I am sitting on a northbound USAir flight bound for Boston, Massachusetts, on the last full day and night of 2014 (without question, the best year of my life). I wasn't supposed to be on this flight until Friday, January 9, 2015. Obviously, something went very wrong, or very right, depending on your point-of-view. Quick backstory. On Sunday, November 9, during the last leg of my epic month-long, cross-country journey, I met a gentleman at a church breakfast in the hills of Tennessee. This man and I connected in a powerful, kinetically-charged, five-minute conversation. Over the course of the next forty-five days, we corresponded frequently via email, text messages, and telephone conversations. I received flowers for my December birthday, and greeting cards for major holidays, all of which delighted me. It had been a long time since a man paid that much attention to me romantically. When he offered to fly me down to visit him after Christmas, I gladly accepted. Our face-to-face meeting in the Charlotte, North Carolina airport in the wee hours of December 27 was childlike and joyful. We did some really fun things during my stay including checking out campers for a possible road trip back to his Colorado birthplace in the spring; we revisited the church where we'd met and connected with members of the congregation; we lounged lazily that same afternoon, drank tea, giggled, and listened to music; we went to the movies, held hands, and went out to dinner afterwards. All these things made my heart open, sing, dare to imagine, hope, love. So, what went wrong?
While the outside picture of us, our unique coupling, looked good, the private conversations between us, revealed denial, addiction, darkness and fear. The loving, compassionate, starry-eyed me that I brought along continued to love, to shine, to hope, to speak the language of the heart, but that light was no match for the layers of denial that dis-ease had left in its wake, a soul sickness that I have come to recognize all too well. Out of respect and safety for my own sobriety, my recovery, my tender heart, I intuitively took my leave early Monday morning. As I write this blog post, my heart is heavy. I can't save anyone but myself. I knew, in advance, that the fairy tale romance would, undoubtedly, undergo major and stiff revisions, but I never imagined that denial's dark underbelly was powerful enough to send me packing.
I left my heart print.
