The Plot Twist I Didn't Expect

Life is wild, y'all.

Every great love story seems to start with someone giving up.

• I give up on men!/I give up on women!

• I give up on dating!

• I give up on this town!

And then maybe:
“I’m just going to live with my dog for the rest of my life.”

“Why you gotta make that sound like a bad thing?”

They’re done. Finished. Over with it all.

But There’s Always More

Because after the hero in the love story gives up, something happens.

• A sudden move

• An unexpected diagnosis

• A chance encounter

• A fall from grace

Whatever it is, suddenly here is this new opportunity to step back … or step forward.

And our hero moves in the direction of growth.

Of life. Of a realness beyond what they have known or have experienced up until this point. We have all seen this movie. You’ve probably even been this person — so you know how it works.

“I don’t know where I’m going — but I don’t suppose that matters anymore!”

Because something happens after you give up.

Something happens after you push your carefully-made plans to the side and surrender to the vagaries and vicissitudes of this wild and wacky Universe.

You change.

And that change is important.

“Go on, I’m listening!”

Because once you give up trying to be everything for someone else (a perfect spouse, a perfect parent, a perfect child, a perfect employee), you relax and become more yourself than maybe you’ve ever really been.

And it’s along the path of your newest (and maybe deepest) journey, you fall in love with yourself but in a good way. A healthy way. A “here I am, all of me — not perfect, but trying to be a good human” kind of way.

You are finally happy with you.

Why Am I Telling You This?

Because this happened to me.

But this particular love story I’m going to tell you didn’t happen when I was 28 or 38 or even 48.

No, I was 58 — and falling in love at 58 is different. Way different.

It’s sweeter and sadder, lighter and deeper, more full of reality and less burdened by expectations. The children are grown — and your experienced eyes are not clouded by fantasies.

As my man Bruce Springsteen wrote in his ode to love, If I Should Fall Behind:

“Now everyone dreams of a love lasting and true/But you and I know what this world can do.”

That’s what love at 58 is like. You know what this world can do.

You see (through your floaters) more clearly than you ever have. The life, the love, the loss, and the laments.

But there’s good, too — because while your understanding of sorrow is deeper at this age, so too is your experience of joy magnified by the years and boosted by your sorrows.

You know how rare and precious beauty is in this world.

But … back to how this all happened.

This Story Starts at a Lake

It’s green and it’s a lake and it’s in Seattle. They call it Green Lake. (Crazy, right?)

And not quite two years ago, I purchased a 605 sf top-floor condo two blocks from this lake. A tiny place with a gorgeous view of Mt. Rainier. Kind of an urban slice of heaven for someone who loves nature, beautiful sunsets, books, and walking to coffee shops and restaurants.

I was happy.

At sunset on Green Lake with Jasper, soon after moving in.

And I was thinking that maybe I was done with dating.

After 15 years of marriage to a man and then 15 years of dating women, nothing had worked out and frankly I was tired of trying. It all seemed ridiculous and getting more wrong by each excruciating coffee/drink with the newest human representation behind a carefully-crafted dating profile.

Because the truth of our modern age is this:

Everyone can be witty and charming online. In person? Perhaps a little less perfect.

One of the last people I dated was a woman who didn’t believe in locking her front door or wearing seatbelts. (Yes, you read that right.) She was a smart, funny, educated woman who had the dinger removed from her car so she (and her passengers) could go seatbelt-less with full and total aplomb.

On our second date, I actually considered excusing myself for the restroom so I could ride the (safer) bus home.

Done. Finis. No Mas.

That’s how my dating life was going, yet work and everything else was wonderful!

So I swore off the elusive dream of love and resigned myself to a fun and somewhat lonely fourth act of my life. (I, stalwart Yankee of Lithuanian immigrant heritage, am determined that my 100-year-life will have 5 acts).

I gave up on love.

Just Netflix and me, honey, for the rest of our lives!

Then one surprisingly not rainy January Saturday morning at my Green Lake, I went on a Meet-up walk, just looking to make friends in this fourth act.

And there she was.

The Plot Twist I Didn’t See Coming

Stunning. Brilliant, fascinating, accomplished, and confident. And did I mention beautiful? (Also, I would find out, kind but unwilling to let me get away with my usual bullshit. This is so surprisingly refreshing that I still struggle with words to describe it.)

Life was simply never the same.

And neither of us (despite being women in our 50’s with a lifetime of kids and spouses and friends and achievements between us) had any idea that love could be like this.

Suddenly, the books and the movies and the poems and the love letters of the ages made sense.

This.is.how.love.could.be.

Out for a walk, summer 2024.

What Happened Next

And that, my friends, is how I ended up getting married recently on a quiet Sunday morning in May on the dock at the lake where we met and where we live. Just a small gathering of family. Very little planning and no stress — just lots and lots of love

Our officiant showed up in the most wonderful floral crown.

It was perfect.

And I’m telling you this because my little story might serve as a reminder that joy is still possible — even now, even here, even in these times. Also, I’ve been a little quiet lately and this is why: I’m simply sinking into joy.

If you already have love like this, my heart overflows for you.

But if you do not? I am here to tell you to hold fast.

Life might very well be hiding around the corner with a huge gift, simply waiting for you to show yourself, brave and beautiful. So, please, don’t settle for the small love.

Because I know for sure that life still holds surprises for us all.

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P.S. I also quit my job. I’m starting a new project! More on that next time. 😎