OK. So I’m starting to feel stupid. Maybe it’s stupid to feel stupid; I don’t know. I’m just trying to correct a mistake that I made, or at least that’s what I’m telling myself.

If you read my last post, To Create the Man of My Dreams, you already know that I met a man named Joe at a café a week ago last Sunday. After he asked me several times,  I gave him what I thought was my correct phone number.  But since he has not called in over a week now, I am assuming that I made an error… a typo. I am also trusting my intuition that the guy was sincere and that he really did want to talk to me and he even thought that maybe this chance meeting might be the beginning of something meaningful.

You also would know from the last post that I thought he was ideal… ideal for me. Right age, intellect, looks, etc. The problem is that I now have introduced a new anxiety into my life that makes me think and act like a foolish teenager. You know. You’ve been there too. All of those silly little imaginings: “He didn’t really like me. He doesn’t really want to talk to me.” And then, worse yet, to embarrass myself by talking about our meeting incessantly as if there’s anything significant to say. And asking stupid questions like, “Do you think he will call? What should I do?”  I’m a bit embarrassed to admit to all of this and me at this advanced age and all. Blech! Do I really need this?

But 99% of the responses I received to the post said “Go back to the café. If you can find him, see if there was anything there.” I have to say that you have given me courage but also fear that I will make a fool out of myself in front of you and him. But should I leave you hanging? After all, I am the one who started this. As they say, “Curious minds want to know.”

I’ve been back to the café . Granted it was nearly 10:00 pm, but nonetheless, I went. Actually, it wasn’t my fault that I didn’t go at a time that the chances that Joe might be there were greater. My plan was to go at 5:00 and I was there at 5:00, though I was parked outside, I didn’t go in.. I still maintain that it wasn’t my fault..

So my only recourse, I thought at the time, was to leave a note on a receipt tablet with the baristas, that read:

Joe

(red round glasses)

please call

Karen Peterson

503-309-5501

And even this makes me cringe a little as I think back on it. I don’t want to seem like a stalker or some desperate middle aged woman. But I only want to make right what I may have done wrong. One person said, “Oh, the old give the wrong number trick.”  You know, when you really don’t want someone to call, so you give them a phony number? I’ve done it a bunch of times.

So, that’s it. I’m done. I’ve done what I could short of hanging out at the café all day everyday, but that’s not my way. Maybe this is how it will end. I’ve been through enough in my life that I have learned not to struggle too hard to remedy something that is not meant to be, and to relax in the idea that if it is meant to be, it will happen. And what have I lost… really? Nothing. My encounter with Joe and his sister-in-law was pleasant and stimulating, but in reality, I am not losing a great deal except the hope of something that might happen in the future. There is nothing certain about the future, anyway.

My dad and my sister were taken out of my life suddenly. My mother has passed on. Relationships have come and gone. As far back as I can remember are the people I have loved, my grandpa, my grandma, aunts, uncles and cousins, and many of them are gone. All I have left are photographs and vague recollections. The past no longer exists except in memory and the future never really comes. What we do have, and it slips through our fingers, is right now, this moment.

My life is short and when I am gone there will be just two generations who will remember my face and will recall what I did in my brief time here. My photographs will mean nothing to my grand children’s children. “Oh, that was Grammy”, Ancel and Enora will say. But what will they know of me. All I will leave them  are images and my writings; but how long will those things lie around gathering dust and taking up space until one day while cleaning their files, the closet and the attic, out they will go and all signs of me will be gone forever.

We are stardust. Beautiful, beautiful stardust. We know nothing of what will become of us when these lovely bodies return to dust. But for now, we have life. And we can live well or we can live unwell. I choose well. For now I will sleep in the moonlight. I will listen to the sounds all around me and marvel at sight. I will cry for those suffering. I will always long for love and look for it around every corner. Perhaps it is looking for me, too.