D’s invitation to connect on LinkedIn was a surprise. It has been several years–seven, to be exact–since I have spoken to him, so his choice to pop up now disrupted the quiet in my head. I imagine that this was partly his intention, but who really knows? It has been days, and despite the reminders I keep getting, I haven’t done a thing with it.
D first wrote to me many years ago on the then-quirky dating site, okcupid. My post-divorce dating adventures had come nearly always from some sort of online encounter, shady as it sounds, and it was sometimes shady. Still, these early endeavors in a more innocent internet had resulted in several friendships and one chaotic relationship with a genius-madman–not my first chock-full-of-wacky-adventure sort of relationship in my life, I admit. It was in the midst of the wind down from the crazy end of the professor that D reached out to my provocative profile. I was on guard, but intrigued.
D was persistent, flirty, British. He wrote well, and as luck should have it, we had a number of key things in common, not the least of which was being a parent of a kid with disabilities. We chatted for quite a long time and bonded on several levels, then finally made plans to meet for a hike.
The hike was in a favorite spot of mine, on one of those late winter days not so different from today, when the weather cannot really decide whether to snow or rain or break out in bright sunshine. We stomped through the forest laughing as we got soaked walking and watching the bluebirds. As the magic of the connection dazzled me, he then told me that he was married. I believed the part about the understanding and acceptance and virtual separation in his marriage, because I knew far too well now what was at stake, single in my 40s with kids who need a lot from us. I knew so many other families that just made things work on the surface to keep up the unified front to the special education directors who may well divide and conquer to save a few bucks. Sure, it made sense. No, it did not make sense. Not really, but I so wanted to hold onto that sparkling feeling I had around him.
We started meeting up every week or so, chatting often in between. The patterns became set: me, waiting in the window seat for his van to roll up the driveway, late, always late; him, attractive and affable, making me laugh and forget my dreary work and chores. I could see light through the frustration and pain of family situations that seemed irremediable, through my equally difficult financial situation. He helped me patch up things here and there, and he sometimes tried to help me through the difficulties of schools and services for my son. I wrote volumes about him, about my desire for him, about my absolute, consuming ardent want, and he more or less ignored it, or pretended to.
I wanted him. I wanted some version of him that I created from filling in all the blanks of that form he presented to me every week–or so. Our relationship was constant in some ways, but with many time of separation. He had another life, at least with his kids. I met a few men I liked in the midst of it all, in times that David had all but disappeared. I don’t know if these relationships ended because he lurked there.. and I let him. I loved him, I thought, sometimes. The man I wanted was not D. Still, this unrequited need fed me distraction and desire, without the burden of intimacy with a real man. I knew all along that the real D could let go in a second, as much as I knew that the understanding he had with his wife was understanding from his side only. I never met her. She, too, was imaginary, to me.
The day before my birthday in 2014, I told D that I loved him. We had gotten closer in the months that led up to that day, I thought, and we were spending far more time together. My proclamation was not the joyous surrender that I had envisioned; he told me that he knew I loved him. Then the quarrels began, the omissions, the emotional distance. The lies had always been there, but beyond the glow of assumptions, everything became clear to me. I wrote only of the wish I had always had, the comfort of love that I missed so much for all the years since I had last been loved, and the utter disappointment that I would never have that with David.
One day, I saw pictures of D with another woman, not his wife, in places and times that I had suggested, that he had promised me specifically, the parties, the trips.. Well, it figured. I knew that. Why I didn’t leave earlier, I do know, but I never liked to think about it much. I had been here before, hearing the tales of my ex-husbands efforts to please his girlfriend with things I loved. Sure, it hurt. D told me that I asked for too much, that no one would give me more, and maybe he was right. He saw me as broken. We all are broken.
I did meet a few other men after him. Some sent flowers, and two proclaimed their love, despite the fact that they barely knew me. I had a hole in my heart, a hole that felt real, a pit that ached for a long, long time. It wasn’t really about D, though, but more about the disappointment of my marriage, and the gratitude I have in spite of that for my kids. It was a pity party, yes, and I rather hate that feeling, because it feels so self-absorbed. Broken? I didn’t want to be fixed, or to fix, but to embrace the whole. But damn, a broken heart builds walls of scar tissue. And then, I ask myself why. Why is that comforting, honest love not something that I get to have, and keep? Why did my husband never love me? Why do I find affection so suspicious when it comes my way, like Charlie Brown’s football?
I suspect the answer to that question is the same reason that D ever came into my life to start with. He is certainly worthy of more than what we had, too, but he was on his own sort of quest to avoid the terrors of love.
The last few years, I stopped looking for a man to share love. My life is fine without it, and it is a relief not to wish for things that seem so out of reach. I remember sometimes the wonderful people who have come into my life with love and caring, and I do wonder what might have been to have grown old with someone I love, but it didn’t happen, so that’s that.
I guess the alternative is to climb, to keep dancing on that high, thin rim, to stay on the edge of love and reap the lightness of occasional joy. Other people have better balance than I do, though. I get nose bleeds. I am clumsy, a fall risk, a hazard to myself and others. The clouds are lovely up there, but I plod along, here on the damp, mossy ground. I will probably just let that invitation to connect expire.
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