Where To Now?

I’m willing to entertain the notion that I am done healing from the crash and burn of the café.  At least, I’ve felt lately like I’m ready to reach outward, instead of continuing to fall inward upon myself.  Trouble is, the world to which I have returned is so vastly changed from the one I left in July of 2006 (seven years ago!) that I can’t quite figure out what to reach out toward.

The husband to whom I have returned is not the man I left behind when WE embarked on that strange journey.  (Turns out we headed in different directions mid-trip.)  We’re back together, now, in some sense of those words.  Since our very separate emergences from the Fire Swamp that was the café, we’ve each managed to make our way back to the other.  Which was an iffy situation in itself, for awhile.  But we’ve advanced through screaming at each other all the time, to forming a fragile peace, to—on a strictly limited basis—very nearly finding pleasure in each other’s company.  Considering where we started out, that’s a fur piece.  But I don’t count on things getting much better than this.  I know, now, with a mildly depressing certainty that our relationship has NOT aged like fine wine.  In fact, I likened it once to an old shoe   Ratty, holey, run down in the heels and probably more than a little stinky.  But comfortable.  It could be worse.

And then there was the circle of friends upon whom I so relied pre-café.  I’m talking about the internet friends (really the only friends I had.)  They’re still out there, for the most part.  But the relationships, born of technology, have morphed along with the technology from which they emerged.  I guess we never were more than acquaintances, even though the relationships felt deeper.  And after ten years of blogging and chatting and Facebooking, exponentially more connections have been made.  Unfortunately, the quantity of the connections has served to dilute the quality.  At least in my little corner of the world.  So, yeah…I still have friends.  Friends that I cherish.  But…it’s not the same.

I’m ready to reach out, now, but that toward which I was once in the habit of reaching no longer exists.  It’s fine to put my hands out and touch what I have, but the connection does not feel deep enough to satisfy my need.  I’m not looking for a husband or a network of friends to dump my crap on (anymore…)  I’m just looking for someone who GETS me. 

When I think about it, that’s a lot of what my life has been about.  Finding where I fit.  I’ve run through several places, now, that have turned out not to be THE place.  Or maybe they WERE the place, for a time, but got over it.  I don’t think I want to give up, though.  Embarking on a search for a new place might result in rewards beyond my bravest dreams.  It’s just that, for the first time, I’m beginning to understand that life does not go on forever (at least, not THIS life…)  and I’m not sure how many searches I have left in me. 

Kind of a sobering thought, really…