Afterword: What It Felt Like To Write That.

This post references the writing and completion of my month-long, 20-part, completely and utterly true epic love story of meeting the father of my two-year-old daughter and my unborn son. The entire story can be found here: Episodes One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, Seventeen, Eighteen, Nineteen and Twenty.


Hello, again. I'm back even though I was totally here the whole time, telling my story in my present voice, writing it as I posted it. Everything said by the me of now. The reflections, nearly eight years after we started our courtship.

I wrote this story now because after I delivered the news of the sex of the baby, I realized I would have 3-4 months of space before having a baby and potentially losing the time and inspiration to write this. Also, I really want to write about my baby when he comes. I'm sure you'll probably be a bit curious to meet him, right? I know I am.

Enough about him.

I've been asked to describe what writing this story felt like. And I often find my mouth forming the same words: It was like natural childbirth. Sure I could have stopped or numbed the pain of contractions and delivery at any time, but not without risks involved. And I wanted my end result to be perfect - no missing fingers or toes. No missing words or paragraphs.

For all of the detail I gave, and I know I gave a lot, there were details I held back if they weren't important to the story, or mainly, if they could potentially hurt one of the many beautiful men and women who were fortunate or unfortunate enough to get involved in the long crossfire of us falling in love, and then falling in love again. I had to acknowledge the ones on my end as if to say, "I loved you. I love you. You happened. This isn't a story about you." And the ones on Cassidy's end? If it was important enough to say, I said it. If not, there was no need. This story could have been more bitter than it came across.

It also could have been WAY more detailed and..you know..it could have told you how babies are made just in case you didn't know how yet. I skated that fine line between, as my uncle said, "Feeling like I'm reading your diary!" and "Feeling like I could probably do with less info than this!" I am a classy broad, after all. True stories can be challenging in those ways.

When I write, really write, I get into a zone. I often write directly from my brain and an occasional fact checking Google search. This story was like writing a book. I did heavy research. I picked Cassidy's brain to piece together memories in order. I pored over nearly every single one of our old emails, and even my emails to other loved ones during this time in my life because it all contained hints and dreams, feelings and memories. Sometimes it was exhilarating. Other times it was torturous. I wrote the end long before I wrote the second half of episode posts. I knew it was perfect before half of my story had been told. I guess that's just my way. When I write deeply and with research and for hours, I get into "the zone." After I'd finish writing for the night, I could not just go to bed, no matter how dearly my pregnant body needed sleep. I had to have a "cooldown" in which I watched mindless TV. Preferably on The CW channel. It was easier to do alone and this is why:

After writing so heavily, wherever I was in my story - the good, the bad, the really bad, the really good, it colored my atmosphere for awhile after I finished writing. Obviously my grip of reality was intact, but I'd walk around my house, breathing it all in and breathing in my present and thanking God I had gotten to where I was today and I didn't have to go back to some or most of the places I was in the story. I didn't necessarily love the person I was researching so heavily - the me of eight years ago. I had to learn to love her and her growth. It was so strange to come down from writing every night and look at Cassidy and try to negotiate him with the "him" I had just been reading emails from. This is my current husband. But just as you are when you wake up from a deeply, vivid dream and you can't quite shake it from your head instantly, I would look at him and see a magical prince, an evil heartbreaker, someone 3,000 miles away from me, someone who hurt me, someone I hurt, someone I didn't know well, someone who didn't know me well...wherever I happened to be in the story.

And of course, I'd recover each time, with time. Yet it was turning me into a bit of a crazy person. I'd be up in my little computer nook having the time of my life, laughing and feeling my spirits soar as I fell more and more magically in love with a mystery man. The next night, I'd be up in my computer, crying, the tears falling onto my many Post-it notes, heartbroken, so heartbroken for a man I loved so much but couldn't have. It was like these dreams I sometimes I have in which I'm watching a movie, but then I'm somehow in the movie and I have to fight bad guys, climb mountains, save a princess, slay a dragon, and each time it's scary and horrible and joyous and wonderful, yet I always already know the ending. Cause I'm not just living this movie. I'm watching this movie from a bit of new distance and perspective. And still it feels fresh. Too fresh.

I was watching it unfold, knowing the ending all the while, but feeling the twists and turns just as powerfully the same.

Then I would recover each time and hug my husband, who is my husband, and I know him and he knows me and I'm not going to run away from him and he's not going to run away from me, I hope, and we don't have 3,000 miles of physical and emotional distance to work so hard and so painfully to bridge.

And I'd wake up in the morning to the sound of my first born, while feeling the gentle kicks of my second unborn.

And I'd never for a second confuse the past with the present. It was only when I sneaked up to my computer each night that the inner conflict would continue.

There were times I'd be fully immersed in an email from Ruth. It would contain quotes or pictures or wisdom I needed to use. Then I'd snap to the present for a second, to find a current email from her, also filled with quotes or pictures or wisdom. That would confuse me for a while...

There were times I was talking with more than one of the other men in this story, but in the present. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that some of them would read the story. And we'd be having powerful conversations, not unlike the conversations we had several years ago. That would confuse me for a while...

I loved, so loved, writing this story. And I hated, so hated, writing this story. It was a labor of love. It was labor. The afterbirth was astoundingly relieving and beautiful. Like a proud mother looking over her newborn, this story has been a baby I've been pregnant with for almost nine years, rather than months. And then there was the letdown, the "Now, what?" of it all. That's where I'm at now. The postpartum period. What will I say or do next? What will fill my spare evening time? How long do I get to feel proud of myself for completing this project before getting involved in the next one? How far apart do you space your "children?"

Still I'm glad it's out where it should be, after all this time of kicking and gestating. I'm glad you can see it now.

I will think of other ways to shake it up a bit, make blogging more exciting. And I have to thank each and every one of you for the comments, emails, texts, whatever. I really needed that, probably more than I ever knew.

When the spell of writing a specific piece has been lifted, you may wonder what kind of black or white magic expelled that...miracle and wonder...from your brain and onto paper or web. You may have been possessed by demons. You may have been kissed by a fairy godmother. You may have been under mind-altering drugs.

Either way, you did it. You wrote it. And you'll do it again.

Episode 20: And In The End..Part II.

Continued from Episodes One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, Seventeen, Eighteen and Nineteen.

Previously: "I Left My Heart In San Francisco."

The week following my Yosemite trip was not the greatest. I went to a party that D was at and didn't know how to handle myself. I know I did not do it gracefully. Cassidy and I were both having separation anxiety nightmares. I dreamed I was homesick for my mom - a terrible feeling I hadn't had in years. Cassidy dreamed we were reuniting at his family's Cape Cod house and we had all grown so old because so many years had passed. I had a really nice home, a well-paying job and a great group of friends. Not to mention family. It was the only life I had ever known. I knew I couldn't stay but I felt like I couldn't necessarily leave either. I didn't want Cassidy to move to Jersey. That was never even an idea I could entertain.

Something had to be done, just the same.

We entertained ideas, some realistic and most not. Opening a coffee shop/B&B/moose store in Wyoming. Working a fruit stand in Hawaii. Raising a stable family in New England (HOLY SPOILER), living in San Francisco so only one of us would have to move. Cassidy always pushed for a new place - somewhere we'd know instantly was home. Somewhere amazing that we didn't know about yet. I only wanted a chance to live in California for a year or two. It was on my bucket list.

Cassidy the Romantic: "I know wherever I lay my head down next to yours will be home."

There were so many annoying details, some real and some created. I had a lease with my sister. I had a job, of course. I thought initially about moving to California but not living with Cassidy! Getting my own place. Having a safe space, a backup plan. He didn't like my idea. I didn't necessarily like my idea either but I wanted to keep myself safe this time. He said:

"Sometimes I wonder how many different ways I can say, email, txt how much I miss you. And then I get sad that it’s ultimately going to be a lot."

I had a lot of anxiety at first. All the way through too. I fear change at times. And I saw myself sitting in an empty apartment, knowing I had just left everyone and everything I'd ever known, and just sitting in paralyzed fear. So I knew if I moved, I'd have to move in with him and not to an empty apartment. My fears started to subside, little by little. At least most of them. I felt confident of our love. "I never considered that time would pass, and you would come back, but it would be well after we both had healed or were healing, and that we'd know what to do. I knew I'd fall in love again, and that it would be new and magical. But I never considered that I'd fall in love again, with you." It was always mind blowing. Still is.

Winter 2006/2007 was a blur of distance, then togetherness, then hard distance, and togetherness again. It was time for a leap of faith and the pieces started to fit together, very slowly. The song of the last end of 2006 was the live long version of "Badge" by Cream. It's on the 24 Nights album. As Cassidy first said of it, "It's uh...poignant."

"Thinkin' 'bout the times you drove in my car.
Thinkin' that I might have drove you too far.
And I'm thinkin' 'bout the love that you laid on my table."

In mid-November:

- I flew back out to San Francisco. We had booked a night or two at a B&B in wine country. On our way there, we found an honest to goodness wild safari in the middle of nowhere. So we did what anyone else would do! We walked in and explored. We walked right up to the giraffes, one of which took an instant liking to Cassidy:



- Not long after, we were "caught" by staff and asked politely to leave. Turns out it was a private sanctuary that you have to book way in advance. And we were just having a grand old time, playing with giraffes in the middle of northern California! Our destination was Calistoga. We stayed at Scarlett's Country Inn. She had a dog named after Chewbacca and had wild birds come and land on her hands and shoulders. She was a magical woman, and of course, a lot of inspiration for us naming our daughter, Scarlet. We just changed it to one "T" to follow the color and the Dead song "Scarlet Begonias." We have since been back to see her a lot, but she passed away in late 2010 in a car accident. We will always love Scarlett and her magic.

In late November:

- Cassidy flew to the east coast for ten days. Nervous and excited, he set foot in my parent's house again and reunited with my family for the first time in years. They greeted him with open arms, of course. We finally did have that Thanksgiving we had all dreamed about for years. It was..overwhelmingly awesome. Ruth took pictures:





- Ruth's aunt is now..103 or 104. She was 99 at this time and when Ruth told her the story of Cassidy and me she said, "It's like magic, isn't it?"

- After Thanksgiving, we went to Connecticut and I met Cassidy's brothers, his dad and his dad's wife, Peggy. New pieces of a future family, all coming together. Then we drove out to the family Cape house in Truro where I was stunned to find generations of family photos gracing every wall. I wanted to be on that wall one day, or take a picture to be on that wall. We snuggled alone in the house at night after days on the cold beaches:



December:

- December brought another trip to California and finally meeting many of Cassidy's friends.

- I created a gmail account and starting forwarding all of our emails, ever, to it. I needed to keep a record of all that had happened. I knew I was leaving in 2007 and that everything I ever did would eventually be deleted off of my company server. I knew I'd one day want to write a blog or a book or a movie. Forwarding it then brought up a lot of happiness and pain for me. I eventually had to blindly forward emails without reading them. These days, now, I read them all. It's been..quite a month of bringing up the past. Now you know why this story is so detailed! Research is never easy when it's good.

- At the end of the month Cassidy flew east again, for our big New Year's plans. BIG. We were hanging out in Jersey for a bit and then driving to Bethel, Maine to stay at the Prodigal Inn again. Together. Cassidy had called Marcey and Tom, not even knowing if they'd remember us. They did. They kept the tree up for us so we could have a private belated Christmas together. When we arrived, we talked for hours, telling each other everything. We told them about our breakup and the aftermath and I admitted driving past the Inn with D1 and seeing Tom and not being able to face him. I couldn't believe a year and a half later I could look Tom in the eye and tell him. We told them how much they meant to us, always. We listened to the dumb old instrumental Titanic album. We looked in the old guest book and saw the powerful words we had written them years earlier. We couldn't believe it but those words about reuniting and telling our tales had come true. On New Year's Eve we went out for an early dinner and got back to the Inn by midnight. We wanted to be with the other guests and Tom and Marcey. We all danced and partied.




- When we left, Marcey gave us a gift. She had bought it earlier that year but didn't know why. Now she believed it was meant for us. As she told me, "He's a keeper and he's so in love with you. He'll always take care of you." She figured that out when he told her to make sure I didn't have any onions in my breakfast! The gift was a baby blanket/taggie. She knew we'd have children together. We didn't find it in time for baby Scarlet but Cassidy found it the other day in storage and we'll use it for the new baby. Scarlet has adopted it for her baby doll and we think that fits just about as perfectly as anything else.

In January:

- That was it. Decision made. Plans to move were underway. I searched to find my sister a replacement roommate. I started wrapping up old projects at work.

- I met Cassidy's 99-year-old great-aunt Nettie and told her the entire story of how we came to be. When I was done, she was wiping tears from her eyes and calling us magical.

- We met in Chicago for a business trip of Cassidy's and stayed at the fancy Omni Hotel. I met his very good friend, Blase, who wound up marrying us. We played with his kids for days.

In February:

- I moved back in with my parents for two months since my roommate search had been successful two months before I needed one. It was one of the strangest times in my life. Even though I had left for college at 18 and then left for the "real world" at 22 or so, I felt like I was losing my parents forever. I knew it would never be the same. I was embarking on something so new, and so distant, and what seemed like it might be permanent. I would cry at night. My mom and I celebrated every holiday to the fullest with countdowns. We'd leave each other morning presents for weeks before Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, Easter. We had a ball but it was hard as well. I was slowly surrendering my previous life - switching from a local bank to a national one, telling all my friends I was leaving, packing up my things early. I had some of my first fights with Cassidy - about planned trips that fell through, cold or distant emails and phone calls. We were already starting to behave like a normal couple! Except we weren't normal at all.

In March:

- I gave my official notice at work.

- Cassidy and I met in Florida so he could meet my grandparents.

- I started getting really, really nervous.

- I ended my four year software career on March 30th. I wrote a last email to Cassidy from that work account, the one that had held SO FREAKIN' MUCH, of our lives:

"This is me really signing off now..

And into the rest of our lives."

He flew to me in early April. We Fed-exed most of my life to San Francisco. On April 10, 2007, we got on a JetBlue flight together. Our first JetBlue flight together. He squeezed my hand during takeoff, because I really hate takeoff. I looked at the window and waved goodbye to New Jersey. I knew I'd never be back, not permanently. The first night in our new life, I sobbed on the couch for hours after my friend Nora requested "Into The Great Wide Open" on the radio through my sister. The next day was a rare rainy day in San Francisco. We had keys made. We bought furniture. The great adventure was underway. I can't say the transition was smooth, or easy. Living together wasn't so hard. We were compatible. Money, anxiety, distance, loss, fear, trust. They were all works in progress. But it was so worth it.

In June, Cassidy took me to a Police concert in Oakland. When we came home, the house was lit with dozens of candles. There were roses and photos and music. I came into the living room after dropping off my purse in the bedroom and Cassidy stood, nervous, a ring in his hand and a proposal on his lips. I was stunned. "Yes" was the biggest no-brainer answer of my life. I stayed up all night calling family and friends at ridiculous east coast (and west coast) hours. We celebrated after with fancy brunches and seeing Scarlett's Country Inn. We married in Vermont on April 26th, 2008. The engagement ring was engraved with "Destiny", our song by Zero 7. The wedding bands were engraved with lyrics from our other song, "Romeo and Juliet" by Dire Straits. Mine says, "You and me, Babe" and his says, "How about it?"

For a long time now, I've wondered how and when to end this story. If you know me, you know what my life is like now and perhaps the harder parts of this story were easier to read knowing me or Cassidy, knowing the end result.

Or not. I never felt that way, personally, and I'm the one writing it. I'm the one who lived it.

I could have ended this story after I "met" him. A short story that lives up to the title of my mini-series. I could have ended after I "re-met" him and we began a second love story, that was much more powerful and durable than the first, in my opinion. The relationship built to last.

I could have kept going and going.

What I'll leave you with is a series of images. And a question only partly answered about what can happen after the epic movie fairy tale is over and real life begins. Real life is only more real than fantasy. Not always better. Not always worse. Just real:

- We flash forward after the proposal and through the wedding planning to the actual day. "Layla: Piano Exit" begins the second we are pronounced man and wife. Tom and Marcey, our dear friends from Maine, approach us at the altar. And then, and only then, does my new husband shed the tears we've both been building. Happy tears.



- We are in our Toyota Camry, headed through the wild west and then the midwest and then Niagara Falls. A boring night on the New York side spent in a boring hotel since my husband lost his passport. Best mistake ever. The losing the passport, I mean. The mistake is NOT what happened next, and who was born nine months later. Oh no. That was the "plan."



- Flash forward to her birth, and the instant connection Cassidy felt the moment he met our daughter. Happy tears. Again.



- Then we are house hunting in Northampton, Massachusetts and falling dizzily in love with our house.



- I sit and write this, literally growing larger by the second, with our second baby. Our son. So, so wanted and planned. And I write this, so that my kids can one day read the story of how they came to be. It wasn't about planning and pregnancy and labor. It was about a series of events that started long, long before their births that all came together to form a family. And if you think of all of the minor details that made Cassidy my customer in the first place, that made us fall in love, and break up and fall in love again and choose to be together..well it's a damn miracle. That's what it is. The miracles of life and love.

And that, my friends, is the end of this particular story. And just think, we're still kind of young. Three great adventures under our belt. Many, many more to come. Stay tuned here.

Think about what could happen in a life. In your life. Anything is possible. I lived that enough to believe it fully.

"Oh yeah, all right
Are you going to be in my dreams
Tonight?

Love You, Love You..(they say x 15, I say x infinity)

And in the end
The love you take
Is equal to the love you make." - The Beatles

Episode 19: And In The End...Part I.

Continued from Episodes One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, Seventeen, and Eighteen.

Previously: New York City had a hell of a lot to say to us, our first time seeing each other in two years.

My mind got clearer as the next week went on after our NYC/Mass reunion. Cassidy sent me a link of his ex-girlfriend's photography. It showed the whole arc of their relationship. It was the place I saw a picture of him from the Phish show at Coventry, VT and learned they had seen each other and he had never told me. Then I saw their relationship unfold in late 2004 starting from a wedding in which she had taken him as her date, to a Thanksgiving together, to the famous New Year's Eve where they got back together officially, to road trips, times with Stormy, everything. It hurt to look at a lot, but not as terribly as I would have thought. He looked dead and numb in a lot of her pictures. He never looked that way in mine...

It made me love him more. That is the most selfish thing I can say. I saw a sexy guy who was someone else's...at the time...and I wanted him more. I looked at every picture, letting pain and sympathy for my own self wash over me. Then I let it go. He showed me those pictures in the middle of my confusion for a reason. I sent him a text in the middle of the night after looking:

"You know how much I love you, right?"

It wasn't a normal "Tamara" text. I was not usually so free with my emotions on text or email. Sometimes, often, in person too. He was floored. So was I. I was feeling like I was in the middle of a gigantic dream come true. I felt amazed to be experiencing something even more powerful than the amazing adventure of 2004. It took me YEARS to even slightly shake that feeling, not that I wanted to, and since then I've felt it again, like after I met Scarlet.

A lot of painful memories surfaced as well. I remembered a night in a bar in February 2005 seeing a friend's band play. There was a guy who looked like Cassidy on the dance floor. I missed him so much in that moment, but in a physical, bodily way. It was my first sensation of that feeling and it hurt so much I had to leave the bar. When I got into my car, that was when I discovered "Don't Cry" by Seal. I told Cassidy this memory. I had to keep laying out my pain and memories for awhile. I had to keep confronting them, through pictures and stories. He told me of his pain too. I needed it:

"thank you for the "Don't Cry" origin tale. It is ok for us to tell mournful tales. The more we talk about the days between the better we will understand each other..what we went through. it will be painful and mournful at times. The end result will be deeper love and understanding though. I used to see you on the street a lot. it was your hair. I used to look at maroon shirts in the boutiques on Haight St....and if one showed up in a window I would see it everyday. it hurt."

Even with things up in the air, we started to talk about a strange idea. It was Cassidy's strange idea. He knew that plans may have already been made, but put the idea in all of our heads of us all finally having that Thanksgiving together. In New Jersey. With his mom and Ernie. As he said,

"I think our present totally dwarfs our past. And our past was pretty huge. So that says a lot about what’s happening right now."

It was so much to think about. All at once. One step at a time, I said then. I still had potential Thanksgiving plans with D. I honestly had no idea. I look back on this time as a jumble of hazy and confused memories, but that was what it was like living through it as well. My sister invited me to visit her at her radio station and put a request on the air. I wanted to send Cassidy a song to let him know I was thinking about him. I had told him to listen. I looked at the millions of albums at the station and couldn't figure out what to play. Clapton? Petty? Zeppelin? And then it hit me. The most perfect song ever. A throwback to our 2004 roadtrip from Maine to JFK Airport, but also a song that talked of a potential future. U2's "Even Better Than The Real Thing." Perfection. My sister actually recorded me sending out the dedication and I have it somewhere:

"Give me one more chance
And you'll be satisfied
Give me two more chances
You won't be denied
Well, my heart is where it's always been
My head is somewhere in between
Give me one more chance
Let me be your lover tonight

Oh yeah, check it out

You're the real thing
Yeah the real thing
You're the real thing
Even better than the real thing"

The week or two between getting back from Conway and heading to Yosemite was..incredibly hard. D and I had a series of arguments, bad conversations, loving conversations, emails, phone calls and an in person breakup. After the end, I wrote to my mom, "It was brutal. I wanted to die." I felt like I was really thinking clearly finally. I didn't feel like D was thinking clearly and some of his actions hurt me a lot. My mom was a very innocent bystander, trapped in the crossfire, but she told me that during the long two months of confusion and pain, that Cassidy had called her and said, "Just let her be happy. With or without me. I only want her happiness." My mom had been realizing what I had suspected all along - that Cassidy's intentions were selfless even if his actions did not always show it.

The day before my trip to Yosemite Cassidy wrote, "I love that our magic is a reality." It was the simplest way to explain it. I was in pain, so much pain, and that would take a long time to recover from, and maybe never fully, but I felt like my mind and heart were locked in the same place. I don't know if I had felt that way with Cassidy until after we saw each other again.

I was going to see my mom that night for a last dinner and good blessings before my trip. She wrote an email to Cassidy and me with what might be the best description of our emerging relationship ever. Our wedding officiant, Blase, even quoted her during our ceremony:

"I have been thinking of your love in terms of energy and what I get is that back two years ago, it was like pouring hot, molten glaze into two dixie cups. Now it's pouring glaze into two ceramic, stoneware cups - Not only does the stoneware withstand the glaze, but the glaze decorates the vessels which are now mature, strong, and beautiful."

(This is why I'm a writer. Genetics.)

I had wanted so badly to believe I'd end up with D. And I'll never know what would have happened, with or without Cassidy. When it was both of them, somewhere I believed in Cassidy but chose to focus on something I knew I had, not something only the smallest gut feeling told me I'd get back. I felt wide awake and alive now. As well as in pain. And my mom told me I looked skinny and radiant - sounded about right. I had lost some weight with all of the stress of loving D and Cassidy.

I flew back to San Francisco on a rainy night. I was afraid my plane wouldn't take off, but it did. I arrived so late and there he was - with Stormy on a leash at the airport! We got in the car and "Going to California" was on the radio. I asked Cassidy if it was a cd and he said, "Umm...no. Radio, of course." I went back into that city and back into the old apartment. I could only look at it in wonder for hours. I would wander up and down the long hallway, looking at Stormy, looking outside at the sky and just being in awe that I could find myself back there. I sometimes love to pretend that I'm in the past looking into a glimpse of the future, wherever I happen to be. I kept thinking that if my self from a year or even two years before that could see me now, on Oak Street in San Francisco, it would blow my past self's mind.

We woke up the next morning and took in the sun and some of the parts of the city I had loved and lost. We drove to Yosemite and we had both made three mix cds each for the trip. They had themes. We got Pumpkin Spice Lattes and arrived in the cool, crisp mountains. Yosemite is..beautiful. I think. No, really. We did some half climbs, good drives, good pictures. We saw one deer. Our cabin had an outdoor hot tub and we saw dozens of shooting stars above us one night. We honestly didn't see much of Yosemite. We spent time together in the cabin. We made meals together. Ok..umm...those of you who know me deserve the truth - Cassidy made meals for us. We watched the "Concert for George" DVD as well as "The Lake House." In that movie, two people fall in love through letters. One is in 2004. The other is in 2006. They can't quite get to each other. It felt like us. Waiting for each other for two long years, one suffering more than the other. Frustrating and satisfying at the end. When we actually ventured outside, there were pictures.













The inside view was so great, it kept us indoors for days. Mountains are great, sure. Some things are better.



We stole the most luscious, fluffy white blanket from the cabin. We hoped to get away with it but were secretly thrilled to get billed for it. Honesty is best, we had discovered. We now use it for our house guests in our own private cabin in the woods. We drove back to San Francisco and had a nauseating goodbye at the airport. On the plane back home, I slept through two movies and nearly through dinner. I had headphones in my ear set to some "Rewind" station on the plane's channels. I woke up as we were landing in Newark, and "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" began at that moment.

Coincidence? I think not.

I was so scared to be back in Jersey. Previously our time together would eventually pull us apart because the pain of saying goodbye after goodbye was too great. I was certain that our two years apart had strengthened us for the long, hard road ahead. Our previous relationships, mine strong and his weak, had taught us about love, life, awareness and magic. It sounded like it would be enough but my fears were still there. I still quoted Seal's "Don't Cry" on a daily basis:

"Cause I'm afraid what you've done to me
Is now the wolf in my bed
In my head, in my head, in my bed"

I still felt wounded. I had just ended a long relationship. I lived in New Jersey. He lived in California. I was trying to piece together full forgiveness and trust. We did have love, though..

Was that enough?

Episode 18: The Gods Must Be Crazy.

Continued from Episodes One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, and Seventeen.

Previously: Our two year reunion, made uncertain by a NYC bomb scare!

I have no idea how long I waited there, outside an airport terminal. It could have been minutes. It could have been an hour. Cassidy texted me that he was so antsy he was doing push-ups in the aisle of the plane. I don't know how he got through that flight and this. Finally they were let off the plane. No one was allowed in the buildings so baggage was sent outside. It was a mess of suitcases toppling over, and people reuniting. I saw him from nearly a mile away. I think the satellites saw him from space. He was grinning, for one, and much more tall, handsome and tan than anyone in NYC ever is in the fall.

He was coming straight at me. I couldn't run! I had no idea what he'd do when he got to me. At the last minute, he veered away from me. ..What? Then I realized he was putting his suitcase to the side, away from anyone near us. So that he could sweep me off my feet until I was weightless and airborne, and then he spun me around a bit.

We couldn't stop looking at each other. He looked so different. So much younger. Sexier. Skinner. Edgier. When we had been together, once in awhile I'd see pictures of him when he was my age and I'd get slightly upset that we weren't closer in age. Well hell, that went right out the window on September 29th, 2006. He looked like everything I had ever wanted, from him, from anyone. I didn't know whether to thank his ex or not. Or his healing. He was someone completely new to me. We were pretty giddy like last time, and luckily did not have to ride the monorail again. Even the thought made me dizzy. And we didn't have to get lost in the Hamptons either. I let him drive my car into Manhattan. NYC makes me uncomfortable. This was probably one of the few times in the last ten years that I've loved it for all of the magic it was about to give us...

"Don't Cry" by Seal came on my cd. He pulled over and we both cried and hugged for a long time. He kept saying, "I'm sorry, so sorry, so sorry." We'd do that a lot. Stare at each other in wonder, in alarm, in surprise, as if every second were the absolute first second of seeing each other again after so long. We checked into Cassidy's swanky hotel. It had long hallways and an ornate lobby. When we went downstairs to move the car to a lot, "Layla" was playing in the lobby. Cassidy heard it first and looked back and me, with his eyes wide. He started shaking his head. I think at that point I thought I might levitate at any second.

It was pretty late at night by this point and the next day was a big day. What's interesting about spending a night with an old lover is the comfort level that was already built in years ago. It's still there, no matter what. No matter how much you've hurt each other, or where you've been in life, or what boyfriend you may or may not have at home, waiting. The awkwardness? Not really there. We put on pajamas. I put on a blue Led Zeppelin t-shirt and moose pants. We sat in our hotel room and talked a lot. Every time the tension got too great, or my stomach started hurting for some strange reason, we'd race around the long hallways in our pajamas. We explored the hotel. We were giddy, goofy and intense. All night. Sometimes all three at once. Somehow at some late, late point, we fell asleep. Chastely.

The next morning, Cassidy had meetings. I ordered in room service and waited around a lot. My sister called me at some point during the afternoon. I remember clearly that I was in the tiny bathroom brushing my hair. She said, "I just want to know one thing. Are you happy?"

I said, "I am. I'm very, very happy."

She said, "That's all I needed to know..."

When Cassidy came back. We were so tired from the previous night's almost all-nighter that we slept for most of the afternoon. It was much better than exploring the city. We woke up around the same time late afternoon and looked at each other. I don't know who started it, or how it happened, but we did kiss. It was my "Kiss Out of Jail Free" card and I used it. I confess. The kiss was...well...how can I describe it? Imagine if you loved someone with your whole heart and that ended too soon and too tragically. You tried to get them back but couldn't. You were heartbroken for at least a year. You tried again, in vain, to get them back. You started to heal because you had to but there was a lifelong dark mark in your heart. A hole. Then you meet them again, and you fall in love again. Not back in love, mind you. Into a newer, more adult, brand new love. Imagine that. Imagine kissing that person after two years apart. That's how that kiss was. It was like a movie's "I will literally die without you" kiss. But better. A kiss of deep longing, deep love and intense pain. It had it all.

Then got all dressed up for our huge plans. Didn't I tell you them yet? No? We were going to an Eric Clapton concert at Madison Square Garden. Naturally. We started out having dinner at an Italian restaurant. I ordered ravioli. We talked some more about the past and Cassidy's eyes filled with tears. I saw this big, beautiful man crying in a restaurant and I just wanted to hug him hard. I hope I did. After dinner we were close enough to walk to Madison Square Garden, but it wouldn't be an easy walk. I let Cassidy lead and he took me through winding and back streets and all over this city of 8 million people. I looked up as we were walking a back street at one point and I saw something. Something so eerie I'll never be able to get it out of my head. It made me drop Cassidy's hand as if I was doing something wrong, which I wasn't..not really.

It was D's sister. In a city of millions. On a back street that wasn't necessarily on the way to the concert. I had known she was going to be in the city that night, and she had known from D that I was going to be with Cassidy trying to figure things out. She looked really sad and then she saw us. She had been stood up, or had plans canceled last minute on her. She was all alone in this city and then we found her. She started crying and said,"I needed you. And you're here. It's like..home." I think we offered to skip the concert for her but she insisted that we go. We told her where we would be and about when it would let out if she wanted to find us again. I..am still in shock from that moment.

The concert was loud and packed. We danced in the aisles to "Layla" and "After Midnight." We never got tired. I remember other concert-goers looking at us and saying, "Awwww.." We were sitting in front of the handicapped section, in front of a guy in a wheelchair. During "After Midnight" he was so caught up in the music that he stood and danced. So beautifully. After the concert, D's sister found us. Again. We all three went to Ben & Jerry's and Cassidy treated us to peanut butter cup milkshakes. I kept saying, "This is weird, right. This is totally weird." Despite her strong VERY strong loyalty to her amazing brother, she said, "This isn't weird for me because I love Tamara as a best friend and sister, and anyone in her past, present and future is someone I'd like to meet, and someone who matters to me as well."

It was a beautiful sentiment.

After we said goodbye to her, I wasn't over the shock of seeing her in a city of millions. What the hell did it mean? I may never know. We got our car back from our hotel. I think Cassidy had it booked for two nights, but we had no intention of staying. I wanted to get to Conway so that we could wake up in Conway. We left NYC around midnight and listened to the whole mix I had made for my first roadtrip to Conway with my mom a year earlier. The song that cut through our hearts the most was "Alive and Kicking" by Simple Minds. The live version:

"Oh you lift me up to the crucial top, so I can see
Oh you lead me on, till the feelings come
And the lights that shine on
But if that don't mean nothing
Like if someday it should fall through
You'll take me home where the magic's from
And I'll be with you

What you gonna do when things go wrong?
What you gonna do when it all cracks up?
What you gonna do when the Love burns down?
What you gonna do when the flames go up?
Who is gonna come and turn the tide?
What's it gonna take to make a dream survive?
Who's got the touch to calm the storm inside?
Don't say goodbye
Don't say goodbye
In the final seconds who's gonna save you?"

We got to Conway around 4:00 am. Above a field on a back road, we saw a bright shooting star. I hadn't seen a shooting star in years, and back then, had only seen a handful in my life. We got to Ruth and Ernie's house where Eva barked to let them know we had arrived. Ruth was calling out from the porch, "Is that him? Is that my Cassidy?" Then we all ate vegetable soup together until 5:00 am. Ruth had set us up with one bed in one of the guest rooms. Honestly is there really a protocol for when your son arrives at 4:00 am with his ex-girlfriend who happens to have a boyfriend but is taking space to figure things out? Probably not. We did share a room, as we had shared a hotel room the night before. And all we did was sleep.

The next morning we watched Ruth and Ernie's wedding video and all cried. They also have a beautiful love story. We went walking through the woods around our property and Ruth pointed out a second lot she had. She said she had a vision of her grandkids running on a path between the two lots. I got the chills when she said that. It was on the tip of my tongue to say, "I want your grandkids to be my kids." It didn't seem like the time to say it. As dreamy as this weekend was, I still felt a melancholy every so often, when I had time to think to myself. I kept thinking about how I was going to lose someone I loved. I was going to lose Cassidy and this whole dream and the magic we created wherever we went. Or I was going to lose D and the loving, wonderful relationship we had built for almost a year. It didn't seem fair to me. I kept thinking that I was definitely the loser here, and only one of them would be. So that left two broken-hearted people out of three.

These thoughts only plagued me once in awhile. Mostly, there were moments like this one, captured by Ruth:



That remains to this day one of my favorite pictures of all time.

Later that day we went for a walk by ourselves to Pixie and John's farm. Pixie was the one to rescue us back in 2004 when we got locked out of Ruth's house. They were on vacation or something but we played around in their yard, taking pictures of goats and donkeys and of each other. This is a favorite photo of Cassidy - he looks like a boy in it, and as Ruth said, "Like he's coming for you."



We had to say goodbye that same afternoon, after two nearly sleepless nights. Saying goodbye to Ruth and Ernie was especially hard because while I knew I'd see them again, of course, I didn't know if I'd see them again with Cassidy. We were a strange foursome, not knowing who we all belonged to and how we'd somehow have a safe, healthy and magical relationship together, apart, what? Being back in Conway felt so much like "home." I wrote to Ruth later that day:

"Thank you SO much for everything. Every time I close my eyes, I'm back in Conway. I can't believe it all happened, and it wasn't a dream."

And she shared the same sentiment.

We drove from Conway to JFK Airport, mostly playing with my satellite radio. The second we pulled into departures, "End of the Innocence" came on satellite and Cassidy nearly missed his flight for how long we had to sit and listen, and then talk and then hug some more. It wasn't our longest goodbye. After all I was still booked to go back to San Francisco within two weeks. I could still take that trip, or not, depending on how things went back at home.

I took that long, bridge and toll-filled way back home to my little sister and her boyfriend. They knew where I had been but didn't ask much at first. The sun was setting and I hadn't had even one full night of sleep in the last two nights. I was fading off in my room, to bad TV, when they came into my room and said, "Uh..D is here." I panicked and looked at my yesterday's clothes and and messy hair and general confusion and said, "I'm not ready! Tell him I'm not here!" Of course, as they had pointed out, he had seen my car and probably the light on in my bedroom. I went downstairs to meet him. It was awkward but we joked about something that easily broke the tension. We sat down on a couch. I thought it was really brave of him to come over. He had been quiet and patient. He had written me beautiful letters while I was gone. We talked about the strangest things. He wasn't coming for an answer and I didn't have one. Not at that moment. I was really tired and needed a few days or so to sleep and go to work and see where that left my heart. We said goodbye, and that we'd talk the next day or so.

I went back to my bedroom to sleep and saw a text Cassidy had sent me hours earlier:

"They want phones off now. i'll be safe. you too. we have a lot to live for that we haven't had yet. i want it all with you."

I went to sleep with a pounding headache.

Episode 17: Wake Me Up When September Ends.

Continued from Episodes One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen and Sixteen.

Previously: "Don't..let go. Please."

I woke up the next morning with a grief hangover. After only seconds, it all rushed back to me. My mom telling Cassidy to let me go, to let me be happy. Cassidy telling me it's what he fears he has to do. I told him not to let me go. Ever. We got off the phone because hours of sobbing had left me half asleep and muttering about putting pears in the microwave.

I honestly did not know if I'd ever hear from him again. I worried that the previous night had been a dream. I was so afraid he had told me that he still loved me and wanted me back. I was even more afraid that he hadn't. I was so bleary-eyed with a splitting headache that I wondered if it had all been a dream. That he had never called me on my birthday and I was happy in my New Jersey, Software Sales Rep parallel universe with D. I also wondered if we had never broken up and if we lived together, happily, in our San Francisco B&B Owners parallel universe. The truth was somewhere in the middle.

I woke up and went to work, because that's what I always did. That was my normal. My consistency. My emails with D started early that morning. He was reassuring and strong. I told him everything that had happened but not so much how I felt. He was very clear-headed, a particular gift of his, and he said that we were obviously at an impasse and that our own relationship would not survive or thrive if I didn't go to see Cassidy to see if anything was still there. He said it would either kill us or make us stronger, and that he preferred the latter. I think I still did too. I told him that things with Cassidy were very uncertain and that I didn't think I'd hear from him again after my mom had chased him away with a pitchfork the night before. (Kidding, Mom! Love you...) It all seemed like a dream. Either a really bad one or a good one. I couldn't tell.

D said that I didn't have to have any notions in my head before seeing Cassidy, as well as no plans to cut him out of my head or put him back together. "You just have to honor how you feel." We had watched "The Notebook" a few days earlier and brought it up. I was clearly Allie but we couldn't tell who was Noah. Our conversation was cut short because D's dad wasn't feeling well and he had to go to him. I finally heard from Cassidy only an hour or so before closing time at the office:

"Daylight came like a slap to the face this morning. I…try…I try not to email you. Around this time of the day though I crack. I think I am weak and bad. Are you ok? Just promise me you remember what we talked about. You fell asleep on the phone last night and it was the sweetest thing ever."

His morning sounded...astonishingly like mine had. He felt badly and wondered if he could, or must, step back from me. He felt a bit like a bad person. To be honest, I never did. Horribly torn and heartbroken, sure. But never like a bad person:

"We are not bad people. You only get one life, or...as far as we know, you do."

D thought Cassidy was a man in pain who had made some mistakes and was now finding his way out of them. Cassidy thought D was obviously a strong man who was willing to let me go to see if I'd come back to him. To find a resolution. Cassidy said, "I know what it means to love you."

Labor Day weekend started just a day later. I was supposed to go on a roadtrip with my mom and sister to visit my uncle in Cleveland. It was called off last minute because he wasn't feeling well. I confess..I looked at last minute deals to San Francisco after I heard my trip was canceled. They were ridiculously priced and we decided we would know when and if the time was right to confront each other. I went home to my parent's house to rest. Cassidy sent me his first picture in two years while I was at my mom's computer listening to Clapton and Petty. He was at the beach in San Francisco on a hot day. I had no idea what he looked like then. Before Facebook! My mom came up behind me after he had sent it because I couldn't stop staring and kept it open on her screen. I had no idea if she approved or not. She didn't say much - I drooled.



He also sent me a song file from the "Concert for George" concert that Eric Clapton had helped put on after George Harrison died. "Something." Paul McCartney starts out sort of lighter-hearted on his ukulele. It's the 1:33 mark or so that kills me. Everything changes. The beauty and sadness. Eric Clapton takes it home, in a way only he could do:



I asked Cassidy, "Wow! What do you think it was like doing THAT song, when that's the song that Harrison wrote for Patti Boyd, the same woman Clapton wrote 'Layla' for?"

And he replied that he loved the way my mind worked.

I also heard from Ruth. Cassidy had finally told her that we were back in touch. She had never told him about my relationship with her. Or my relationship with D. She had never told me about Cassidy's failed relationship. It was so hard for her at times, but it was what she had to do. I respected that so intensely. Why get in the middle? I always think that if it were me, it would be like sitting in the middle of an incredible cliffhanger of a movie, everyone in anguish despite an obvious solution and endpoint, that only you can see. And you can't tell a filmmaker how to end their movie, or a writer how to end their book. You have to be silent and watch it all play out as it should. We talked a lot about the pressure on her. I told her that I was confused and that, "I don't think I ever really stopped waiting for his call, and that has been something to realize."

I booked a flight to San Francisco that same day. My reservations were for mid October. It seemed far off, but with plenty of time to think. We were going to go to Yosemite together, since we can't do anything normally. What better place to confront old demons and see what develops anew, than in a place you've always dreamed about visiting? He booked a cabin called the Lupin. As in Remus Lupin from Harry Potter. Two years later, we were shocked to discover that we had both gotten very into HP during our time apart. I even told him that I called him "Voldermort." He thought it was funny and well-deserved.

However, I no longer called him "Voldemort" and I changed his name in my phone to "Cassidy."

My trip to Yellowstone with D was still on. We were supposed to leave a few days after Labor Day weekend. We had deep doubts about this trip, and I'm certain D had deeper doubts than I had. Most of the trip was probably non-refundable, but mainly, we knew everything could be about to change so soon. This was our sacred trip together. We decided to honor it. Two days or so before we were to leave, D got an email about our returning flight home. We were originally supposed to fly from Salt Lake City to somewhere like Chicago, and then home. Makes sense, right? Chicago is on the way back east. Well United Airlines had somehow changed our layover..to San Francisco. Salt Lake City to San Francisco to New Jersey. It made no geographical sense. At all. I think D thought it was funny. I think I had to think so too.

On the day of the flight change email, I got surprising news. Cassidy was taking a business trip into NYC in late September. Other than a meeting or two, he'd be around into the last weekend of the month. He asked if I would consider meeting him in New York, back at JFK Airport. He said he'd have a surprise for me for the night of September 30th. I accepted. October in Yosemite was already booked, but I guess it was nice to see each other on closer, familiar territory before then to see if the California trip should even happen. Or else we were feeling pretty confident we'd somehow need both trips..

The night before I left for Yellowstone, Cassidy sent me a picture that melted my heart:



It felt like home to me. I said:

"I'm going to miss you, you know. And I don't know how. Or what right I have to say that. To anyone. But that's because I'm me. I should come with warning signs."

Yellowstone was...heartbreaking and haunting. In so many ways. Cassidy's ghost followed us everywhere. We'd hear songs that D knew reminded me of Cassidy and asked, "Should I laugh or cry?" We flew into Salt Lake City and then drove to Yellowstone. Along the way we heard Eric Clapton. A lot. And at one point D turned to a new radio station somewhere in Iowa and the DJ said, "Hey, this is Cassidy." We laughed, actually. We drove into the west entrance of Yellowstone somewhere at dusk. We stopped short pretty instantly at an anime-looking male elk standing majestically over our car. It was like that for a long time until it got completely dark. Then all we saw was the glowing eyes of wild animals beyond our wildest imaginations. I would not recommend driving through Yellowstone at night in the on-season. You have to go 35 miles an hour to avoid running into the kinds of animals you don't want to run into..grizzly bears, moose, elk, bison, wolves. This ain't rabbits and squirrels. Grand Teton and Jackson, WY were the highlights. Moose, moose stores, food and mountains. Things were definitely tense between us at times and we had some seriously sad meals at restaurants where we didn't talk to each other at all. I was..mostly good. I tried not to call or write or think about Cassidy. The last part was hardest.

Cassidy and I did something really dumb, almost. Since he lives so close to San Francisco Airport and I had told him about our layover on the way back to Newark, we almost saw each other. D was really upset with both of us and I get that. It was his time, his trip. I was so upset that he was mad that I took two motion sickness pills to sleep all the way to Newark. I was such a mess and so glad we hadn't all seen each other at the same time.

D and I were in limbo after the trip. He hoped it would still work out between us. In some ways, I did too. In some ways, I thought maybe he'd be the endpoint, somehow. We spent a lot of time talking about the what ifs. He told me it would be like a weekend off. He said I could kiss Cassidy if I thought that would help me know something for sure. The whole idea of even seeing Cassidy and not kicking him in the nuts or crying, or both, was foremost on my mind. So the idea of any kind of physical intimacy didn't even enter my brain. I'm not that type of person. I couldn't live with the guilt of cheating.

A week before his NYC trip, I sent Cassidy the lyrics to Zero 7's "Destiny." He went home and downloaded the song and couldn't speak right away. It just seemed so "us." (This will be important later)

"The journey's long
And it feels so bad
I'm thinking back to the last day we had.
Old moon fades into the new
Soon I know I'll be back with you
I'm nearly with you
I'm nearly with you

When I'm weak I draw strength from you
And when you're lost I know how to change your mood
And when I'm down you breathe life over me
Even though we're miles apart we are each other's destiny

On a clear day
I'll fly home to you
I'm bending time getting back to you
Old moon fades into the new
Soon I know I'll be back with you
I'm nearly with you
I'm nearly with you

When I'm weak I draw strength from you
And when you're lost I know how to change your mood
And when I'm down you breathe life over me
Even though we're miles apart we are each other's destiny

When I'm weak I draw strength from you
And when you're lost I know how to change your mood
And when I'm down you breathe life over me
Even though we're miles apart we are each other's destiny

I'll fly, I'll fly home
I'll fly home and I'll fly home"

My mom and I didn't talk a lot during the month of September. She was feeling overwhelmed hearing from me, Cassidy and D, sometimes all at once. She felt too close to a story that was not her own and wanted to give me the space to explore by heart. I needed the space to explore by heart. My sister filled her in on my Yellowstone trip and that I was going to see Cassidy at the end of September, with D's blessing. A week to the day before I was going to see Cassidy, she sent me what is probably the best email that has ever existed:

"I have a huge photo of you and Lindsay on a carousel taken the April before Dad died. You gaze at me and there is no Ellis and Richard struggling in the background only a small building lump in my throat to a diaphanous figure looming just outside of my peripheral vision. Like Meredith, you have a past with an abandonment. (editor's note: "Grey's Anatomy" references) Of course Dad didn't leave on purpose, we hope, but to a small child, the handsome prince walks away from her castle and her life will be forever impacted by the loss. She will grow strong and deep but may come to a crossroad where there are two princes and a small heart that wants to burst in two, three, four million pieces.

D and Lindsay have both approached me in the last few days with one request, to show my support for you, my beautiful daughter. Well, nunu, you have my support, my love..so much of my love that my heart is also in a million pieces at your pain. And yes, D is correct, none of this is your fault. The radio gods taunt us, my iTune gods are urging me to write to you but karma, cosmology, and the conspiring universe have a lot more to do with this all.

My issues are certainly that we people project our opinions so much on each other that we treat other peoples' lives as if we are watching a movie and think we know how the movie should unfold. We feel we are letting our audiences down if we choose the way they do not want us to choose. Life is not like one of those novels where multiple endings coexist. As much as we can't understand now, life will go on, unfold for the spiritual growth of us all and one day we will look back and remember the pain but no longer suffer because of it. Things have a habit of working out. There were days in the mid eighties for me where I did not want to be alive, could not live without your dad. I had a choice of going on and raising you two with joy or numbing myself with some compulsive activity to shut the world out. I chose survival and you will too. You will be with the one you cannot live without and you will know it.

I have been afraid that if we spoke, my own issues of my past with two men would only upset us both or you may think I was trying to influence you either way which I would not. This is not celluloid, our lives are real, full, three dimensional, holographic. The only projected requirement for my movie, pun intended, is that when your wedding day comes, and it will, that you are deliriously happy.

Loving you always,
Mom"


I was so strengthened by her email. It's not that I need my parent's approval to do everything, but I had never NOT had it enough to know what it's like not to have it. This was her way of telling me that I had it, I always had it, and that I deserved it. I shared it with Cassidy who said, "I do have visions of my wedding. Dancing…smiling faces everywhere….rock and roll…my dad dancing like the goofball he is…my mom probably crying a lot. Friends, friends…so many friends. And not a shred of doubt in my mind."

His ex had not wanted a wedding, ever. She didn't like romance. He also said:

"You always were, and to this day remain the biggest thing in my life. It is not something I ever lost. What I lost was myself. And that will never happen again no matter what happens."

The week dragged on. There was some back and forth about where I would sleep. Cassidy thought I'd stay in the hotel with him, however chastely, but I still wasn't sure how things would go. Would I punch him? Scream? Run away? I wanted an out, but I knew I couldn't take it if I wanted to fully see our feelings out. After NYC, we wanted to go somewhere "safe." We decided on going to Conway, MA to see Ruth and Ernie. Of course. We thought they'd be some of the only people on earth to understand our weirdness, and respect it. We had never all four shared the same space..

D was silent during the last few days before Cassidy was coming. Most people were silent, I think, to give me and my brain some breathing room. My sister said, "I'll stand by you, always. No matter what you decide." I did get a casual email from my mom the day of his trip about something unrelated. I knew she knew it was enough. She gave me support in her own way. She ended her email with, "Have fun." That's not her usual end greeting.

I wrote to Cassidy before he boarded the plane: "I never thought I'd see you again, and yet, there you will be. After everything. I imagine the initial hello will be quite cinematic."

My head and heart were pounding in rhythm. It was a Thursday. I was taking Friday off. Three day weekend of uncertainty. I don't remember a single second of that day before night came. He had a long layover or two and would arrive at night. Again. On a Thursday night. Again. At JFK Airport. Again. I dressed in my best, "Aren't you sorry you broke my heart?" clothes and shoes. I was so nervous I had to go to the bathroom somewhere near Coney Island. I looked at my passenger seat, again, as I had done over two years ago, and thought about him filling the space. Again. With even less unknowns. No wait, with even more unknowns than last time.

As I pulled into the JFK exit, a feeling of calm set over me. "This", I thought. "This is living. And hurting, sure. But this is living. Not everyone does things like this."

And maybe for a reason!

Very soon into the exit, I saw cop cars EVERYWHERE. And ambulances. Fire trucks. His flight had landed. He sent me a text that his plane was at the gate but they weren't letting anyone off the plane. They told the passengers there was something wrong with the gate opening. The passengers believed that. They were just sitting there for a long time. Restless.

I parked and tried to go into the terminal. I was instantly stopped by cops. What they didn't tell the passengers on the plane, they could tell the loved ones picking up those passengers.

"Airport bomb scare. You can't go in. Wait here and we'll tell you what to do soon."

I waited. He waited. "Why won't they fix the damn gate yet? I'm dying!"

He didn't know! Bomb scare! I waited..and waited some more. Outside in the night, in a confused swarm of people. Waited for our loved ones. Uncertain, breathless, waiting.

How I Met Your Father, Episode 16: Contact.

Continued from Episodes One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, and Fifteen.

Previously: After nearly years of not seeing each other, and a year to the day of any contact at all, I had a missed call from Cassidy on my phone.

"Contact is all that it takes
To change your life, to lose your place in time" -- Van Halen

I'm not a patient person. It's not just that I don't like waiting, it's like I don't believe in waiting. Last month when the Ultrasound Technician politely asked me if I was interested in knowing the sex of my baby, I paused for a minute and said, "Yes." I didn't pause because I was thinking about it. I paused because I was trying not to say, "Oh, f*#k yes! Immediately!"

I believe in opening Christmas and birthday gifts when you receive them in the mail, and not on Christmas and your birthday.

I received a voice mail from Cassidy on my birthday, July 25th, after no contact at all for a year. After nearly two years of not a glimpse of his face. What I will never understand as an impatient person, is how I left it unheard rather than listening to it. I planned to leave it for days. Months. Years. I'm not someone who would rip up a letter or delete a voice mail, but I was not interested in recreating my previous birthday's sadness. I did not want to hear his indifferent, robot voice. I was 110% sure I knew why he was calling. He was calling to wish me a "Happy Birthday" because he had forgotten my birthday, or forgotten to acknowledge my birthday, the year before. I had no interest in listening to a cold, courtesy "Happy Birthday."

As an impatient person, I still could have waited forever to avoid that.

So I ignored my phone for what I thought was a long time. I finished up work at 8:00 pm and went to my boyfriend's house for a birthday dinner and dessert. He was really wiped out. I hadn't expected that. While I thought I was going through a lot in life, he was going through more. It involved a live-in healer for his dad, and a new holistic treatment. He was attending to his father, or mother, or the healer, later that night. I was sitting alone waiting for his sister and the healer's girlfriend to hang out with me. I was alone in the den. Alone. For the love of God, don't touch that...phone..

Too late.

I listened. And up until I very recently upgraded to an iPhone, I kept that voice mail near me at all times. I guess it was not what I expected. It was not what he expected, clearly. It started verbatim with:

"Ahhh...that one sentence with your voice. Just blew me away. Blew me away."

He was flabbergasted and nervous..about me? He then went on to say who it was, as if I didn't know, and then to wish me that "Happy Birthday" I so deserved. His voice was warm and human. He said he was going to call again and if I didn't want that, which was well within my rights (his words), then I should text or email him not to call me. He gave me a date and time when he was going to call. Two days later. A Thursday night. At 9:00 pm.

Tears were streaming down my eyes by the time the voice mail ended. My boyfriend's sister and the healer's girlfriend came into the den and asked what was wrong. I was honest. I stuttered out that my ex, the BIG ex, (yes I said that) had just called me and what he had to say was not what I was expecting to hear. I told them it was ok, I was ok, just in shock. I wiped away my tears. D came downstairs and looked bewildered to see me crying. I honestly don't know what I told him. The truth, probably. I think I went home soon after. I didn't even make it past his driveway to my car to call my mom and sister. They didn't answer. I left overly loud, manic-sounding voice mails. I was laughing like an insane person. "I'm ok but..guess who called me. Yes, that's right. Yup. Him. I'm fine. It's ok. I'm fine. Really. Might not even take his call again. Whatever. Totally fine. Yup, that's me. Happy Birthday to me. Love you. Bye." I even forwarded the voice mail to them. My sister admitted later she had cried upon receiving it. I drove home to really loud music. I don't know what I did later that night.

I know what I didn't do. I didn't email or text Cassidy to tell him NOT to call.

The next day at work, I played the voice mail for my friend April for some interpretation. We walked out to the cul-de-sac and I handed her the phone. She looked a bit confused, but not impressed. It wasn't very clear on the message what he wanted to talk to me about. She had her doubts, for sure, that it was anything more than a "Happy Birthday." My mom and I went back and forth with emails all day. She had a lot of wisdom:

"There are many unknowns in our lives. When you do talk with him, if you do, you will realize what sort of phone call he is planning on.

Lady Fate wanted you and D to meet when you were fully ready to embrace love, life, and and living in the present."

My parents were still a little (a lot) steamed at Cassidy. I was their baby, after all. I told her I felt like I had been invaded by a parasite I didn't know I still had..

On the night he was going to call I was at a going away party at a bar for a co-worker I really liked. We played all sorts of silly games. My eye was always on the clock. I had it all figured out - he was going to call me as scheduled and I was going to leave the party to talk to him. It never occurred to me that he wouldn't call at 9:00 pm like he said he would.

He didn't call at 9:00 pm.

It was more like 9:07 pm. I rushed a goodbye hug to the hostess and left the party. I was trying to act calm and casual. My heart was racing like a freight train and I figured everyone must have heard it. I got in the car and "Layla" was on the radio. I kid you not. I told him this. He blew out a breath of air and laughed. His voice sounded good. Warm and friendly. We started talking. I mostly listened. For hours. I drove around for so long, all over central Jersey. We finished the phone call with me sitting outside my townhouse complex. Just sitting in the sidewalk at some insane hour. He said he was calling to apologize. For so much. I never really said anything and listened. After awhile he asked if he could tell me what his life had been like for the past year of our silence. I accepted. He said that he had not been able to get me off of his mind since that night I called him a year earlier. He said that his relationship was unhealthy and very dysfunctional. He said he was waking up. He was going through his own program of healing. He said it was like a 12 step program, although he wasn't really in one. It was just that he was slowly starting to open his eyes and see the path of destruction he had left behind while in that relationship. That led to calling me. Eventually. That was his only true intention - a long, overdue apology. He was wide awake now.

I mostly listened. I did not tell him about my life. I didn't have to. I was stunned by so much of it - the truth being so different from the reality I had created in my head. His mom never said a thing! Ernie came close, only once, during that October weekend we had visited. Someone mentioned Cassidy's girlfriend's name and I was pretty sure that Ernie couldn't hide a quick sneer or look of disgust. However, I thought that was in my imagination. It wasn't.

We got off the phone after many hours, because we were both exhausted. I'm not sure we made any plans to ever talk again. Maybe we did? I honestly don't remember and I don't know if it mattered.

The next day or so I had a really major fight with D. With tears. It honestly had nothing to do with Cassidy since it had started days or even weeks earlier. We didn't agree on a few things concerning his family's healer and he said very hurtful things. I never fully recovered but I honestly don't know that I would have any better if Cassidy hadn't called. D was not really threatened by Cassidy then, to be honest. I don't know that I was either. At least consciously. The way I figured, there were two ways to react to Cassidy coming back into my life, however briefly:

a. I could smile, accept his apology and move on.
b. I could totally fall apart.

I honestly thought that a. was the answer, for a REALLY long time. I logically recognized that I wasn't necessarily smiling and moving on, but I figured I would in time.

We talked again soon, at some point I can't remember. Could have been a day. Could have been a week. I told him about D. He was genuinely shocked. He had no idea I had a boyfriend, just like I had no idea he was breaking up with his girlfriend. How could we know? Our only connection, his mom, would never have gotten in between it all. I told him that D and I were fighting. I don't now why I sort of started out telling him that. I was still really annoyed about the disagreement that started before my birthday. I think Cassidy asked if I needed some space, or to never hear from him again. I said, "Of course not."

I visited my mom and asked her a lot of questions about my father and knowing someone was "right" and about pain and loss and baggage. She answered very honestly. I was talking to anyone who would listen to me those days - a random hardware vendor I had a meeting with. The lady at the check-out line. (Kidding) My bartender at a restaurant one night. (Not kidding) People seemed to all follow the same line of thinking, "Possession is 9/10 of the law." It was not a case of a good guy/bad guy but I think we all thought it might be at first. I was starting to doubt everyone's advice, but I can understand why people in my life were protective. My parents, trying to be diplomatic, said: "You will know what to do. It will become obvious. And it will be the right thing." They did point out that hearing from Cassidy was stirring up feelings of our magic and the rush of our love and the airports and the moose and the wolves and the whales. However, he was only human and not a God. If we did get together, they said, we'd run into the same crap and monotony as any other couple can face. Cassidy and I had never had that..monotony and boredom. God, maybe we could have used it.

Cassidy and I talked every now and then for a few weeks. Sometimes it would drive me crazy - vague texts, mostly. I wanted more. I also wanted less. I sometimes felt as desperate as I had after we had first broken up. He still had some pull over me. I was looking at my phone all day long for a new text. He had his own issues to deal with, though. Namely his breakup and his now ex-girlfriend moving out. On the day she moved out, or the day after, I was up at the Sussex County Fair, somewhat near my parent's house. It had been a bit of a childhood tradition for me and my parents had even taken me and Cassidy there back in 2004 where they bought honey that my mom seriously couldn't look at for two years. I took my best friend, Nora, to the fair. As we were parking I got a bit of an "SOS" text from my sister who was already there. She said, "Oh my god. D is here!" Reception wasn't great but I kept trying to call her. I was really surprised! Obviously things were weird between us after our argument, but he wasn't really the type to chase me all the way up to Sussex County. Maybe he was trying to surprise me? I thought he was at some music thing for the day. I was really confused.

Until I finally found my sister. Umm..It was a different D. It was my first D. Yes, they have the same name and it's confusing. This was D1. My long, long-term ex who I had briefly gotten back together a few times with after Cassidy and who I hadn't seen in well over a year. Confusion was...cleared. Not only did I see D1 but he was standing next to a cage with a wolf cub. A freakin' wolf. And you know what made everything perfect? Cassidy texted me at that moment that he and his girlfriend were 100% done. And you know what I wrote back? That I was holding a baby wolf cub in my arms. I left out the part about D1 somehow being there to witness it. My mind was blown in 1,000 directions. Two exes and a wolf. Yup.

I told D1 I had just sent Cassidy a text. He was like, "Really? You..talk to him again?"

I said, "Well..no. Yes? Maybe? It just started a few weeks ago."

Oh, the insanity! Does that stuff..happen to normal people? No.

Soon it was mid-August and D (D2, mind you) and I had plans to go to Maine. We went and it was actually a beautiful time. I took a lot of pictures of him playing music on mountaintops. We did not see a moose together but I saw the back of one retreat quickly into the woods. We saw some parts of Maine I had never seen. It was a romantic trip, despite weirdness all around. We decided not to visit Ruth and Ernie along the way, although they had invited us. Things had suddenly gotten too crazy for me to wrap my brain around all of that. D meeting them would send me over the edge.

Cassidy and I sent random texts every now and then. I had him programmed in my phone as "Voldemort." I didn't quite trust him yet to change it. In late August he sent me the first email in an eternity. It was a request to see the first email I had written him the day I arrived home after the first weekend we had met in July 2004. It was called "Blue Monday." We didn't talk for very long on email that night - maybe ten minutes. This was his initial reaction to reading my 2004 words:

"Any chance of me being able to do work for the rest of the day is gone.
Or walk. Thanks for sending that. Two months ago my heart may not have
been able to take that. I can now.

I remember all that. God, I miss you princess.?

I was equally stunned by reading the old email and his new reaction, and said:

"There are so many things I haven't been able to remember until now - so
many details I couldn't handle being in the forefront of my mind. And
now I remember so much."

Our workdays ended at the same time since I worked on California time. We finished up for the day:

Him: "No doubt. Reading something like that instantly rearranges my whole
context. I'm going to leave work in 18 minutes and spend the rest of
the night picking up the hall that tornado just tossed around. Thank
you Tamara. For then. For now. We were brave back then...
Man. can't seem to move."

Me: "I know. This is really weird. I wish the me of a year ago could see the
me of right now, because she wouldn't believe it to be true."

Him: "I can't allow myself to think about the me a year ago...because it leads
me into thinking what could have been. I can't go there. It's more
important to think about the now.

But I really do understand what you are saying. I wish the me a year
ago could have saved your life. I owed you. Still do."

We emailed again after that, more regularly. We started talking about lucid dreaming a lot. I guess we wanted some solution to be together, even though we couldn't really be together. I told him about the dream I had during our long silence about my father having a heart attack but not dying this time, and instead turning into Cassidy. You have to know that Cassidy was always very respectful of me having a boyfriend. It was like we had so much to say, but nothing to say either. Nothing that would come out right. Nothing that should be said, either probably. His reaction to me telling him that intense dream still makes me cry:

"It fills my heart with happiness to know that I had such an amazing love in my life.
It fills my heart with incredible sadness to know that for the most incredibly stupid reasons I walked away from that.
It makes me ashamed for the way I acted, and how much I hurt you.
I am hopeful that I will have that in my life again.
I am scared that I won’t.
I am sad when I think its all in the past.
There’s a little jealousy.
It makes me want to get on a plane to you (not tonight, not now, but really 10 minutes ago) and look in your eyes and touch your face and drive anywhere with you.
It makes me want to get busy living.
It makes me grateful for you.

I’ll leave it at 10 for now."

That was the beginning of the spiraling crash, I am sure. His words held me suspended in awe, frustration, sadness, beauty, love. I wanted to reach my hand through my computer screen and hold his hand. Historically, our emails were always powerful. They were how we fell in love, after all. They were all we had once. But they were different now. So different.

We sounded like..adults. Not horny, star-crossed lovers. Well..maybe that too. But better.

I never kept anything from D. In late August, two weeks before our scheduled Yellowstone trip I told him that I felt as horribly sad as I had years earlier when Cassidy and I had broken up. Maybe even worse. Definitely worse. I was going to lose him again, wasn't I? And I didn't think I could survive that. And if not, I was going to lose D. And I didn't think I could survive that. One bad night after work, I went to D's house, as usual. I heard "Don't Cry" by Seal in the car. I couldn't hold it in and by the time I got to the front door, I started crying hysterically in D's mom's arms. She was bewildered and she never asked me to talk about it but I'm sure she understood more than she let on. D came downstairs, also looking bewildered. I think that's when he realized that this was bigger than anyone had thought.

Cassidy called my mom. He wanted to apologize and reconnect. I'm not sure I knew beforehand but they both relayed back to me the crushing conversation that had taken place. Years after the fact, she tells me now that she had done it to protect me, but also to let him know that he had to fight for me if he wanted me. This time, no fear was acceptable. They cried together on the phone. She told him I was happy and to leave me alone. To let me go. "Let her go," she said. That was when he finally admitted that his initial apology had turned into more feelings. His intentions were still that I be happy. But he thought maybe he could make me happy. He told my mom:

"I can make her happy. I can give her the most wonderful life. I know this...now."

"You might be too late. Too late." She replied.

Cassidy called me soon after hanging up with my mom. He told me about their conversation. He told me that he loved me and that he wanted me back. He told me all he wanted was to make me happy but that he had to let me go, he thought. He worried my mom was right. We were both sobbing - heart-wrenching, audible sobs. I cried for every second of the two years I had spent away from him. I cried because I still don't know what to do. I cried because I did know what to do, but that was not going to be easy. I crumpled to the floor wailing. "Don't...don't..don't."

"Don't what?" He asked.

"Don't...let me go..please. Just don't."