When I was younger, before I met my kids’ father, I dreamed of – was sort of obsessed with, really – finding The Great Love of My Life. As a lonely, bookish teenager, I devoured love stories. They weren’t just romance novels, although, as a voracious reader at the mercy of my rural school library, the county library, and the meager selection at the Winn Dixie, I couldn’t afford to be overly discerning. A nonfiction writer myself, my favorite love stories have always been the real ones: Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, Susan Sontag and Annie Leibovitz, Yoko Ono and John Lennon, Johnny Cash and June Carter, Emily Dickinson and Susan Gilbert…even Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen represent a particular brand of sick, destructive, but nevertheless iconic romance for me.

Lord knows I thought I found mine when I met my ex-husband, though, looking back, I had no reason – like, ZERO – to expect our relationship would ever mature into the caliber of intellectual, creative, and emotional partnership I craved. But, because of the way my parents’ marriage functioned, I was perfectly comfortable with the idea that I would have to create the husband I wanted. The trick, you see, was choosing a suitable lump of clay with which to work.

(Yes, I hear it, and, yes, I’m going to therapy about it.)

One of the most crushing thoughts in the initial aftermath of my separation was simply the fear I’d be alone for the rest of my life. I had to face it again when Charlotte and I ended our romantic relationship. And, let’s just be real here, people: I’m a late-forties lesbian with two young children living on the northernmost (and, by far, most dysfunctional) Caribbean island*, plying a notoriously unstable trade, and I have a backstory that would turn most people into Disney villains. I am neither the easiest sell, nor do I wish I were.

Frankly, I rather like that my style of (over) dress, persona, and personal history are sort of self-selecting – in other words, you kinda gotta be about it. I’m not Walmart and, thus, not for everyone; I’m like a vaguely disturbing hybrid of IKEA and Bergdorf Goodman that also sells dolls and artsy sex toys – or maybe they’re sculptures, no one can tell – from only one location that’s open three and one-half days per week in a seedy part of Berlin. And the shop girls are rude.

Anyway, the longer I sat with the excruciatingly uncomfortable thought that I might never get this thing I desire so much, the more I began to realize something.

I’ve had it the whole entire time.

I have more than I ever could’ve dreamed – I don’t have a single great love, I have several. I refer to them collectively as the Board of Directors, and they include:

–A physician and artist who spends her very limited free time running a doll hospital. She buys heavily-played-with dolls from eBay, thrift stores, and other places, takes them completely apart, cleans them, replaces the eyes and hair if needed, repaints their faces, dresses them in new clothes, then gives them away.
–A genius engineer who owns a tuxedo, knows how to tango, and can still fix a car. (And, yes, he’s straight.)
–A writer/editor and mother of four, whose children are all angels except one, who reminds me of myself. (Guess which one’s my favorite.) When this woman asks the universe for something, it hops to and ANSWERS.
–Two of the most brilliant and creative minds I’ve ever encountered. Their imaginations far exceed my own, and, as costume and prop creators, they possess the extremely rare ability to bring their visions to life, though it usually takes a very long time, a lot of money, typically some moderate burns and/or minor lacerations, and more patience than I have possessed in my entire life.
–A Mensa member who could easily amass an army and definitely knows at least one hitman, but, fortunately for the rest of us, is a devoted mom, loves gardening, and chooses to use her powers for good (read: nonprofits) most of the time. (If you’re getting Kill Bill vibes, that’s very accurate. We share a fondness for, among other things, guillotines.)
–The only person to ever match my freak in a business meeting. She literally sold an ad in the same meeting in which she received her job description, and I knew then I was in the presence of greatness. But her true passions are her family and philanthropy, and her ethics are impeccable. I’d agree to work with her completely blindly, no questions asked – anything she’d be a part of is something I’d want to be a part of.

That’s not even all of them. Truthfully, seeing them listed that way, I feel greedy and stupid for ever wanting anything more in the world.

After The Happening, I know I first made several phone calls to my attorney and a few family members; physical evidence and the timeline of events tell me this is definitely true. But, in my memory, my first call was to the physician. What I do remember very precisely are her only two pieces of advice that day: 1. You cannot rely on external validation at this time, because it ain’t coming – in fact, its opposite is already quite literally at your doorstep. 2. You must now deal with life in 24-hour increments, sometimes less. Considering all the long-term ramifications of my ex-husband’s actions was overwhelming, panic-inducing, and, at the time, irrelevant; all that mattered was how I was going to get through the day before me. I repeated both those things like a mantra – hell, I still do – when anxiety threatened to slam me shut like a book.

She felt like the first person I talked to because she was the first person who truly understood what I couldn’t communicate, my horror at what happened. And, in that terrifyingly vulnerable moment, her ability to see me, not just the situation and her own reaction to it, began to lessen its power over me a tiny bit. It made me feel like a person and not just a walking tragedy.

I called the software engineer soon after. He was going through a similarly awful life event, and his calm, logical demeanor, even in the face of both our trauma and pain, grounded me and reminded us both that, at their core, our situations were problems we could work. We couldn’t solve them, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t work them.

Another, with whom I’d had a big fight years before, messaged me as soon as she heard what happened and said, “I love you. I’m sorry we fought. Please let me support you through this.”

The mom of four called every single day. The creative team texted and stayed in constant touch; one of their moms became a sort of surrogate godmother for me. A couple of friends in Branson reached out several times a week. Another friend invited me swimming and I went even though I dislike both water and the sun because we both knew I needed to stand in the pool and talk. Sorority sisters I hadn’t heard from in years called and left messages. There’s one dear friend I’ve only met in person once, but, when we did, we stood in the street and cried in each other’s arms like long-lost sisters, which is, I guess, exactly what we were.

I have an abundance of Great Loves of My Life.

I wasn’t born rich, royal, beautiful, or a prodigy, but I have had three things in my life I think are truly worthy of envy: a love of language, babies that slept 12 hours a night, and really, really fucking good friends in adulthood. Their love proves to me, when nothing else can, there’s more right with me than there is wrong with me.

May my work and I be ever worthy of the people who love us.

—-

*If you think of New Orleans not as an American city – which it is not – but as a Caribbean island that just happens to be a) way outside the Caribbean Sea and b) not an island, everything about it makes much more sense.

And if you’re like, “But that doesn’t make any – “

Exactly.