One Year... (Part Two)

"The poet knows himself only on the condition that things resound in him, and that in him, at a single awakening, they and he come forth together out of sleep.”~Jacques Maritain

 The next morning I go to the bathroom to reassess the damage.  Yep, it’s still short.  It didn’t grow back overnight.

  I head to work.  Maybe everyone will be too busy to notice.  Nope.  Everyone has time to comment.  A couple of glances.  A few second glances.  Then the guys just start to stare.  Now I’m really getting compliments.  One of the cute ones (you know, the one that’s always on the top five lists of hot guys you work with) mentions he really likes short hair and my haircut is hot.  Oh my God!  Did that just happen?  If I had known that, the hair would have come off a long time ago.  It continues on like that for the rest of the work day.  It's awkward, because I really don't like to call attention to myself.  But I have to say it was quite flattering.   Especially less than a week after your husband decided he wanted a divorce.

  Later that night, I hop on the computer as usual.  I log onto one of those really popular social networking sites.  An old “friend” pops on.  We chat a little.  Talk about life for the last twenty-two years.  Is it really possible that it has been that long?  No, can’t be.  I’m not old enough to have done anything twenty-two years ago.  Well, back to the story.  He tells me he used to have a crush on me.  A big one.  For years.  Kept a picture of me for all this time.  I never knew.  Then he tells me he could still have one.  OK, here come the butterflies.  What do I do?  The normal me would have said thank you and logged off in a hurry.  But I’m not the old me.  I’m the new me with the hot new haircut.

  I ask coyly "really...?"  (Of course, it's hard to convey coyly over a chat, but ya know what I mean.)  Needless to say, we talked for hours.  Like until four in the morning.  This is going to make work very interesting.... 

  I'm sure at this point you are saying "Yeah, yeah... extremely vulnerable soon-to-be-divorced soccer mom.  Wake up.  He's just taking advantage of your weakened state."  But this wasn't a just another guy.  This one knew me, inside and out and I never knew it.  He remembered things about me that I barely remembered - the way I smiled, the color of my eyes (they're not just blue; they are blue with gold around the pupil so they sometimes look green), how my eyes get darker when I'm angry, how I bite my lip sometimes when I am unsure.  Who remembers this stuff?  I couldn't believe that anyone paid that much attention to me.  I'm the plain, quiet one with an occassional burst of outgoingness.  I'm not the kind of girl someone never forgets.  But he remembered...

  So, after a few hours of conversation with an amazingly special person, I started to wake up from the sleep I had been in for so long...

(Continued in part 3)