Brokenhearted

I fell in love in my mid-30s and I fell hard. His name was Jay. We met quite by accident and ended up talking most of the evening. He was from out of town and living in my area because IBM sent him there to close down a local facility. The circumstances of his work assignment should have been a warning to me, but you know what they say-love is blind and a little bit stupid. He stayed over that night and for several nights thereafter. Over the next few weeks, we went for long drives and sang in the car. He cooked for me and bought me flowers.

I took him to my grandmother’s funeral where he met all the family. He interacted with my little niece and nephew with grace and charm. He talked with my parents in a way that put his higher education at Cornell to good use. We were both working more than full time, but we spent nearly every night together; he almost never went to the little apartment he had rented nearby. He flew to his home in the Bay Area and rented a truck to bring some of his things back down south. He brought his bed, which he said was more comfortable than mine so we put my mattress in the garage. He brought his big rocking chair, and we settled in to my place like a couple of honeymooners.

One morning I woke up and found him sitting quietly in the rocking chair. I kissed the top of his head and asked ‘is something wrong?’ He said no. That night when I got home his belongings were gone. My mattress was back on the bed. His clothes, rocking chair, brush and comb all gone. I called him at his old apartment and he said he just needed some air. I didn’t understand, I peppered him with questions. Air? Was I smothering you? He said he didn’t know; he just needed some time.

If you want to drive someone crazy don’t give him the complete story. Just give him enigmatic explanations like ‘I need some air’. Well, it drove me a little crazy. I started driving 20 minutes to his apartment at 10 PM at night and sitting in the parking lot trying to watch people coming and going. I knew what grief and depression could do to a person, my life became a prime example. I became sleepless and restless. I cried at unexpected times. I was brokenhearted.

After a month he told me the truth. He had left his lover in the Bay area and eventually came to doubt his decision. I was still a wreck. Over the next few months, through long talks with my friends and my therapist and a lot of rigorous exercise, I made a slow, deliberate climb back into mental health.

This is a dark story in my life that I have resisted retelling. But with time comes perspective. Six months after my fiasco with Jay, I learned that my friend Tom had become single again. I called him and made a date for lunch. As it turned out my heart had been broken… I like to think of it as broken open, to be ready for the love of my life.

My First Home (with a little help from my friends)

In the early 1980s I ventured to purchase my first home. It was a two-bedroom condo under construction. Set up into a hillside, it had a lovely view of the Conejo Valley and the builders promised it would be completed by June. But by the Fourth of July it was still nothing more than 2x4’s. I would go by every couple of weeks and supervise, but that didn’t seem to speed the process at all. After Thanksgiving I learned that construction had stopped because of a lawsuit. Evidently my two-story unit had emerged into the view shed of the homes on the hill behind me. It seemed that my lovely view of the Conejo Valley used to be theirs. In any event I left the builders and the homeowners to sort out this issue without me.

Come spring, the construction started again. And about 11 months after I opened escrow my lovely condo was almost ready for me. The sales office informed me that they would need $5000 in closing costs before I could move in. I said to them “And you are telling me about the closing costs now, after 11 months?” I had never purchased a home before; I was a real estate virgin. So these closing costs came as something of a surprise. I was as likely to come up with $5000, as I was to produce a Polaroid picture of the baby Jesus in the manger. I was very upset to think that a year of hoping and waiting would produce nothing but disappointment.

When I shared my distress with some of my friends at work, they said, “let us help”. So I borrowed $1000 each from five of my colleagues. They were so good about it, I told them I could pay them back with $35 a month. They smiled and said, “Take your time”.

Two years later I sold the condo for a nifty profit. (Oh the beauty of Southern California real estate in the good times.) I was able to pay off my colleagues, and put a down payment with Tom on our new home in Ventura. These friends and colleagues have a special place of honor in my memory. I hope you each have known such friendship in your life too.

Seventh-grade Friends

Beginning seventh-grade made me more than a little nervous. It was in seventh grade that young people in our community first changed clothes for P.E. and showered afterward. In retrospect I was making a mountain out of a molehill, or was it vice versa? As with many young people that age I was insecure about my naked self. I had an ectomorphic frame (tall and skinny) and I had no idea how my personal physical dimensions measured up to my peers. Once we all got in the changing room I undressed so quickly and avoided looking at others I was still pretty ill informed.

The changing room was not the only place I should have been worried about. I had experienced a growth spurt that made it difficult for me to place one large foot in front of the other without tripping. Expecting me to run and throw a ball simultaneously was beyond optimistic.

In 7^th grade, we also began moving to different rooms for different classes. So in the course of a single day we changed classrooms, changed teachers, changed clothes. It was a lot of change for a young person. Fortunately I moved to the seventh grade with a band of friends, loyal stalwarts. When I think back I realize I made a lot of difficult transitions, and good friends had eased the way. We expect a lot of our friends and my friends have come through, overlooking my weaknesses and walking shoulder to shoulder through the transitions.