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Danielle over at Sometimes Sweet has started a series of journal prompts. This is pretty, well, sweet as I’ve been kind of short of blogging ideas lately. Hurray for serendipitous content manufacturing!
(Oh, yeah, and I’ve kinda fallen in love with the Picnik app that can make awesome images like this one without my having to pay an arm and a leg for Photoshop. And no, the Morton Salt Girl has little to do with journaling, but I really love this drawing. And oh yeah, I should probably draw more, but that’s a different issue entirely.)
Describe a “first” (first date, first lie, the first time you experienced something, first time in a particular setting, etc). Include as many details as possible to paint a picture.
On the train. Early morning. It had been a long, long night. A lot of fighting, a lot of tears. Packing. Finally, finally ready to go. Going to Iceland. Should have been a vacation, but the tension and the build up made it feel more like a forced exile. Wrestling the bags into the car. And then on the train.
On the train. Got one of the seats with a table – more space for bulky bags. Bulky bags and bulky emotional baggage weighing us down. Us. Husband sitting next to me. Yes, husband. Should be glad to get going, but too nerved up to relax. So nervous I’ve gone round the bed into forced happiness. Smiling.
There’s a man across from me, from us.
There’s something. Something about him. I don’t know what. Long hair. Looks… angry… no, worried… no, serious… tired perhaps.
I have to talk to him.
What to say? Where do I start? Reading a magazine. No, that’s no help. I don’t recognize it. Nothing I’m familiar with. This is ridiculous. I can’t just start talking to this guy, he just wants to get his day overwith – I can see that. This train ride is an annoyance, a stumbling block to get to the next thing.
I have to talk to him.
A voice in my head, or my gut, or my imagination tells me – this man is my next husband.
I shrug it off. I’m not in the market for a next husband, I think. I’ve already got one. The voice ignoring the year of fighting, of pain, of struggle. The year where we love each other too much to let go and not enough to make it work. Yes, clearly I’m in the market for a next husband. The current husband won’t even last another month. We’ll have Iceland and then he’ll leave, but I don’t – can’t – know that yet.
But still. I have to talk to him.
He’s got a black iPod… white MacBook… I don’t even think, my mouth opens and I comment that it’s neat that they don’t match (this in the time when MacBooks come in black). This is possibly the dumbest thing I’ve ever said.
An hour later, the train pulls into Back Bay. His stop. I have his email. We’ll get together when we get back from Iceland… the three of us. Only, by the time we’ve set a date for coffee, it’s just the two of us. I’m alone and in the market for a next husband.
The first time I spoke to the father of my child should have been the only time. You don’t just meet men on trains in real life. These things only happen in movies and romance novels. And yet, here we are. Four years later and I have another wedding ring on my finger and our son sleeping beside me.