A Bearable Lightness of Being

Copyrighted by Lorna Tedder. Originally published in Third Degree of Truth.

While everyone else seems to be crashing around me, I’m not having a bad time. Maybe I’ve done my share for the past  few  years  (at least  definitely  since  March  of 2005!) and the meaner stars in the sky are focusing  on other people right now. I understand the sudden painful shift everyone  around me is now screaming  about but I won’t apologize for not getting slammed for a change.

I’m sorry so many people are having a hard time. I will recognize, perhaps for the first time in my life, that I am not the cause of it, I cannot fix it, and there is nothing for me to gain by stamping out my own good feelings because others are suffering. I’m entitled to feel good about something once in a blue moon without being reminded of all the harshness of life.

Of course, this means probably waiting a few more weeks before I go see my dad again because he’ll certainly find a way to  make me feel guilty if I’m daring to have anything good in my life because, as I learned as a child, you’re not allowed  to be happy if  anyone  else in your family or circle of friends is suffering.

As for right now, this lightness of being is very bearable to me and I’m enjoying it. Yeah. In the moment with it. I’ve noticed  3 things  in the past day that make  me smile. A lot. They’re all milestones of sorts, ones I didn’t know were coming, which, I suppose are the most interesting milestones to reach.

  1. Last  night,  while  out  shopping  with  the  girls,  I bought…lingerie.  As in, nighties.  Sexy  little  things.  Not that I have  a  current “need” for them, but I saw them and suddenly it just felt right.

I haven’t bought this kind of stuff in the two years since my divorce. In the last few years of my marriage, I didn’t buy any either. The only thing I felt like wrapping myself in then was steel, not satin or silk or lace. Yet last night, I bought lingerie.

Not just  one  piece  but  three  ensembles—a  slinky thing that I liked the cerulean blue color of; a Bohemian sort of thing  that  could  possibly  double  as a camisole with jeans if I were that daring and I’m not, at least not in public, but would be great to wear while sharing a bottle of wine on my sofa; and a pretty nightie in cream and lace with rosebuds, rather virginal-looking and calling to me in a way that felt sort of shy and sweet.

It was a milestone in my healing process, I suppose.

Ready to feel sexy again, ready to feel like a woman again.

Of course, then I promptly walked around the corner of  the  department  store  and  fell  in  love  with  3-inch- heeled, black leather, knee-high boots with buckles up the side. When Shannon asked what they  could possibly go with, I told her “Everything!”  Except, maybe the rosebuds….

  1. The man I often see in my dreams seems to be having a better time of things, too. He makes frequent appearances now,  always called away before we can spend much time  talking  and always  lots of activity,  but he’s much  more  joyful  now.  Happy.  A  little  nervous,  but laughing with me and moving forward. For the first time since some of the very first dreams I had of him, he is now looking forward to the future and full of anticipation when he’s with me in my dreams. He has so much to tell me. He’s no longer off to the side and  blurry so that I can’t see his face. He’s front and center, smiling, his eyes sparkling, and I can see him clearly for who he is and for all that he is. This is so much better than watching him sit next to me in a dream and weep.
  2. For all the planning I do, I like to be spontaneous, too. That means not just me being spontaneous but me not having to ask permission to be spontaneous or worry about what someone else might think.

It was sweet tonight to decide at 8 PM to take the girls to see  Little Miss Sunshine at 10 PM (loved it, especially the “Superfreak”  bit  and the “Do what you love and fuck the rest.”

Ah, but the movie’s rated R and so Aislinn preferred to stay home  to read one of her vampire teen chick lit books. Shannon  and I headed  to Destin  Commons  to have dinner at 9 PM, with no restaurant plans. We chose a place we’d never been, we got a high-walled booth so we could talk, I had a glass of wine, we split a wonderful Italian meal and dessert, and we made it to the movie in time to get a great seat.

It was just such a random evening. The decision to go to dinner so late, so spur-of-the-moment,  to see a movie and just go with the flow of the night.

It feels  like  things  are  starting,  finally,  to  feel  like they’re supposed to feel.


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