Last updated on October 12, 2025
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After Andy left that morning, I played one of my favorite computer games, which always helped ease my mind. Lucy texted, saying she and my dearest M had decided on a brunch at a local restaurant and that I should join them. This was supposed to take place the day before, and I had recommended that Lucy suggest to her friend that she come to work with us. I had wanted her to work with me for some time – not for any reason except that she was the most amazing person in the field, and I knew her heart was the same heart I and I thought all the others who worked for my company shared for our clients. Like I said, she was married, and I would not entertain such a thought. The Saturday lunch did not take place, so they moved it to Sunday.
There was a reason for all of this, at least from Lucy’s viewpoint, and I will get to that later. I responded to the text saying no – albeit with some hesitation because it was my dearest M saying to come down. I said no because I did not want her to get in trouble with my ex-wife, who was still something of her supervisor, at least I thought. I was assured that that was not the case, that she would not be in trouble, and that it was a specific request that my dearest M was making for me to come down. Again, I hesitated. I did not want to get anyone in trouble, but I gave in and headed down to Clyde’s. I ordered an Irish coffee, fitting, and headed over to the table, holding my breath.
Her hair was as golden as any sunlit day, as the most memorable sunlit day the world had ever known – I dare say biblical, in the way the first sun shone after the 40 days of rain had destroyed the world around Noah and to his north, Ireland. Her eyes were green as the Irish fields, lit by the rising sun that gave life to the soul, to the soil covered everywhere by the gaze that men once worshipped. A man would be a fool not to notice her smile, as it could heat the darkest caverns of a long-buried earth devoid of sunlight itself. The only thing I could do was to focus on breathing at that very moment, the moment my life changed. In. Out. Slow. Slow my pace. Do not make a sound not to break the moment. Just breathe, taking time to measure that one breath in fear of breaking that quintessential fracture of a second so that I could not be heard.
I checked everything about me. I didn’t want to appear too large or too small, too arrogant or too scared. I wanted to take in the moment as the blind man Jesus had suddenly and without judgment revealed sight. I was in the presence of all the good in the world, nay, the cosmos. Here was someone that the poets had longed to see, had longed to love, and here, she was, sitting across from me. More than that, she was talking to me. Yet even more…more…she was looking, looking at me, not with any need, want, or desire to use, but seeing me as I was. If I am ever to believe in a literal version of the bible once again, it must be that very occasion when I suddenly believed the story from Joshua – that time could, in fact, stand still. I would be a fool to tell you that I did not love her at the very instant and really admit that in that very burning of time I did hopelessly fall madly in love with her. Some say you’ll never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory. But I did. I know the value of every second of that day.
I remember every moment of that day. In my moments of sorrow, I retreat there, only to find more sorrow in the joy held there.
She pelted me with questions of all the things she had heard in the last nearly three years – and it had almost been three years since I had last seen her. I told her I would be open and transparent. I did not have to hide anything. Why should I? So, we talked about the company, about me, about rumors until Clyde’s had to close at 2 pm. I did not want that day to end and could not let it happen, so I suggested we move across the street to the Mexican place, El Tap. Here, we continued to drink and talk, making fun of various things she had heard and talking about clients.
That was when I noticed her vaping. I was already heavily intoxicated with various shots of tequila and a few margaritas, and I asked if I could share. I did not vape or smoke at the time, but her lips touched it, and I knew at that moment I wanted to touch her lips. The only thing I could do was to share the vape. It may sound silly, but it gave me such a peace of mind that I could not stop. I still have the same type of vape. I can see it just over on the nightstand, and it brings up such memories. But there, at that moment, I was able to be in the same place as her lips, and when she would pass me the vape, find the slightest touch of her hand mesmerizing, giving me such innate pleasure that all my troubles had seemed to vanish.
There was something about the way she looked at me. I have never been one to know if someone was flirting or otherwise. But here, I was sure that she was looking at me in a way that I was trying to keep from looking at her as if something was truly happening. Have you ever had that moment when, even if sanity is diluted with alcohol, even if good sense is somehow a thing of the past, a moment where everything makes sense when nothing else seems to? This is that moment, that moment I have longed for, that moment I did not know could exist for someone like me. It should not exist for someone like me.
She was married but unhappy, revealing her struggles that night. I had Andy come to assist, both for a ride home and to help me process what I was experiencing. Among the crowd, only my dearest M caught my attention, as if she were the only one there. Her voice, high-pitched and unique, was one I missed deeply; it had seeped into my soul more than I realized. Looking back, I realize I had a crush on her during our time together—she was stunning and dedicated to helping abused children. Once my divorce started, I envisioned reconnecting with her, and that vision was coming true. Her husband worked nights, causing her to cut the evening short. After returning home, I lay down for an hour, replaying the night, realizing she felt something too. I usually avoided making the first move due to fear of rejection, but with her, I texted. I intruded on her marriage, but I couldn’t let the night end without reaching out. To my surprise, she responded, and our conversation opened a door into each other’s hearts. That night, I slept soundly for the first time in ages, feeling not alone. Monday’s light was beautiful, and I looked forward to talking to her again. We texted throughout the day, and I invited her to join a group trip to Ouray the following weekend. The week that followed was a mix of excitement and anxiety as we navigated our feelings while she visited my office often.
A week later, I held her hand, and it felt perfect. We spent the day together, alone, except for our friends around us. Later, we went to another bar, where our conversation turned intimate, revealing frustrations and insecurities. On the ride home, she cried about her struggles, and I held her without kissing her, even though I desperately wanted to. The following week was grueling; I was anxious, rising early to text her and staying up late in conversation. I listened to love songs, realizing I had never felt this way before.
By Friday, we were honest about our feelings. I confessed I was falling in love with her, and she expressed her anger about her situation. We discussed our past relationships, recognizing a connection that felt eternal. That night, she told me she loved me, and I believed her without reservation. I had never felt such honesty in my life, and I knew we loved each other deeply.
“You do not have to say it back,” she wrote. “Just because I say it doesn’t mean you have to.”
“I’ll always say it back. I’ll always mean it. And I never want not to say it,” I responded.
The next week, she decided to quit her job and come work with me. We had to be careful to separate the personal from the professional. And we did. I told her that I would trust her and always listen to her. I knew immediately I had found a partner in every sense of the word. I would always support her and go with what she needed. I felt that. I felt like if I had known her three years before and this way, my life and business would be better. Something inside of me told me to always listen to her and to hold onto her. I could see this as nothing else and God’s divine proclamation tantamount to the 10 Commandments or the day of Pentecost.
At the end of the week, she had to travel across the mountains for a football game. To a city where her brother had been murdered almost exactly a year before. Her husband was not going to go, no matter how much this hurt her. In fact, when her brother had been murdered, the husband decided to stay home as he never had time to be with his wife. He had never been a good person. I was going to go. I loved her, and if I could only be there to let her know that I was there for her, then that is what I was going to do.
For the first time in my life, since I had come to Ireland that first time, I was regretting going. I would have to be without her for a week. And nothing could ease that suffering. For the first time since I landed on this island, it took second place in my hopes and dreams. I never wanted to leave her. All the feelings of belonging somewhere, of being welcomed, of being accepted, that Ireland had always provided to me, I found in that one single individual who smiled at me with those green eyes.
The Tuesday before she had to leave for the game – well, before we both left for the game – she came to the office. I remember it so vividly. When she was getting ready to leave, she asked if I was going to kiss her. We had agreed to take all physical interactions slow because the only place we could meet was the office. That kiss, that sweet kiss, lasted not long enough but had to be for hours. It was passionate, enthralling, sensual. I could feel everything about her, holding her in my arms, pressing her tightly to me. I could taste her lips where only before I could imagine. Looking into those eyes as we came up for air, as we knew we had to leave, to break contact, not sure if it would come again, was as intoxicating as any substance known to man, any that I had taken to ease my own paid. I had tasted pure ecstasy.
Thursday came, and she came by once again. We knew we could not see each other in the Springs because her mom was going. This would be the last time we could touch for some time. To add to that, her husband was getting suspicious of how much time she was spending at the office. We spent an hour with me holding her in my arms as she curled up in my lap. This, to me, was heaven. I could smell her, stroke her hair, and love her. It was time to go. Her husband was calling and wondering where she was. She lied, and he was on his way to work. We both believed he had driven by, and we both knew that we needed to figure something out. I was not going to push or press, and she was always going to be slow to act. Plus, it was the holidays. No one wants a separation during the holidays. Before we left each other’s arms, we kissed again, but this time, the passion overwhelmed us. As my hands, my fingers, found her wanting and I brought her to delight after delight, my own lips slipped to her neck only to leave the mark of our passion. I held her tight as the trembles subsided, our breathing slowed, and our hearts found their resting pace. Silence abounded. Silence, love, and wanderlust. Something had happened that affirmed what we had already known, that we were compatible in every way, physically and emotionally. She was saddened she could not take from me what I had brought her to, but I cared not. In matters of the body, I find it is better to give than to receive. To receive the gaze of her eyes, which spoke the truth that, for the first time in such a long time, her body had found an emancipation she long thought impossible, was the only release I needed.
The next week, she would come to work for me. She would start on a Tuesday, and I would leave on a Thursday morning for Ireland. That gave us two days to work together. Needless to say, that last night before the football game had ignited a need in each of us to have more of the other. So, we planned something for that Wednesday night before Ireland. She would wait for her husband to go to work, we would make up an excuse, and then go to the hotel. I had secured a room earlier that day. I had never done something like this, but I knew exactly what to do.
A body not beheld through the soul is only an object. She had always been treated as an object, which would always temper my desire to initiate. But on this night, she was not. I knew her soul. Did I alone know it? No. I cannot say that as much as I would want to. But I can say that of her previous partners, I alone did. Of all my previous partners, she alone understood mine — she accepted my darkness and saw my light. What we gave each other was not merely physical pleasure but something deep and binding that opened up the fortress each of us had built to guard our hearts. In her arms, and her in mine, we truly became one, over and over again, until we were both spent more emotionally — more spiritually — than physically. What we discovered was more ethereal than St. Brenden’s mystical new world, than the third heavens, than any supposed existence of a plane upon which the divine slumbered and the angels sang. We discovered our true and, in so many bespectacled ways, our unadulterated selves that would make the most devout monk at St Catherine’s break his silence in awe. I could describe the physical pleasure, but it pales in comparison to all other aspects of the humanity uncovered that night.
We lay there, sweat glistening on our still nude forms. We lay there in stunned silence, me holding her, listening to her breathing, stroking her hair. I did not have to ask, and neither did she, if we each enjoyed it. We did. We knew it. We always knew how the other person felt. We knew it as strongly as we knew ourselves. It had always been that way, yet it was all very new. There was no time like the first with a person, but each other time was always so well received.
After so many minutes at passed, we started to talk about any and everything. Work. Ireland. Her husband and the marriage that now had to end. I do not know why I did not have guilt. I should have. I have always believed that something like this was wrong. But I did not. Instead, what I felt was that when she left, it was something like her cheating on me. This was odd, and I did not hold it against her, but that is what it felt like. We spent the next two hours talking, holding, and listening to each other. Just being in the moment because, at the moment, the only thing that mattered was the fact that after countless eons, heartbreaks, and losses, we had finally found each other, and we knew we could not let each other go. We did not know what to do next.
After we departed, I went to the store to get four greeting cards so that a co-worker could deliver them to her at specified times. Later, she would tell me that each one was pertinent to the feelings she was having that day. Here, we had just consummated our love in a way, with such passion, with such deep meaning, that we could not necessarily put into words, and I was leaving to go to Ireland. I had so many times thought about canceling, but I owed it to Andy to go, and she would not let me. For the first time, my heart would be in the United States while I was in Ireland rather than my heart remaining in Ireland while I went back to the United States.
You must think me a fool for all of this. I wonder what you would have done to have finally felt a connection so deep that you could not describe it. I am a reflective person, and I know my feelings. I could explain almost everything. Not this. Not her. Not what I was feeling. I kept referring back to the moment Frodo almost followed the ring into the volcano as that was the only way I could describe it, how suddenly all my heartache and loss had dissipated, only to be replaced by the light of all that was good in the world. You surely must think me mad to have loved so deeply right from the start. I never believed in love at first sight. I always saw love as a journey, but never as a mystical event that was happening around you, and only when you find that person you are invited into the ongoing conversations about you. Yet, here I was, love at first sight, and everything was so very natural as if we had always been together.
There is this quote from the movie, Interstellar, where Anne Hathaway’s character tries to explain why her gut says she has to go a different way. “Love isn’t something that we invented. It’s observable. Powerful. It has to mean something. Maybe it means something more, something we can’t yet understand. Maybe it’s some evidence, some artifact of a higher dimension that we can’t consciously perceive. Love is the one thing that we’re capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space.” By training, I am a therapist. My life experiences have given me the ability to read people to avoid danger. That is the kicker about trauma: it always gives us these superpowers, usually meant for self-defense and always coming at a high price. That is what I would try to tell my clients: to lean into those feelings that have been heightened due to trauma, to avoid bad situations, or to learn how to handle society.
I say this because I often didn’t know how to read the people I was close to, those who stood in front of me. But for her, there was something so powerful that I could read it while I was on the airplane or as it would be throughout the week, thousands of miles away, separated by oceans and time zones. I did not have to see her face or hear her voice to know what was going on. And I count that as the love that cannot be quantified as if the love we had was a withdrawal of sorts from some metaphysical bank on that otherworldly plane.
The first time it happened, I was on an airplane between JFK and Amsterdam. For some reason, my flights had routed me through Amsterdam, which I did not mind because that gave me one more stop but I could say I had been on. But I could feel such a palpable tension and asked her about it. And she laid me bare. I still cannot explain it, except I knew somehow something was not right with her. And we texted and talked for hours. Just via pixels on the screen. As I told you before, I had several friends, close friends, but my best friends were those who told me the truth. This is not to say that other partners have not told me a truth, but when they did so, it was usually out of spite, or anger, or control. This time, I was getting a full-frontal assault of everything that was going wrong, and she did it in such a way as to use my strengths and weaknesses, to use me and who I really was, to explain what was happening. This was not just a truth, but the Truth, a deep reality brought forth with insight. She was right, of course. I knew that, but I did not know that she knew that. But she knew me as well or better than I had known myself. And suddenly, I could see myself in a mirror not dimly well-lit, and it was a mirror that showed me how much she knew me as well.
She was about a decade younger than me, but if maturity is measured the same way, then about a decade older than me. She knew me and all my secrets—not those things I had told her or that my ex-wife had spent the last three years telling her, but those things hidden in the deep recesses of my consciousness, things I do not even discuss with myself. She knew my fears, my despair, and my guilt. She knew it without me having to tell her. She gave me space to have them, and promised healing.
I was defenseless. I had no need to defend myself. She was right, she was right about everything she said. And I had already said that I would listen to her and follow her direction. This was not submission, not in any sense of the word. But it was that instinctual, knowing that if I listened to her, my life would be better. So, instead of sleeping on the airplane, I read everything she said over and over again, responding where I needed to, and carried on the conversation that was among the most in-depth I have ever had with someone. As a therapist myself, I never reached this level of inquiry, this level of knowing. And here she was, by now, several thousand miles away, telling me the inner recesses of my heart and lighting the way out of the darkness. Unlike with so many others, there are no ultimatums. There did not need to be between us.
She laid me bare.
I needed her. Never in my life had I needed someone, but I knew at that very moment that I needed her. I begin to fear, even after that short time of being together, her leaving me. I had never had those feelings before, dreading them leaving and knowing I would never see them again with any single individual. With my ex-wife, it was more about the kids. With Becca, well, as she had said when we had talked about what it would be like to break up. “Well, we have too much invested in this now,” she said dismissively as if relationships are a calculation to avoid hurt rather than magic to gain life. While she was talking about her heart, probably, that’s not the same thing as fearing being without someone in particular. I also find that there’s a difference between someone being afraid to be alone and what I was feeling and that I was just afraid of being without her. When I realized that who I thought was – one who needed no one else and was happier alone – was not the person that I had become, I was happy, if not a little shaken. A lot shaken. She made me better.
Have you ever felt this way? As if there is this metaphysical connection between you and someone else, so deep that it becomes an energy that reverbs around your body? I imagine you’ve been through all of this, of finding love only to find that you are lost again. I wonder if you feel as lost as I do sometimes. Or maybe you think you’re better at love than I am? No doubt you are. But deep down, we both know how fragile it is, don’t we?
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