I�m dating.(Exhale.)It is even fair to say this: I have a boyfriend.He is kind. He is compassionate. He is vulnerable (with me, at least). He is truly the best kind of person.He is a good human.(In case you don�t...
I�m dating.
(Exhale.)
It is even fair to say this: I have a boyfriend.
He is kind. He is compassionate. He is vulnerable (with me, at least). He is truly the best kind of person.
He is a good human.
(In case you don�t know the significance of this statement, Lee always said �be a good human,� or sometimes to the kids �is that being a good human?� It�s a sort of code by which I live my life and teach my kids to live theirs. �Be a good human� is their version of the WWJD? bracelets of my teenage years.)
Will this relationship be forever like Lee was? I don�t know. And I�m letting myself not know. I�m letting myself have my first first-date and first first-kiss since I was 18, when I first dated and first kissed Lee Dingle.�
If these words feel bittersweet to read, it�s because they are. I had a great love, a beautiful marriage that we expected to last forever. We didn�t know our forever would end so soon, though. Thirty-seven is so very painfully young, and it is cosmically unfair that my first love didn�t turn 38.
Does this trainwreck-to-the-end-of-the-world sort of reality in which we live hold another great love for me? I don�t know. What I do know is that the risk of exploring that possibility is way less scary than the risk of life without a chance at being loved again like I was by Lee.
And what I also know is that I really really really like this guy.
Even if I thought I could predict the exact trajectory of this new relationship, I�d be wrong. I never would have predicted a killer wave would make me a widow and leave my children without a father. I never would have predicted I would be nearing 40 � on June 10 � as a single mom of six amazing children who are beginning to pass me in height.
Speaking of the kids, they know I�m dating. In no particular order, their reactions range from feeling like this is hilarious and exciting to feeling like this is peak awkward; saying �okay, can I get a soda now� to saying �I just want you to be happy, Mom�, and asking if I�m having a baby (she was disappointed upon finding out I am not pregnant) to asking what the difference is between dating and having a boyfriend (and upon hearing that people who are dating might be dating multiple people at once, exclaimed, �I can�t even read two books at a time!�).
They don�t know the guy. They know I�ll let them meet any guy with whom I am deeply serious. We might be nearing that point, so I am working in my mind and with the kids� psychologist to do that well. We�ll have a family therapy session, the kids and I, to discuss it all before any introductions happen.�
I�m protective of their little souls, and I�m being cautious. Some of my children have had and lost two fathers. One of my younger ones, her sneakers in the dirt next to Lee�s coffin, scuffed and dirty already because we had no dress shoes in her size, asked moments before the burial on that July day in 2019, �so, Mommy, when am I gonna get my third daddy?��
Oof.
I answered then, �Mommy is focused on loving you and your siblings, not adding anyone new.� And that was true, as I stood next to newly shoveled sediment around a stark hole in which the body of my beloved would rest forever.�
Now? I have more capacity for love than I had on that day.�
Nothing has diminished. I will love Lee forever, as I have since he was 19.�I am focused on loving our babies well.
Meanwhile, it�s also true that I am loving this stage of newness and butterflies and rebirth.�I�m letting myself feel feelings I thought might remain dormant forever, discovering they�re still alive and well.
Both/and.
Winter hasn�t thawed, but spring is blooming. I could get burned, but that�s better than freezing to a slow state of not dying but certainly not living. I�ve camped out in the dreary places, not ready to face the sun, and I know that offers nothing redemptive. (I could continue with mixed metaphors, but I�ll take a seat now.)
And the risk? Everything is risk, I�ve realized. When a vacation can end in a funeral, and a viral infection can leave my healthiest kid seriously ill with Long COVID, and puberty plus PTSD can lead to a hospital stay on the pediatric psych floor, and the world seems more full of fire-starters than firefighters, nothing is promised. Uncertainty is all we have. I�m choosing the risk of being hurt in relationship over the certainty of being hurt alone.
Here�s to taking the next step, as both continued grief and a comfortable newness walk hand in hand toward whatever this will become.
