Many people have turned to me lately and said, "Mary, it's a whole new chapter for you".I say, "Hell, it's a whole new book!"
I've always seen my life as being in chapters; there was growing up in Maine in a small town with a minister for a dad and spending glorious summer days on Scarborough beach. After high school graduation I bolted from that small town and entered a new chapter that took me to the mountains, first Vermont to work and ski, then to Colorado for the same thing but with higher adventures to match those higher peaks. The next chapter I went back to Maine to nurse a broken heart, eventually meeting Jim and a series of new chapters began with adventure, love and becoming an adult.
But now ... holy cow, now! Let's see, there is a new house, in a new town, with a new office with all new clientele, with a new husband and a new family and starting to meet new friends.
Yup, I would say this is a brand new book entirely! And it's been an incredible whirlwind that has lifted me and my old life into that spinning cyclone and deposited it all in a new world, with my things spread all around in different places, still in boxes, not really organized anymore, and impossible to find something when you actually need it. There's a lot of sorting out to do in the next year!
But the dust is settling now as I sit in this wonderful house on Great Pond, our interim spot until we can get the house in Farmington ready for us to move into. As I write this I listen for Loons and their changing songs that speak to each other of moving on before the lake freezes. And with these calmer moments I have time to reflect and actually take in all that has happened in a very short period of time. And it's all good.
Dave's mother, Joanna, asked me after the wedding if I felt any different? I thought for a minute and responded that yes, yes it does feel different to now be married to this man ... her son. Many people in my life wonder "why marriage?" ... and without going into my list as to why, I just say it is different. Joanna said, "I feel different too. You are now my daughter-in-law and part of the family. Before you were just a girlfriend." My mother greeted Dave last week with, "Well, it's my new son-in-law!" ... and thus he feels he is now part of the Lello clan as well.
A very important difference .. being brought into each others family.
All the differences that are now becoming a new book are important for me to embrace now. I wasn't ready to end the old book, but the Universe had plans for me and Jim. For whatever reasons Jim was not going to be hanging around long enough for us to grow old together. So I was thrown into change that I did not initiate ... and yet I realize that this new man, house, town, life is completing the circle and it's OK to close the last cover of the old book and to open into this new one.
Does this mean I no longer remember? No. I think of Jim frequently, but not everyday now. I miss him often, but not every day now. I will love him forever .... but I am finding the human heart is capable of expanding and loving another equally as deep and completely.
This new book started out fast and furious and swept me into it very quickly. I've always been a sucker for a love story laced with high adventure ... it might just prove to be an amazing book!Loving you all back,
Mary
