Falling in Love That Last Time

(in one song)

It was October 2015 and I was falling in love. It was the Sunday afternoon of Columbus Day weekend and I was working in the front garden of my house on R Street with my monster-sized bloodhound Moose snoring in the sun. I was happy, it was a gorgeous, cloudless day. I had somewhere around thirty days of sobriety and I had been thinking about A. pretty much non-stop all weekend.

A. and Moose had both just recently come into my life. March 2015 had been rough. In the space of about three days, my girlfriend broke up with me and my 15-year-old Lab and elegant, constant companion, Kayla died. I used to joke that my life was like a country song:

“My girlfriend’s gone, my dog is dead and I don’t know who I miss worse.”

I was drinking a lot.

September began and three things happened in the space of about a week. First, I got a call from a matchmaker. Yes, an actual matchmaker. More than a year before, I had gotten an email out of the blue from her asking if I would go on dates with her female clients. I said yes but then met someone and was off the market. The matchmaker would check-in every few months and I’d tell her I was still seeing that someone until she called in September and I wasn’t. She was excited and told me about her client A. and we scheduled a dinner.

I wouldn’t say it was a magical first date. A. had a pretty big job and two teenaged daughters—there was always a lot on her plate and she was pretty distracted that evening. I was pretty drunk, so it didn’t matter that much. I thought she was funny and pretty and smart, but she didn’t seem that interested and I didn’t really put my best foot forward. I watched her drive off and didn’t think I’d hear from her again, but that was ok, I ambled off to one of my spots to drink the rest of the evening away.

The second thing was a call from my kids announcing they had determined I needed another dog and that my son would be driving to DC that weekend to help select said dog. After an afternoon of fruitless searching, we met a giant Bloodhound at a shelter. He was of an indeterminate age, had been found wandering outdoors somewhere in Alabama and while he had some pretty snaggly teeth, he also had a very sweet disposition. The staff at the shelter had weirdly decided to call him “Bocce.” He weighed 105 pounds. My son and I conferred:

Son: Dad, he’s a really good dog.

Me: He’s a really big dog.

Son: He’s a really, really good dog, he’s really sweet.

Me: You know where I live. He’s really big.

Son: Dad, you’re right he’s huge and goofy and old and no one else is going to adopt him—we both know that. We also both know there’s only one person dumb enough to do that…

Me: I hope you’re not talking about me. He’s really big.

Bocce became Moose and later that afternoon there was an adorable picture of M and Moose on Instagram. I think things had been pretty rough for Moose and he was very grateful for his new living circumstances. Moose didn’t seem to know very much about being a dog and our trips to the dog park were pretty hilarious as Moose was just mystified by the other dogs. He’d run behind them doing that incredibly loud Bloodhound bray, not really sure why he was doing any of that—but it’s what the other dogs were doing. Moose was awkward and goofy and gigantic and kind of sad sometimes, but mostly really just happy to be home.

Welcome to the Fam, Moose! Neither of those steaks are for you. Sorry.

Third, I had decided to try and get sober again. I’d been trying on and off since late 2010 and had done one Intensive Outpatient Program in 2012 that had netted me about 60 days of sobriety. I had been clumsily and drunkenly trying to re-ignite the flame that had gone out in March, but it had been made clear there was no chance of that unless I went somewhere and put together some sobriety. I felt that familiar feeling, my life slipping away, and decided to go back to the IOP.

About two days after Moose had moved in and while I was still trying to educate him about all of the places he was too big to sleep, I heard from A.¹ She wondered whether we could have dinner again and I took about zero seconds to say yes. The second date went much better. She had a dazzling smile and I was laughing all evening. After dinner, we walked to my house so she could meet Moose. We sat on the steps in the garden that evening while she played with Moose’s dangly ears—Moose adored that and her. Me too.

No one ever said he was a guard dog.

She told me she’d been waiting for a year to meet me. She had hired a matchmaker and after their initial interview, the matchmaker had said, “I have the perfect guy for you, except he’s seeing someone.” The matchmaker’s quarterly check-ins with me had been relayed back to A. for more than a year. A also told me that she’d recently gone to a psychic who had predicted she would soon meet the love of her life: He would have steps leading up to his front door and a really big dog.

When she drove off a little while later, I knew I was going to see her again, I had asked her to a Stevie Wonder concert the next week and she had excitedly said yes, “I love Stevie Wonder,” that luminous smile flashing so bright. But after the concert, I wasn’t going to see her again for a bit. She was going to California for work and then staying Columbus Day weekend to go hiking with a friend. The details of all of this, especially the identity of the participants, were troublingly vague.

So, I was working pretty hard to stay busy that Columbus Day weekend. I couldn’t stop thinking about A. and wondering what the situation really was with her. Also, I was in very early sobriety again and doing my best to keep my mind away from the places it liked to go and take me along to eventually drink. There had been lots of walks with Moose and lots of work in the garden. I was, of course, listening to music and this song was in pretty heavy rotation back then:

I started loving that song in the 8th Grade and clumsily tried to fit it over some junior high crushes—but it’s just doesn’t translate well to bowling dates. I had been potting Marigolds for the front steps and saw I’d just missed a call from A. I frantically re-dialed, “oh shit, I hope I didn’t miss her.” She answered on the first ring, “Hiiii, I thought I’d missed you,” her voice was bright and happy. We caught up, what Moose and I had been up to that weekend. There was so much warmth and excitement in her voice, when she talked, it sounded like a smile:

Me: So, it’s been a good weekend?

A: Yeah, it’s been good, but I’m really ready to come home

Me: Good, I’m very glad to hear that

A: You know how you always say “Kind of?“

Me: haha, kind of.

A: haha, I kind of miss you.

Now my voice was all smiles, I tried really hard to play it cool, “haha, I kind of miss you, too.” We made plans to have dinner on Tuesday and hung up. I grabbed Moose’s leash, put in my AirPods, a celebration was in order! “Cmon Moosie, let’s go to the Park!”² Of course, this is the song that played³:

From the first exuberant “Oh Yeah,” that song perfectly captured my mood that day. I love the church-y piano and the lyrics are so plaintive and so perfectly descriptive, “if you really love me, won’t you tell me, so I won’t have to keep playing around.” The middle of the song gets slow and a hint of desperation creeps in, “What am I supposed do, be a fool who sits alone waiting for you?” Ummm, yes, that’s kind of what I had been doing. He tries again, “if you really love me won’t you just tell me….I see the light of your smile.” Oh my God, that smile, I swear it was visible from space. “Calling me all the while.” Yes, I really couldn’t think of much else. But, she just won’t say it, so I have to ask one more time, “I’m taking out this time to say…”

And then everything changes. The key changes, the saxophones in counterpoint give it a triumphant sound, there are handclaps, the back-up singers get loud, the piano comes up and it all comes together in the now exuberant refrain: “if you really love me, won’t you tell me.” It’s different now because it’s not really a question anymore. Then the notes just tumble all over each other in this glorious, happy jumble and the background singers are so happy. “I kind of miss you.” She had just told me, now I didn’t have to be playing around.

There was one problem. A. didn’t know I was an alcoholic. I went to my group session at the IOP on Monday evening. I raised my hand and explained my situation. There were 8 or 9 of us and I think I was the oldest—most everyone else was in their 20’s and 30’s. I said that I had met this really great person and that I hadn’t felt like this in a really, really long time and I knew I needed to tell her, but was scared to death and how do you even do that? A young woman in the group looked at me and asked, “Don’t you finally deserve someone who knows you and loves you, for you.”⁴ She smiled the kindest smile and nodded at me:

“Don't worry, the right person won’t care.”

I had frankly never thought of it that way before. My drinking, my alcoholism was a shameful thing I did my best to hide. I didn’t tell my therapists, my doctors, anyone the true extent of it, because I believed it was the ultimate disqualification; No rational person was going to want to have anything to do with me once they found out I was really a broken-down, middle-aged alcoholic with a pretty dubious history. No one would respect me, trust me, like me, if they really knew.

But those words stuck with me and the next night I had dinner with A. at a French place in the neighborhood. Afterwards, we walked to my house and she came in to see Moose. We were talking and she had asked if I would play something on the piano and I was sitting on the bench trying to oblige and then I just blurted out, “Ummm, I need to tell you something, I’m a recovering alcoholic.” There was a pause of indeterminate length, I would say it was about 20 minutes, and then she said, “I don’t really know anything about that.” So, I started talking. I left out lots of critical details, but I got the gist of it out in my fumbling, nervous way. I was terrified, words falling like nonsense out of my normally poised, litigator-mouth. I finally stopped. I looked nervously over at her from the piano, she had those sparkly eyes locked on me, and was smiling “I’m really glad you told me,” I started to breathe again. Then this,

“I don’t think there is anything you could say to change the way I feel about you.”

She had the girls that weekend and had been away, so needed to be with them. She was going to be in New York for work the next week, but was there any way I could meet her there? Not surprisingly there was and a few days later (October 21st) I wrote this in my journal:

Acelea 2168 is shambling northbound, the Autumn-tinged trees slide past the windows and I’m lucky enough to have a window seat. My view of the Maryland and Delaware countryside is obstructed only when a southbound train hurtles past—a crazy rush of blue and red metal, seemingly close enough to touch, but gone in a flash. The jarring separation, a product of the speed and the diametric compass headings. I’m surprised to think this: life is good. For the first time in a long time, there isn’t a pit in my stomach, no despair in my heart. I’m hurtling away from the hurt, the pain, the desperation, the longing, the insanity, the drinking. For the first time in a long time, there is calm and peace, maybe even happiness. The cold, clear, dry weather bringing colors-- oranges, yellows, reds--to the leaves and I’m drying out, too and my colors are slowly coming back.

I’ve had this funny idea for a while now that I’m writing a book in my head; that I’m living a book a few pages at a time.  Really, that was probably just an excuse to avoid the actual work of writing the book—and, of course, an unwritten book is not really a book.  And a life lived with the conceit that it’s actually a book, well, that’s probably not much of a life.  This story starts in March of this year, well, maybe it starts at a few different places, but at least this first, actually written part starts in March of this year.

I was wrong, the real story had just started. New York became a special place for us—the Loewe’s Regency at 61st and Park was a favorite base of operations. She really loved staying there and I really loved the walks in the Park and the trips to the Met. Mostly, I loved being with her. Walking by that hotel these days feels a little like a trip to a haunted house.⁵ There was so much anticipation and excitement that first October, maybe we both had found the person we were looking for? It turns out neither of us had an inkling about where we were going or how hard it was going to be. We eventually came to an end in another October, but I'll never forget how it felt that October, that last time I fell in love.

Thanks for Letting Me Share

1. I started the IOP the same day.

2. All of my dogs knew “The Park” to be the magical dog park over on Vermont Avenue.

3. Yes, I deliberately put the link in there twice. I get reports on how many times the links get clicked.

4. One of the things that is so haunting about the Program is how people drift by and say these things that literally alter the course of your life and then they’re gone. I think that was the last session she attended and about a week later they told us that she had relapsed.

5. One very recent afternoon, I was running an errand in the 60’s on Madison Avenue and was walking home and got distracted and turned the wrong direction and didn’t realize it until I was across the street and saw where I was. I laughed, figured I was supposed to walk by, so I did.