A Blushing Bride at Age 57
After burning my life to the ground to make space for something better, I have something better
This essay is part of the Between Chapters project, inspired by the book. What chapters are you between? How did you get from one chapter to another? Share your story here.
I am going to be a blushing bride at age fifty-seven. On August 8th, my adult daughters will stand at the altar beside me. I am going to wear a long, lacy ivory dress, because why not? After leaving my husband of twenty-four years and burning my life to the ground to make space for something better, I have something better.
This fresh new love is a miracle.
Three years ago, I left my home of twenty-two years in a California college town and moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico to start a new job, cultivate my writing life (I am just about done revising my first novel), and see if there could be one more great love in my life story.
I put “Happy to be Here” on my Hinge profile. I wanted someone joyful and upbeat, like how I am wired. I did not want a cynic or a jaded grump; I never want a man to bring me down again.
It worked. James, a kind, cheerful, generous, reliable, brilliant, handy, handsy man matched with me. He sent me a poem about his morning, describing dawn birds singing while he soaked in his hot tub. I sent a poem back about the moon shining through my window onto an unsettled, displaced me.
We met for dinner. He was an adorable carrot-top ginger with a sporty frame and a great voice. Friendship and then love bloomed. I checked off many green flags: he was close with his mother and family, maintained a circle of close friends in the community, kept a beautiful home. Financially stable. We shared interests, eating habits, lifestyle choices.
I panicked.
Why is this guy so nice, thoughtful, and attentive? There must be something wrong with him! Plus, I could tell he was completely and wholeheartedly falling in love with me. Weird! That’s not normal.
So I broke up with him. I told him I was sorry, but he was not my type. Maybe I would introduce him to one of my friends. Not enough drama, inner demons, cruelty, I didn’t say.
In the weeks that followed, I plowed the dirt of my first, troubled marriage and assessed my wounds. I thought about the first four months with James. I needed to be sure I truly loved him, and not all the awesome, kind things he did for me, helped me with, and gifted me. Because that is how he is wired.
Can love be easy, peaceful, supportive? Why would I say ‘no' to that?
Because of old patterns I am ready to be done with.
After six weeks. I decided he was my type, after all. I asked for another chance. In the two years that have followed, we’ve built a beautiful relationship while navigating all the good and bad life tosses at us. Everything is easier, softer, calmer, and more fun with this man by my side. Our chemistry is fire.
We both understand how lucky we are. At this age!
Every night before bed, I open a little tub of lip balm, dip my finger in it, and rub it on my lips. One night last November, I opened my lip balm and found a diamond ring in it with five diamonds, one for each of us and our three adult daughters. I gasped in absolute shock and put the ring on my finger. It fit perfectly.
“I want to be like that lip balm for you,” James said. “I want to give you comfort and bliss and be right there with you every night. No matter what else happens during the day.”
He got down on one knee and asked me to marry him.
As older beloveds, we don’t know how long we have left, so we make every day — and every soft, snuggly night — count.
So yes, I will be wearing a lacy, long dress, and a veil. The works. It is my moment to celebrate moving through the hardships of past difficulties, becoming wiser, and choosing the miracle of this later-in-life love.
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