I have some news. [Deep breath. Inhale…]
/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.
