falling in love

I had a moment tonight when I fell in love, all over again, with my city, and my dog, and my life.

Really, perhaps, I was falling in love for the first time.

Life is so different now. Everything is different. It's funny; you change one component, albeit a rather significant one, and all the others seems to look different, feel different, smell different, sound different. Walking on the east side of Winthrop Avenue, my street, heading north, I passed the small playlot where David and I would take Jake to run off-leash the first winter after we had adopted him. It was cold and clear and snow was on the ground, on our boots, in Jakes paws. We laughed. David and I hadn't laughed or smiled like that for some time. Winter in Chicago wears on people, you know.

It was the winter, I always told myself. Or the summer, or the spring, or the autumn. It was always something.

He moved out three months ago. And this place looks so different. Thanks to two best friends who, in conjunction with their ability to listen to me cry on the phone at odd times of the night about the same thing I cried about the last time I called, are incredible artists. The condo feels like mine, and not ours. It helped me move on. They helped me move on.

I haven't written about this yet, really, because I don't believe in blogs being tools for unearthing thoughts, be they negative or positive, about others. My divorce, the end of my marriage, the end to six years with someone, is not anyone else's business. But I write. It's how I express myself best, it's how I deal with things. I am attempting, now, to deal.

Bear with me.

He did nothing wrong. I don't hate him. I love him. And for all the laughter and good memories and photos of us smiling... in Jamaica, Charleston, South Carolina, duckpin bowling, and, yes, of course, at our wedding... for all of those millions of moments that only we shared, or those that were captured on film... for all of those millions of moments there are millions of tears and millions of regrets and millions of moments when my breath catches and I know I'll never breathe again.

But then I do. And I'm not sure how or why.

But tonight after work I fell in love. It was late and my street was deserted. The street lights lit up the snow and the cars and Christmas trees, which usually make me sad, peered out at me in a friendly way from my neighbors windows. Jake skipped happily ahead of me at the end of the leash. My street wears winter well. It looks good covered in snow and ice. And as I passed the playlot I remembered laughing in the snow and taking photos of Jake doing just about everything those first few days, and I remembered sharing that with David. I remembered. And somehow I was still able to be happy, to smile, snow blowing in off the lake into my eyes and fogging up my glasses. I smiled at Jake and the thought of myself, alone.

I came home and cried all night. One should never rummage through forgotten drawers alone, especially when emotionally precarious. But I did, and I cried, and called in the aid of a good friend, yet again. And by the end of the night, too too late to be awake, I am alright again, and perhaps I can even fall in love again with this new life of mine. I don't think the occasional crying jag means that I can't. I think it means I am, for once, not the strong one, not the one others come to, but the one that needs her friends desperately. It's uncomfortable being that person suddenly. Perhaps this is part of my new life, and a facet of myself with which I must fall in love.