Yesterday I had my first date in about six months. Because I go on so few dates and in general have so few opportunities to dress up, I had fun getting cute for this deli date. A fitted black skirt, a robin's-egg-blue top, a diaphonous scarf tied about my waist, dangly abalone earrings, and black heels no less!
Martin is a psychologist working in teen suicide intervention. Before going back to school in the early '90s, he was a successful painting contractor in San Diego. I admire people who follow their heart and make a radical shift to fulfill their dreams. He sure seemed to draw a lot of meaning and satisfaction from his work.
Near the end of lunch, I congratulated him on his conversation skills. I told him that it is rare to meet a person who knows how to ask questions, listen for the answers, and yet reveal something of himself. Usually I meet people who either can't hold up their end of the conversation and I end up interviewing them or they monopolize the conversation and don't ask anything of me. It was refreshing to meet an exception to that rule.
Mystical experiences, yearnings, politics, little dramas, poetry, kidney dialysis, insulin-dependent diabetes, and opportunities for gratitude.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
So Much of my Life is Outside the Bounds of Small Talk
Throughout lunch, however, I was occasionally aware that I had to clip my answers so as not to reveal too much. Later, as I was driving home, I realized how much of my current life is outside the bounds of small talk. For example, let's start with a big topic of conversation on a first date--career. I can't say that I retired from Cal State last year because that would prompt questions of "Why?" and "Aren't you too young for retirement?" Honest answers to these queries would mean I'd have to say something about dialysis and heart surgery.
And I held back at other junctures too. Martin said he swims several times a week. I love to swim but cannot do so now, as the risk of infection at my dialysis exit site is too great. So I just smiled, nodded my head, and said something like, "That's fantastic."
Martin talked about his family of origin, then asked if my parents were still alive. I said they were not. He asked other questions, and so I told him that I had moved my mother here from Wisconsin to watch over her during the last two years of her life, but that, that had been difficult. I couldn't explain why it had been difficult though because that again would have entailed a discussion of my health. The stress and physical strain of moving her to California prompted a heart attack the very day after I settled her in at her assisted living facility. That was just the first in a series of dozens of medical emergencies I experienced while simultaneously caring for all her needs and her finances, working several jobs, and tending to my household duties. I really don't know how I outlived her.
I didn't get the feeling from Martin's parting comments that he was interested in seeing me again, so I won't have to be concerned about keeping dialysis, diabetes, and heart disease from him. And as I have so few dates, I may not have to face this sort of situation for another six months, maybe longer, maybe never again. I'll just have to find other opportunities to wear heels!
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About Me
- Heidi's heart
- Southern California, United States
- Perhaps my friend Mark summed me up best when he called me "a mystical grammarian." I am quite a mix--otherworldly, ethereal and in touch with "the beyond," yet prone to being very precise and logical, when need be. Romantic in the big-canvas meaning of the word, I see the world as an adventure, as a love poem, as a realm of beauty and wonder.
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