Where did you find this card? It is scrumptious — hand-made paper and a soft watercolor image that I think might have been an original. You didn’t make this, did you? Was this all your handiwork?
If so, I’ve never had a handmade card deliver an I’m breaking up with you message before.
Your card arrived in the mail today. I noticed the pink envelope first, and then my heart beat faster when I saw it was your handwriting.
You’ve always been an original.
My heart stopped for a minute after I read the first line. Although those opening words were innocuous, I knew what was coming. I knew as soon as I saw your writing on the envelope.
The beach at the very end of what used to be Lawrence Road on the Kaneohe Marine base was one of Oahu’s less spectacular beaches. Unlike Waikiki, sand had not been imported from Australia to create a tourist-friendly spot to sunbathe. No. The beach was a gleaming black lava flow with large, jagged pieces of the black rock the Goddess Pele had tossed about, sitting atop the long-since-cooled lava flow of her anger that oozed across even earlier flows.
In this manner, the beautiful island was formed. The ancient path of Pele’s wrath was worn smooth by the eternal motion of the Pacific Ocean. The water was a vivid blue that one can’t imagine until they see it for themselves — up close and personal. The crashing waves were edged with white foam reaching for the sky. None of it looks real.
That shoreline smelled of plumeria and hibiscus. It smelled of coconuts lying on the ground in the bright tropical sun. It smelled of salt and mildew and of decomposing small sea creatures trapped in the tidepools when the ocean receded.
I was a feral child crouched over a tidepool formed by smooth lava and the blue water of Kaneohe Bay.
The kids were so excited to come home from school to find Scoot sitting on the porch. His backpack was on the floor, and he was practicing the chords for Folsom Prison Blues. Marianne managed to tear herself away long enough to let me know with the required after-school phone call to check in.
“Mom, guess what! Uncle Scoot is here! “
At that news, I wrapped the coiled cord of the business’s landline around my neck and pulled. I often did this as a joke to amuse my colleagues, but today? Today I did want to strangle myself.
I have perhaps twenty more years of life left in me. Maybe less. Maybe a lot less.
The years have been kind. The years have been brutal. I have experienced great joy as well as great sorrow. Through it all, I hoped for a tranquil journey. Through it all, tranquility has been elusive. Fleeting glimpses here and there. Moments of contentment were rare.
But I had hope. I believed in someday. If I were organized enough, if I worked hard, if I was a good person, if… if…if… all would be well. Life would be like boating on a placid sea with a colorful sail rippling in the gentle breeze of deep summer.
I handled the chaos. The stress. The upheaval.
I was often overwhelmed, but I continued moving forward. I tended to my child, who was and is the love of my life. I tended to my house. I tended the garden that brought me glimpses of tranquility when hummingbirds fed at the trumpet vine. I tended to my job. I was not so good at tending to my spouse. We divorced just shy of our twentieth anniversary.
These past twenty years as a divorced, perimenopausal woman have been chaotic and heartbreaking. I often quip that my New Year’s resolution is to be bored. I have been accused of being dramatic, but the drama invaded my life uninvited. I did not conjure it, nor did I encourage the spectacle.
When sent home to quarantine during the pandemic, I hoped for three weeks. Three weeks to hole up in my house and find my equanimity. Three weeks to figure out my life. Three weeks to decompress, regroup, and emerge again fortified and ready to take on the world.
The previous year had been eventful — much of it in not a good way. Still, there were things to celebrate. I turned 60, and my only child had a small destination wedding in Spain. I was the only person on my son’s guest list able to attend. His father had health issues, his grandmothers were too old to make the trip, and so on.
With some trepidation, I planned my first solo international vacation. I raided my 401K and gifted myself an epic two weeks on the island of Ibiza. It was my 60th birthday present to me. The expense was considerable. It was also my only child’s wedding. It was an escape from the stressfest that was my life, and I pulled out all the stops. Sixty! Who would have believed such a state was possible?
W. Va. Fur and Root 