rules, it wasn’t surprising I’d ended up so far from who I was at my core. But still. I owned my part in it all.

So, while I knew going back to the person I was before leaving home wasn’t the answer, still, it was time to figure out who was I, REALLY? Where was I going, and what WERE my ethics and guiding rules for life? It was time for a course correction here.

For the next several months, I didn’t go near anyone. Didn’t even date. I needed time to think, and figure out who I was, and what DID I believe in?

The more I thought about it, the more I realized this was not the direction I wanted to be in or stay in. I realized that my friend had, in fact, been right about one thing – I was NOT the sort of person cut out for “complicated.” But this time, I didn’t see that as my failing. It was me, who I was at my core, and trying to live any other way was just not me. I was a simple person, not that imagined “sophisticate.” And I was far down a road I did not want.

It was time for some rules again. While I realized that maybe the rules of the past didn’t apply, I needed to find a new set. Life still needed boundaries, ethics, if I was to live in a way that matched my conscience. So the next focus was to determine: Who was I, and where was I going?