Finding Joy…..

When Ed passed it was as if the joy and happiness of life was sucked right out of me. In the few seconds it took for a doctor to say I’m sorry there was just nothing we could do, that one blink of the eye, it was all gone. And while the logical part of me said one day I would be happy again, my heart believed that it was a lie. Happiness was only a past emotion that I truly would never feel again. I would smile, I would laugh, but to feel that elation of pure joy and happiness, that was just something that was taken from me. I Was WRONG…..so very, very, wrong.

All through this last year I have had this one person right in front of me. We grew up in the same town, with the same people, with the same beliefs. Though we were never really friends, I knew who he was. He was part of the popular crowd. I grew up not in that crowd. Growing up with this secret crush on a guy I believed didn’t even know that I existed. I was wrong. I assumed that he was just another one of those have it all kids and I was a have not kid. Wrong on that too. Man I was batting a thousand on being wrong. Not really the batting avg I want.

A month or so after Ed passed Mat contacted me just to say how sorry for my loss he was. We talked for a short time just quickly, yet like everyone he told me he was always around if I needed to talk. I put him out of my mind. After all that is what everyone said. Yet just a month or so later I found myself having a very lonely night. I had called and texted everyone and they were all busy. It was before I started counseling and I just felt like I had no one. So I just checked in. Again we talk about normal things. How he struggled with work and I just needed to have a normal conversation not about Ed. Once again we have a short conversation. But it was long enough to help me through the night. A month later there we were again. This time he was checking in with me. The conversation gets a little longer but again we just keep it short and while we talk about a little personal things it was just two people getting to know each other slowly. Very slowly. The months that followed plagued us both with trying to have relationships and nothing working out. The only thing that did was us being able to count on the other to answer a message via messenger. Neither one daring to offer a phone number. His life was full of switching jobs to find happiness and me just working through grief. Yet we talked about real things. The hard stuff we went through as kids. This is where I learned about how the boy I grew up thinking had everything really had nothing just like me. Who had to get a job as soon as I did so that he could have money. Just like me. Talk about feeling really stupid. This is also where I learn about the man he became, and how divorce can feel like death to some people. I have talked about that a little here and really it was him that made me think about it.

Suddenly it’s the holidays and we are now talking at least three times a month. Sometimes back to back days but mostly just when the long lonely nights hit us. During this time I was seeing the wrong guy and in love with one who never wanted to love anyone again. He was also struggling with demons that he couldn’t even tell me about. We talked about facing demons a lot. Yet neither one of us would say what exactly our demons were. Maybe it was because we were both ashamed of our actions or maybe it was because we didn’t want the other person to think badly of the other. Or maybe we just didn’t trust the other not to judge. So once again we talk about other things. The mistakes we felt like we made. The things we wished we would have done differently and the hope for the future, the hope of finding real love. Yet both of us saying that reality was we were not ready for a serious relationship. How dating sounded nice but we were just not ready. Before I knew it we were talking at least once a week. Then suddenly he was on social media talking about being with someone. I was happy for him. He had found what he was looking for. He was off to spend the weekend with her and I felt a small stab in my heart. But I still had my own mess to deal with. It was the next day that I realized I was done with all my messes. So I started saying goodbye to it all. It was time to love me. It was hard. But day by day I did it. I also didn’t message him anymore he was with someone. It wouldn’t be right. I did tell him on his post that I was happy for him.

It wasn’t long though that suddenly his post went from being happy to worrisome. How he was going to be gone for a while and how he needed to just get away from everyone. I quickly asked him if he was okay. It was then the real talk began. We began to talk about the demons that we both were fighting. How suddenly we were no longer afraid of being judged and we needed to talk to someone. Really talk and because we were so open and honest with each other before we really could open up now. I told him everything. Hiding nothing and he did the same for me. It was so good to really just opened up like I hadn’t ever before. I was being me the real me. And suddenly I just lay it out on the table. I think we should go on a date. He says okay and then makes all the plans. It was a very long two week wait that was full of anxiety. Of wondering if it was even going to happen to the what if he sees me and decides we are just friends. Every negative thought I could have had I’m pretty sure I did. Even up to the day before I just had this terrible feeling that he was going to cancel.

He didn’t and we ended up having a wonderful time. We went out to one of his friends farm and shot our guns. It was a day full of laughter and fun and I relaxed and was myself and so was he. The date was great we didn’t have those awkward silence moments and we didn’t feel forced to talk. Though once the day was over though I was pretty sure he was going to say. I’m so glad we are friends and leave it at that. But that isn’t what happened at all. He texted me right away and told me that I was invited out any time they were there. Though he didn’t say when that would be, he did say that he had a great time. Yet it was so hard to judge how he felt or how I felt for that matter. I needed time with him alone. It was two days later that I took a chance and something happened that took us both by surprise.

Mat is a runner like me. It is one of the many things that attracted me to him. One day after work we were texting and he mentioned that he was going to get ready for his run. I told him that it was very hot outside and to be careful. He said that he was going to wait an hour or so before he went. This is where I just go for it. I tell him that if he waited an hour I could be there and go with him. He said okay. I couldn’t believe it. I changed into my running gear jumped into my car and headed his way. My heart pounded the entire time. I had that butterflies in the tummy I can’t believe I’m doing this crazy thing feeling. I made it to the lake by his home and we walked around this beautiful lake holding hands not caring about the heat. We talked about everything and anything. And the more we talked the more I fell in love. I mean I knew I liked him. But to have actual feelings I just wasn’t sure. I definitely was attracted to him. I always was in school. I just kept walking next to him thinking I can’t believe I am walking next to him. He held my hand or we would walk with my arm slipped through his. My favorite was when he would lift my hand and hold it up near his heart. Which was racing as fast as mine. We walked for almost ten miles. Ten miles! We just didn’t want to be away from each other. It was the most romantic evening I think I have ever had. By the end of that night I knew I was falling head over heels for this man. We talked about real things about our demons, about life as kids. The shit we went through as teenagers. The secret crush we had on each other how we knew exactly where the other sat in school. We remembered it all. I could talk about losing Ed and how that affected me. How unhappy I was in some areas of my marriage and how angry I had been with Ed and didn’t know that I was angry or even unhappy. I was content with my marriage and really learned that nothing was perfect, and I was happy because I wanted to be, I chose to be. But in my struggles after his passing I learned to process and really learned what I wanted in my next relationship and even in my next marriage. For the first time in my life my children and me were going to come first. Nothing will come before that. It was that simple. For the first time in my life I was able to tell someone how I really felt. It was amazing to be so opened with someone.

Needless to say by the end of ten miles and two and half hours, I was head over heels with this man. The icing on the cake was that he was from home, it was like walking with my best friend whom I haven’t seen in years and it took a ten mile walk just to begin to catch up. We haven’t stopped talking since. When we finally left the lake that night he kissed me. Not the big romantic kiss but just a soft peck on the lips. Which after just asking was not planned he said it just happened. Yup falling pretty hard for this one. I drove home that night kicking myself for not just planting one right back on him. But in the end I’m glad I didn’t. It wouldn’t have been right. The real first kiss came later and it was earth shaking, and I have not walked with my feet on the ground since.

We have spent all the spare time we have with each other, most of that time is spent walking and talking. Both of us working through the demons that we face, but we are not facing them alone anymore. It is so odd how it all happened. The very thing I was looking for was right there in front of me the whole time. For both of us actually. We talk about that too, how suddenly we can’t imagine life without the other in it. How suddenly you are in love with your best friend and the heart pounding excitement is in your chest, and the entire time you feel like it is a dream and unreal. This kind of thing only happens in the movies right? You sit back and everyone else sees the connection and you refuse to because the demons you face tell you it’s not right. That you are not good enough, that it can’t be possible. Yet in one night, one ten mile walk, it smacks you in the face and the heart and suddenly you realize what you were looking for was right there in front of you. The man you wanted to find was the man that had been with you the entire time, you just had to be willing to believe that it was possible. I fell in love with my best friend, it happened in real life, not scripted in some movie, but in my life it happened. It happened the right way. We became friends, then best friends, and now something so much more than I could have ever hoped for. It took us almost a year to get to know each other, and feel ready to actually date. Why did it take so long? Maybe because in the back of our heads we just knew, that the other was the kind of person we could see ourselves being with for the rest of our lives. Maybe that scared us both, maybe when we said we were not ready, it was the fact that we were not ready to take that kind of chance again. To be willing to open up and be willing to maybe just get our hearts crushed yet again.

Yet after that walk that two and a half hours, of being opened and raw and real. I knew. He is everything I have been looking for. I have found that joy again, and it was with me the whole time. I just had to believe in it.

Dee