At Last, My Love Has Come Along | Romance x Rail Part 4
If you haven’t read Part 3, go do that now.
This is the next installment of my Romance by Rail (RxR) series in which I write about my quest to find a “soul mate” type partner while traveling and writing and reflecting on the journey. I explain the whole project here.
This part takes place between October 10th–December 31st, 2024. In this part of my journey, I have deleted all the dating apps and am going all in with Jean 1.
My itinerary:
Paris, France —> Istanbul & Fethiye, Turkey - Flew to Istanbul on Friday, October 11th
Turkey —> Paris - Flew back to Paris on Monday, October 21st - weekend trips to the French countryside and Lyon happened
Paris —> San Luis Obispo, CA - Flew on Sunday, November 24th
How long I was in each place:
Istanbul & Fethiye - 9 days
Paris, French Countryside, & Lyon - 1 month with weekend trips
California - 5 weeks
How did I choose this route?
Jean 1 and I wanted to see about us so we decided that I would stay with him at his home outside of Paris after my trip to Turkey with my mom and friend LH.
For the Turkey itinerary, I wanted my mom and LH to experience the gorgeous, vibrant, and historic city of Istanbul but also a smaller coastal city with beautiful beaches. We were deciding between Bodrum and Fethiye and chose Fethiye because of the stunning and affordable Airbnb we found.
I accompanied Jean 1 on one his regular trips to his and his extended family’s home in the French countryside for 3 nights for a long weekend.
My friend EL came out from California. We visited friend CZ in Lyon for a weekend and she stayed with me and Jean 1 at his home for a week.
The romance of train travel happened to and from Lyon and to the country home.
Did I stick to my goals in Part 2?
Check out my project goals/intentions in the last parts. They don’t really apply well to seeing someone seriously. I realize that I need to set intentions for how I want to get to know someone seriously and how I want to explore a committed relationship. What an oversight!
Some intention ideas:
Go slowly
Stay curious
Check-in weekly
Bring up conflicts, discomforts, or confusion as soon as I can; have the uncomfortable conversation
Show appreciation and gratitude
Communicate needs and feelings
Discuss values, lifestyle, and goals and see if they’re shared and compatible
Have fun and play
What am I missing?
How did I do on these?
I felt like I took my time getting to know Jean 1 and didn’t jump in too quickly. I was cautious and bounced things off of friends along the way.
The more I got to know Jean 1 the more I wanted to know him, which was a great sign.
I checked in a lot but didn’t make it a regular weekly event. It seemed like I was the one initiating check-ins. I asked if he could initiate as well but it didn’t happen.
I know I did great at this because at one point Jean 1 said to me, “One thing I like about you is that you always bring things up if you have an issue and ask for what you need.” He wasn’t being sarcastic—he was grateful that I could ask for what I needed. With him, and I know I’m not in control of his behavior, I saw that it was more challenging and often came out sideways as passive-aggressiveness or teasing, which sometimes upset me.
Jean 1 is a generous person and I felt I consistently expressed gratitude for his hosting me. It was kind of him to host my friend as well! I think, if we’re going to bring up things that we need or that bother us, we have to make sure there’s a foundation of appreciation and noticing the good things. I can think of the warm words I said as well but I feel there’s room to grow here—even more words of appreciation. I’m one to make sure I always say, “Thanks for cooking dinner tonight. Thanks for cleaning the kitchen.” and all the little tiny things.
See 4
I’m not sure we did a great job with this.
Early dating and relationship forming should be filled with fun and play. Endorphins are rushing strong to make us fall in love and see the world with rose-colored glasses. I will say I noticed that he was more of a homebody than I normally am but he’d been planted firmly in dad life for the past decade so I understood.
Turkey
I agonized over the decision of whether to drop luggage off with Jean 1 in Paris before heading to Turkey. Was I picking the right guy? Was I committing to him too soon? Should I be dating and exploring with other men as well?
I thought about how I could visit Can 18 (the doctor) in Antalya after parting ways with my mom and LH instead. That was also a complete unknown.
I resolved to “pick something and see it through!” and I was enjoying my time with Jean 1. As I detailed in Part 3, the trip to Scotland wasn’t without hiccups. When we returned to Paris, I implored him to please be a partner who brings up conflicts just as often as I do—don’t avoid them.
I had a blast with my mom and Laura exploring Turkey, places both new and familiar. A highlight was visiting the ancient Roman city of Aphrodias, pictured above. It was a 3 hour drive inland from Fethiye and nearly completely empty! Being there amid the ancient ruins felt illegal!
Can 18 had checked in with me towards the end of September saying he finally knew what his Fall looked like and whether I wanted to meet him while he was in the UK. I told him that I was now seeing someone seriously but that it had been great connecting with him. He said he was happy for me.
During my time in Turkey he sent me photos from a hike he’d recently completed on the Lycian Way, an ancient route along the coast of Turkey. It included a photo of him resting on the side of the trail, looking athletic and adventurous. “God, men are so competitive!” I thought. “Of course he’s sending me photos of himself after I tell him I’m now seeing someone. Why do they do this?!”
Giovanni 22 | Italian | Mid 30s (I’m guessing) | In the Wild
One day of our trip, my mom, LH, and I explored a ghost town, abandoned due to a great historical tragedy: the genocide of Christian Greeks in the 1920s. We ran into a couple of guys also exploring the ghost town in the hills and then ran into them again down at the parking area. We struck up a conversation. They were visiting from Switzerland and were paragliders. This was a big paraglider spot as we soon saw when we went over the mountain from the ghost town to the Blue Lagoon. I told them I’d just been to Zurich in April and we talked about the spring festival that was happening when I was there and their tradition of burning a snowman at the end of winter. We chatted about a few more things and said goodbye, getting into our rental car.
“What was that?!” my mom said to me.
“Wait, what was what?”
“That connection you had with that guy!”
LH confirmed, “I felt that too!”
Whoa. What did they notice? I had had a slight pang of a feeling that I didn’t want the conversation to end but shrugged it off.
“We picked up on how you two just seemed to click. We were all observers in your conversation.”
I hadn’t noticed it was actually just the two of us talking while the 3 others looked on. How embarrassing!
“Maybe he’s your soul mate!” my mom and LH were suddenly concerned that he might get away. I sat there semi-frozen in the passenger seat.
We agreed that if we saw the guys as we were driving out of the parking area, we’d stop. We drove across the gravel and onto the small road. They were gone. Oh well!
But then, they appeared around a corner! Omg. My heart started racing. LH stopped the car and I rolled down my window. I’m a good on-the-fly talker so after we waved them over I said, “Hey, it was great to meet you. Do you have an Instagram?” I only asked the one guy.
“Oh, yeah, I hardly use it but I have one,” he said. I handed him my phone with Instagram pulled up so he could find himself. He took the phone but grabbed it not from my hand but over the top of my hand. While he searched we were essentially holding hands. It was electric. Neither of us moved to correct this.
On the beach, we all laughed, inventing stories about him and our made up future together. It was the first time my mom ever prodded me to get someone’s contact info. It was quite a rush! It was also the first time during this RxR project that I met someone “In the Wild” and initiated exchanging contact info.
“But you guys, I’m with Jean 1 now.” I reminded my companions. They told me that if Jean 1 was my person they were in full support, but in the meantime, you can’t pass up on a connection. It’s true. I didn’t know yet about Jean 1. It was too early.
After adding each other on IG I could see that he was Italian, even though he lived in Zurich. We chatted a tiny amount but the spark didn’t translate to text communication. And anyway, I was pretty excited to keep spending time with Jean 1.
Paris, French Countryside, & Lyon
I flew back to Paris on Monday, October 21st with fresh Schengen days to spend. Jean 1 picked me up from the airport, which I found romantic but then he (whoops!) canceled out my warm fuzzy feelings by complaining about the cost of parking. I swear, everyone needs a feelings journal so they can just vent to themselves sometimes.
Originally, my mental strategy had been to spend this week with Jean 1, a week in which he didn’t have his son at home with him, and then check in with him about how it felt and decide how we wanted to move forward. In my head, I would then go stay somewhere else. My friend EL, her mom, and a family friend of theirs were coming out from California so maybe I’d stay with them in their rental.
Except that plans changed and now Jean 1 had his son the week I arrived. They were going to spend the week at his family’s country home. Did I want to go with them? I would be meeting both his son and his father for the first time. I wanted to keep spending time with Jean 1 so I said that yes, I would join them. It might be a little intense meeting the important people in his life but I’m sure I could manage it.
Except I couldn’t.
When it was time to depart his house and drive there, I couldn’t stop crying. Total meltdown. I think it was more that I couldn’t transition so quickly. The past few weeks had gone by like a whirlwind—the week with Jean 1 in Scotland, the trip in Turkey with my mom and LH in which I was the de facto tour guide-in-charge, then meeting his son the night I got back to Paris…it was all too much, even if I was trying to pretend I was resilient. I told him to go on ahead without me and I’d take the train down to join them in a few days.
This proved to be the correct thing to do and he picked me up from the train station with a warm hug and no complaints. The long weekend in the country ended up being a lot of fun. His son is adorable and I loved watching him parent. He is a great dad. Meeting his dad, who is the age of my grandparents, went fine. His dad’s English was much better than my nonexistent French but still limited so, combined with the large generational gap, we didn’t have a ton to discuss. We all shared our meals at the dining table and Jean 1 served as a reluctant translator between me and his family members.
We played ping pong and board games, went for a walk by a picturesque river, and visited a little historic church with frescoes from the 12th century in a spooky basement crypt. Looking out over the town’s river towards a row of colorful homes (pictured above), Jean 1, his son, and I played a game as we each picked which home belonged to us. We planned meals and shopped in town, which in France means going to a separate store for each thing—the butcher, the cheese shop, the bread shop, etc. Jean 1 and made meals together. On our final night I made an apple tart for everyone, cutting up crisp, ripe fall apples from their own tree into thin slices and placing them in layers over a store-bought sheet of pie dough in a piece of shallow circular earthenware with scalloped edges. American pie dishes are not as big around. They have deeper sides and typically, apple pie has another layer of dough on top. I’ve made many apple pies in America. (Enough to warrant saying that I’m as American as apple pie!)
But I was doing this one the French way—open and shallow. And with the oven temperature in Celsius instead of Fahrenheit. Okay, I was kindof winging it!
While the tart was in the oven, Jean 1 prepared the main meal. I sat in the kitchen and we talked and laughed. We were clicking. We were getting each other’s jokes. We had found a good rhythm. It felt like I was finally relaxing into us. Some nervousness had melted, probably within the context of this widened family circle. Sitting there, I felt content and connected. “I am falling in love with this man,” I thought.
Then suddenly I snapped out of it as I smelled something burning. The tart! Jean 1 pulled it out of the oven, which we realized I had set to too high of a temperature. The entire top of the tart was roasted black to a crisp (no pun intended). My one contribution to the family meal: ruined! I was devastated.
I was able to salvage the tart by painstakingly picking off the top layer of apples. It was going to be okay. After dinner I whipped some whole cream in a bowl with a hand mixer, adding a little bit of sugar for the rest of them even though, if you know me, you know my preference is to have no sugar. It was a hit.
Halloween was coming up and I suggested a book series I had loved as a kid to Jean 1’s son—Goosebumps. We found the French version at the local bookstore and the series was another hit. His son loved it, immediately requesting more books. Between the books, the pie, and my ability to keep up in ping pong, I was winning over this rightfully skeptical pre-teen.
The following week we spent kid-free at Jean 1’s home. We checked in with each other and agreed things were feeling good between us and that we should keep spending time together. It was Fall break from school those two weeks, something we don’t have in the US, and some French/Belgian friends of mine were in Paris from Dordogne (Southwest France) on their way to Belgium to visit her parents, with their 12 year-old daughter in tow. We met them for coffee and all seemed to get along great, which was important to me as they had been some of my best friends since meeting them both (and introducing them to each other!) in 2009 when I lived in Belgium.
Jean 1 offered to host my Californian best friend EL, her mom, and 3 of their family friends over for dinner one night which I thought was very kind and receptive of him. It was a lovely and perfect evening.
I had been feeling a lot of anxiety about shopping in his town because in France, you have to actually talk to the person behind the counter to get the goods you want and while I’d taken 1 semester of community college French before moving to Belgium, that was 15 years ago and I couldn’t remember a thing. I told Jean 1 that shopping made me feel anxious and he said I needed to learn the French to do it. In prepping to host my friends for dinner I looked up the clutch phrases of “Je ne parle pas français” (I don’t speak French) and “Parlez vous anglais?” (Do you speak English?), practicing them aloud several times. I took a deep breath, giving myself a pep talk that I could make it out there in boutique French shop land. My phrases worked wonders as I stopped by a counter to get fresh pesto, another counter to get cheese, and yet another to buy a pumpkin that I was going to chop up and roast in the oven (this time at the correct temperature). Depsite my anxiety about selecting the right type of bread among the dazzling array of beautiful options, I managed it. I added a few little cakes, almost too cute to eat. The last stop was getting wine, at, you guessed it, it’s own wine shop. I asked what he recommended to accompany a vegetarian meal and was presented with 3 seemingly great options at 10 euros each. “I’ll get them all,” I told him. He assured me that 2 bottles would be enough for 7 people but I told him, “No we’re Americans—we consume in excess.”
That week we had “the relationship talk”. He told me he didn’t want to see anyone else and I told him that I had deleted the dating apps and told everyone to shoo in September. We wanted each other. We were spending all our days and nights under the same roof. I was working from his home office. He didn’t have many gigs lined up those weeks. If I wanted some space I’d leave the house and work from a coffee shop, or go for a long run.
So now, I’d met his son and his dad, and he’d met some of my dear friends. It was going great. That weekend I met some friends of his. We drove out to their gorgeous country home and Jean 1’s son attended their son’s birthday party. I was worried I’d be stuck by myself, bored, in a corner, while everyone spoke French around me. He assured me this would not be the case. It was very much almost the case (I travel a lot in foreign countries so I know how these things go) but I found someone to speak English with and had good conversations with her throughout the party.
The following week was again his turn to have his son. I cooked a few dinners and they seemed to pass muster for the skeptical pre-teen.
My friend EL, her mom, and their friends journeyed south to Bordeaux. Then the mom and friends flew back to the states and I had a week with my friend, one of my bestest, most cherished ones. We’d been planning this visit for almost a year. While we had originally rented an Airbnb for the week she was there, I was starting to feel that I didn’t want to be apart from Jean 1 and asked if he could host her in his spare bedroom, which he agreed to do. We canceled the rental. She and I took off for a weekend in Lyon to visit my friend CZ. She and I processed the whole of my relationship so far because that’s what besties are for.
We had a great time sampling croissants in Lyon and touring the most beautiful urban park that had a zoo, a lake, sculptures, museums, and a broad lawn that became enshrouded in a magical layer of pink mist at dusk. We drank flat whites, ate pizza, found some inspired vegetarian restaurants, and spent time talking and laughing with my friend, crashing in a spare bedroom at his spacious home.
The mood was just a tad less jovial when we got back to Jean 1’s place outside of Paris and I wasn’t sure if that was because my friend and I needed to take a little breather from spending all our time together, or if it was feeling too early in my relationship with Jean 1 to have my friend there for several nights. Was it something else he wasn’t saying? Was it me? My friend was a gracious guest, offering us a 1985 vintage of wine she’d acquired in Bordeaux, cooking meals, cleaning and doing dishes, and communicating well. The 3 of us barrelled through, spending nights drinking wine and bourbon, playing records, and going down niche rabbit holes in conversation such as French singer Serge Gainsbourg’s 10 wildest moments.
It was weird to combine this girlfriend trip I’d been planning for a year with EL with my budding new relationship with Jean 1—an awkward experiment. I let Jean 1 know how appreciative I was that he was open to it, hosting both me, a new person in his life, and my friend, an even newer person. Originally when planning the trip, I’d thought I would fly back to our hometown with her on the same flight on Friday, November 15th, just in time to settle in for Thanksgiving. However, now that I was starting a relationship with Jean 1, I wanted 1:1 time with him before I left.
I’d have to wait on that because it was time for his son to come back for a week. At first he’d been okay to have his dad’s new friend over as a novelty, but now that I was lingering, I could see his waryness grow. “Oh no, is this forever now?” I could see it in his expressions and manner. Jean 1 confirmed that these conversations were happening between them. I didn’t want to stress the little guy out. Jean 1 and I would need to figure out our plans.
Jean 1 suggested that he come out to California for Christmas. I hadn’t needed that to happen but I was thrilled. I wanted him to meet my parents and my brother, sister-in-law, and nephew. We started dreaming together about future things like whether we’d stay in his current home, which he owned, or buy something different together. We started looked at the listings posted at local real estate office windows. I downloaded SeLoger, the French equivalent of Zillow, the American real estate app and started browsing.
We knew he couldn’t be there for my the big milestone of my 40th birthday on December 22nd. I told him about this thing a lot of women comment on TikTok videos about how to notice if your boyfriend secretly hates you: “They’ll ruin your birthday.” “Please, please, please don’t ruin my birthday,” I joked with him. My birthday, being so close to Christmas, nearly always got ruined. The previous year’s family dinner guests were super holiday stressed (ruined). A couple years prior on a birthday/Christmas trip with my boyfriend we got into a huge argument (ruined). I told him I would love flowers. He said I’d have to help him with which company to use since he’s not American and I referred him to The Bouqs Co, my favorite one.
California
I flew back to California on Sunday, November 24th. My Schengen days were about up so it was time to skedaddle. I was sad to leave. I wanted to keep living this new life with him. We roughly agreed that I would come back in mid-January when my Schengen app told me I’d have 53 days available. We needed to talk more and figure out some hard things but we’d have plenty of time in the coming weeks.
We talked by phone every day. He assured me he was coming out, probably on the 26th for a week or so. I hadn’t told my family much about him or how it was going—just a few things here and there. I didn’t want to jinx anything. But now seemed like a good time to drop all the details.
I bought a $179 French language learning program from Rocket Languages on Cyber Monday.
I visited my brother and his family and I shared that I was excited about him. My sweet sister-in-law stared into my soul and wanted to make sure we both really loved each other. With my whole heart I gushed that we did.
My dad wanted to know if I’d met “the one.” “I think so!” I said. I really wanted that. And at least, I wanted to keep moving forward being all in, to see.
I went on my friend’s radio show to talk about this Romance x Rail travel dating project. I asked Jean 1 what he thought I should share. “Probably anything you’ve already written about in your blog,” he said. I went on the small, local show, not expecting to share so much about the new life I was moving towards with Jean 1 in France. I had prepped answers to questions about the dating culture in America vs Europe and the unique challenges of dating abroad. But the host, my long-time friend, ended up wanting to know things like, “Who is he?” and “How did you meet?” I tried to steer the conversation to more universal lessons about dating in general. But I was glowing about my newfound love and I know people always want to know these things.
The days were busy as I worked hard on a consulting project that culminated in teaching an all-day training in Oakland with a nonprofit.
In my spare moments, I dreamed about our future together. I would learn French and build a relationship with his son. We would have to get married for me to stay there. Maybe we would elope or maybe we would invite a few friends or family members. We would have the child I longed for. We could buy a home with a yard and get a dog. I’d been warming him to the idea of getting a Eurasier, a dog breed I’ve been obsessed with that is a mix of Chow Chow, Samoyed, and Spitz—in my opinion, the cutest dog in the world.
I found my love and I’m moving to France and we’ll keep building a life together. It’s happening! I was blissed out.
For about 3 weeks I was living in the clouds. If only it could last. But I was about to be brought down back to Earth.
I felt so much relief when the work training was done—it had taken weeks of work and so much mental focus to prepare for. After that stressful day ws complete, my full attention was back and suddenly I realized that weeks had gone by and Jean 1 still hadn’t bought a flight to come to California. I got a deep sinking feeling. “Oh my God, he’s not coming out.” It felt familiar. Why? What was this?
It was the same feeling I’d had when he flaked on our date back in March at the start of my dating project journey. That day I had been touring the Centre Pompidou, a giant art museum in the middle of Paris, feeling excited nervous knowing that he and I had plans to meet up that night and go to his friend’s record release party. I just assumed he’d confirm plans at some point but by 3 pm it struck me, “Oh, he’s not going to text me.” A hollow pit in my stomach.
It was the same feeling I’d had in college after someone broke into my Berkeley apartment and stole my laptop. A week after the incident, a friend was over and I was searching and searching for my expensive film camera, one my dad had given me, and I couldn’t find it. “Oh, no…” the sinking feeling as it dawned on me that they’d taken that too only I hadn’t noticed. “I’m not going to find it. It’s gone.”
I called Jean 1. “Hey, what is going on? Tell me the truth.” He avoided and deflected, suddenly aloof. “I didn’t know you wanted me to meet your parents. I thought I was just coming out to see you,” and, “I just couldn’t make it work with my son’s mom.” We’d already talked about all of these things. Several times. I won’t get into all of the nuances.
The next day we talked and I couldn’t hold back the intensity of my feelings. I was sobbing. “But why wouldn’t you just tell me you weren’t coming? I already told my family. You’ve humiliated me.” I couldn’t understand how he thought he could just silently fade away and I wouldn’t notice him not coming out. I felt I deserved direct and clear communication. We were both adults. I could change plans but only if faced head-on and with some sensitivity to the weight of it.
He had sent me an email between these conversations hinting at the real issue: he wasn’t sure he wanted to have another kid. It had come up a few weeks earlier as well when I still in France but I don’t think I really understood that we were in firm disagreement. Or I was in love and didn’t want to see it. I had been so sure in my head that we’d talked about it and he knew it was the #1 most important thing to me. But now it was like he thought I wouldn’t mind changing my mind or seeing his point of view.
But no.
I would have never gotten into a relationship with him if I thought he had been on the fence. Never ever ever. I’d see that happen to a friend of mine. She wasted 3 fertile years to a guy on the fence only to have him give a firm no in the end. I was about to turn 40 in mere weeks. Hadn’t he held space for me while I was freaking out about my waning fertility, debating whether to do IVF so I could be pregant by the end of the year??
What was happening?
“I didn’t want to lose you,” he said.
“Great so you lied to me and stole the last few months of my 30s??” I was beyond livid. I had agonized over making the right choice in who I devoted my loving time and attention to. I was furious that he’d tricked me. I was furious that I fell in love and would now have to go through another painful heartbreak. My last breakup was devastatingly difficult to recover from.
I thought we’d keep talking about it but we didn’t. He didn’t call me and he suddenly became busy every night of the week, which was baffling because in the month I’d lived with him, he barely socialized. Suddenly there were friends over, nights at the bar, and late holiday parties in Paris.
Days went by and I felt utterly abandoned. I developed the most intense sinus infection of my life. I laid in bed, hardly able to breath, my head throbbing, crying and crying.
He started communicating by email only. I couldn’t believe it.
I needed to know what had happened. Why was he gaslighting me into thinking he’d always said “maybe” to having a kid? Why was he gaslighting me about how important it had been to me that he come out and meet my family?
I emailed him a simple form he could fill out.
“Hey, remember that conversation we had in September? We talked by phone and I was really distressed because I told you I wanted to find a partner and have a kid and was anxious about whether I was wasting my time with you. You assured me I wasn't wasting my time. I was looking into freezing my eggs and couldn't decide.
Did you...
___ not remember it that way
___ think I was saying something else
___ think I didn't mean it
___ think you could change my mind
___ think you wanted another kid but changed your mind later
___ realize after spending more time with me that you didn't like me as much as you thought
___ other: ___________________________”
He admitted he had thought he could change my mind.
But that’s not exactly what I think happened. I thought there was some classically avoidant attachment stuff happening. I asked ChatGPT about it and The AI Robot Therapist seemed to agree. I’ve put that conversation here in this follow-up blog.
I told my parents what had happened and that Jean 1 wasn’t coming out after all. “We’re probably breaking up,” I admitted. The baby thing is a dealbreaker for me. But mostly I didn’t like how avoidant he was being.
His email-only avoidance enraged me. “How dare he pursue me so hard, getting me to fall for him, only to disappear into the ether!” I know my rage only encouraged and supported the rationale for his avoidance but in my suffering I wanted to hurt him. I sent an email saying very mean things. It worked. He was hurt. I regreted it.
My 40th birthday arrived. I had planned a big party, inviting aunts, uncles, grandparents, friends and family friends. It was a cake “Bake Off” in the style of the popular British TV show The Great British Bake Off (Baking Show). I had instructed everyone to bake a cake with some parameters: it had to be holiday themed and they had to use an alternative sugar that wasn’t sugar cane. Cakes would be judged on taste, texture, design, and use of alternative sugar. Every attendee would fill out a score card. Scores would be tabulated. Winners would be declared!
The day preparing for the party was full. Cakes were baked and decorated. My brother, sister-in-law and nephew had arrived in town. I tidied up my dad’s house. My dad hung a “Happy Birthday” banner up in the kitchen. I printed 100+ score cards (if 10 attendees judge 10 cakes…) at my mom’s office on her business-grade printer.
Jean 1 had said in an email that I could expect a birthday gift by mail. I was sad about us as I kept my eye on the landing at the front door for any packages from UPS, FedEx, or USPS.
Guests started to arrive with their cakes. The party was starting!
Finally, the gorgeous flower bouquet of my dreams arrived at the front door! 40 fluffy pink and red roses in a clear glass vase! 😍
My mom was holding it. It was from my Aunt Sue.
The bake off was a smashing success! I knew I couldn’t leave my 40th to chance and I love friendly competitions and making things. It was just perfect in every way! My friends and family members pulled out all the stops: baking and decorating an impressive array of tasty and visually appealing cakes. There were 9 cakes in all and a pretend-cake made entirely of flowers. We tasted them, used our best British accents to talk about the quality of “the sponge,” filled out score cards and handed out awards.
I felt loved.
Throughout the evening, everyone kept asking me, “So we heard you met someone!? Who is it? Where? He’s coming out here this week?” I have an enormous Catholic family and gossip spreads lightning fast.
I wasn’t ready to be completely honest that day. “Yeah, yeah, I met someone. His name is Jean 1. He lives in Paris.” “Yes, he’s really great. I’m very happy.” “Yes, I’ll be heading back to France.” “No, you know what, he couldn’t come out after all.” “I know, it’s too bad.”
The birthday text Jean 1 had sent me that morning was flat and obligatory. As I tasted, praised, and enjoyed the cakes I could still feel a stabbing pain in my chest from the heartbreak. I was holding back tears. A shame spiral that there was something wrong with me because I kept falling for the wrong person kept creeping up and I had to push it back down. It hurt how happy everyone was for me. They loved me and wanted all the good things for me.
The next day I woke up to…yup, another email. He said he wanted me to have my dream to have a baby but he couldn’t do it with me. I called him. We hadn’t talked in 2 weeks. We broke up.
His gift arrived that day: a small box on the front steps. I grabbed it as I got into the truck I always borrow from my dad when I’m in town, ripping the box tape with the truck key. It was a coffee thing. It was thoughtful, as he knew I loved coffee, but it wasn’t flowers. Or jewelry. Or anything romantic. He must have bought this after we started to break down. It was flat and obligatory.
While I’d taken care to ensure my birthday was a smashing success no matter what, and while I’d felt the love from my friends and family, it was at least a little bit ruined.
Christmas Eve brought a big family party with more awkward questions I wasn’t ready to answer.
Then, even more extended family members descended from all over the US for the celebration of my grandparents’ 70th wedding anniversary on December 29th (the irony of celebrating this monumental loving committment while processing my millionth breakup was not lost on me).
This time I was ready to tell the truth.
In the past few days I’d listened to a podcast interview with Martha Beck, Oprah’s life coach. She told a story about how she’d had surgury at a midpoint in her life and while under anesthetics she’d had a miraculous breakthrough in which a voice came to her and told her to never lie about anything ever again. The chronic pain she’d always had, and the mental illness she battled, faded as she broke away from her strict Mormon church, her marriage to a man (she’s a lesbian), and stopped lying about anything, living her authentic life.
“I won’t lie about it today,” I thought. “And I won’t avoid hard things. I’ll face them head on.”
This time when new family members said, “So, I heard you met someone?” I responded, “Yeah, I did, and I was really excited about him. But we broke up on Monday. It turned out we weren’t aligned about having a kid.” “Yeah, I’m feeling really sad, yeah.” “No, I have no idea if I’m going back to Europe.” “Yeah, it’s a bummer.” I let people feel sad for me. I didn’t take it in. I felt sad but I didn’t have to absorb theirs. In a day’s or week’s time no one would be thinking about it anymore.
If you’re reading this, and you were excited for me, I want you to know I have so much gratitude for how much you care about me. Thank you for your love. Thank you for wanting to share in my excitement and celebrate me. I am so loved.
The next few weeks I’ll be processing, feeling, healing, journaling, writing (duh), and figuring out what comes next. Do I want to keep traveling and dating, continuing my project? Or do I want to move back into my home in Boston and try a regular routine again? Do I want to try IVF and pregnancy as a single person? Or should I hold out hope that I can still meet someone I love and who wants the same things as me?
I’m open to suggestions! Let me know what you think I should do moving forward. I’ll take it into consideration. Some dear friends I met for coffee this morning were asking me great coaching questions about what feels the best and most exciting to me which was really helpful.
Let’s see what Part 5 brings…
