My 40s Life Blog

Dedicated to Greg on what would have been our 16th wedding anniversary (8 years after his passing)

I didn’t settle. I wasn’t the first of my high school or college friends to get married. In fact, I was one of the last. I was always a hopeless romantic and dated many people in my twenties, but mostly, I had a lot of long-term relationships. I had single time in between relationships to lick my wounds and learn from what went wrong and that was okay. I wasn’t afraid of being alone.

For me, life has always been more enjoyable when shared with someone special. I was so serious about one guy that when he had to move for work, I relocated across the country and moved in with him for a year. I had even almost been proposed to a few times (which I found out during the break-ups), but it was never quite right. I knew what I wanted in the most important relationship of my adult life and I wasn’t willing to settle. 

Finally, at age 29, in April 2007, I met Greg. I didn’t even see it coming. I had literally just proclaimed that I was going on a boy diet and taking a break from dating to focus on myself. But, I was invited to a house party in San Francisco with a new friend, Lena, who thought I might hit it off with a guy she had interned with the previous year and he was going to be at this party. After moving out of the live-in boyfriend situation six months prior, I was in a make new friends/build a life for myself in San Francisco/say yes to all social things phase. So, I spontaneously went to the party with Lena and figured if it was terrible, I could always leave early and start my boy diet the next day. 

Well, my new friend, Lena, nailed it which is pretty incredible since we had only just met earlier that night through another new friend. Lena and I stood outside the locked door of the stairs leading up to the 2nd floor flat waiting for someone to let us in. It was cold and taking forever. We almost left. Lena was texting Greg about me and he finally came down and opened the door for us. I knew from the second I laid eyes on him that I was not leaving this party early. 

We talked the whole night. I was smitten. I could tell he was too. I also met a bunch of his friends that night including John who had also interned with Lena and Greg the year before. John and Greg now worked together at that company and John was also Lena’s roommate. Greg was crashing on their couch in San Francisco that night since he lived 45 minutes away in a suburb closer to work. When the party was ending, I offered to drive Lena, John, and Greg back to their flat. We didn’t want the night to end so we all went inside to hang out for a bit. I am not a night owl so I was clearly pushing myself, but eventually, I was just too tired. Greg walked me out to my car and asked for my number. I was over the moon.

Greg and I dated for two years before he proposed. It was wonderful – one of the happiest times of my life. It was obvious to all of our friends how well matched we were. One even joked that we were like the Kennedys and called us Mr. and Mrs. President because “two people who are that good-looking are just meant to be together.” But aside from being tall and handsome with amazing hair, Greg was kind and tender. He was also smart and ambitious. And, he was outdoorsy – surfing, mountain biking, camping, and skiing whenever he could. Getting to know Greg better was so validating for why I didn’t settle. This is what I had been waiting for. No red flags surfaced. I was so sure we were meant to be together. Our values, interests, and dreams aligned wonderfully. We both grew up in other states, but we loved Northern California and wanted to put down roots and raise a family here. I was ready to build a life with this man. Lena wrote in our wedding card, “Now that you two are married, all is right with the world.”

So, what do you do when you marry your soulmate and then 7 years later in December 2017, he dies unexpectedly? Greg left me with a 10 month-old baby and a three-year-old toddler and all of the unrealized dreams that we shared for our family. A month before Greg passed, we had finally moved into our family home after a three-year construction project – just in time for Thanksgiving. Greg died two days before Christmas. My world flipped upside-down overnight.

It’s an understatement to say it was incredibly hard in those early days. There are parts of 2018 I don’t even remember because I was in such a fog. My mom flew out from Pennsylvania to help and stayed with me for five months. My brother also stayed with me for a month helping to ease the transition of returning to work after five months of trying to sort out what my new normal would be. Going back to work was an escape from my challenging life at home. Most of my coworkers were too uncomfortable to ask about my solo mom journey so we just talked about work and that actually felt fine most of the time. It was the one place where I could feel sorta normal and connect with a part of myself that existed when Greg was alive. 

Once my mom and brother left, the house was too empty. The burden of managing my two kids and my household all by myself weighed on me. I was desperate for a Prince Charming to come along and save me from this mess. Was I supposed to suffer alone without a companion for the rest of my life? Me, the person who always dreamed about being in a romantic partnership? I was only 39. In theory, I still had half my life ahead of me.

Even with my kids around, I was so lonely at night and on the weekends. I couldn’t talk to them about my day or how I was feeling – they were too young to understand and just needed their mom to take care of them. After six months, that desperation and longing for a romantic connection drove me to download a dating app. I only told a handful of my closest people at first because the world judges widows for “moving on” too soon. Starting to date was not a reflection of how strongly I feel for Greg. I wasn’t moving on. I was trying to escape. I needed a break from kids to do more than just go to work and all of my friends had small children too. I longed to snuggle on the couch and hold hands with someone who wasn’t my child. I was nursing our daughter until Greg died, but my milk dried up so I stopped breast feeding. My hormones were raging again and my body ached for intimacy. 

That first date was so weird. After a few weeks, it led to my first intimate experience which felt like I was cheating on Greg and I cried. The more I’ve dated and met new people in my forties, the more I’ve come to believe in the idea of soulmates. Sometimes you just click with someone in a way that feels like you really get each other and the attraction to one another is not just biological, but also metaphysical. Once you’ve experienced this, it’s very easy to pass on people that you don’t feel an attraction to (which is almost everyone). Soulmates are rare and they should be. If every other person had the potential to be your soulmate, it wouldn’t be that special. I believe it’s possible to still love someone deeply without experiencing a soulmate connection. And, soulmates aren’t always romantic partners. I’ve heard people talk about one of their kids as a soulmate, but that doesn’t diminish the love they have for another child.

It took 14 years to find Greg if we start counting with my first high school boyfriend at age 15 until I met Greg at age 29. With every relationship before then, something was off. I had relationships that lasted several years and some that only lasted a few weeks. Each taught me new things about myself and helped me refine what I was looking for in the partner that would be the right fit for me. Once I met Greg, I applied all of those learnings and things just naturally started falling into place. 

I never imagined that I’d be single again at this time in my life. Once I had become comfortable letting more people know that I was dating, many often said they thought I’d find someone again quickly since I was so young, smart, and attractive. Apparently, I was a catch. But, after seven years of dating with two kids in tow, and a few failed relationships, it’s hard not to get discouraged. I regularly have to remind myself of how long it took to find Greg when all of my peers seemed to be pairing off. 

In my forties, I’m faced with a whole new set of challenges when evaluating the present dating pool. All the good ones seem to be taken. The dating pool was so much bigger in our twenties and early thirties, but all those good fish eventually got caught. Most of the people who got married to the wrong person or for the wrong reasons are still trying to make their marriages work as they navigate the hardest years of their partnership with busy careers and young children. Those who never married and many divorcees tend to have something incompatible (for me) about them such as an addiction, a Peter Pan lifestyle, work-a-holism, philandering, mommy issues, daddy issues, anger issues, attachment issues… you name it. I’ve read so many relationship books and listened to so many podcasts trying to understand the confusing behavior of the men I’ve encountered in this dating era of my life. 

Signing up for any of this feels like settling. Especially when you know how good a romantic partnership can be. If Greg and I hadn’t been such a good match and he turned out to be a douchebag, finding a nice guy to rebuild a life with might be a little easier by comparison. But, my perspective is different. Greg was the whole package. I had my soulmate. The bar is incredibly high. I can’t go backwards. Many people have suggested that the magic answer for me is to date a widower. And, they’re not wrong, someone else who also lost their person would definitely get me. But, young widows are quite rare and I’ve only met a handful of them in the hundreds of single men I’ve swiped on in the past seven years. And, while I was eager to give each of them a chance with a commiseration date, the romantic connection just wasn’t there with any of them.

What I shared with Greg is not gone forever. He lives on inside me. I cherish how he continues to show up as that voice in my head that guides me through uncertainty or encourages me to make a safer choice when I’m feeling reckless. There are certain characteristics unique to Greg and experiences we shared that will never be repeated with anyone else and I will always treasure those. But I am also open to the possibility of new and different experiences and to other characteristics that someone special might have. 

I have gotten used to people gasping or tearing up when they first hear about the circumstances surrounding my loss. The fact that Greg was so young and died so suddenly and unexpectedly. The fact that my kids were so young. The fact that two weeks before he died, we had just refinanced our construction loan to a 30-year-fixed mortgage – a process that required both of our pay stubs. I could not have covered the mortgage of a new construction house in the Bay Area on my own. The fact that he and I had a solid partnership even through the tough little kid years of marriage. Our soulmate connection. 

I have not turned Greg into a saint since his passing. He was human just like the rest of us, but he was a pretty damn amazing human who made people feel comfortable and happy around him. He had just the right amount of annoying quirks – the kind we could tease him for, but not the kind that would grate on you until you became resentful. I will continue to grieve for the loss of the future Greg and I won’t get to experience together. It will always be sad when he is not there to share in an important kid milestone like graduation or walking our daughter down the aisle if she gets married. 

I think back to those darkest of days in 2018 and reflect on how far my kids and I have come. I no longer need saving. We are thriving now. We have lots of friends and active social lives in our wonderful community. Both children excel athletically and in school. We travel often and enjoy so many fun activities and adventures like skiing and camping. My son looks more and more like Greg every day and even inherited some of Greg’s mannerisms. My daughter is sweet, funny, and extremely emotionally mature for her age. They both fill my heart with so much love – more than I ever thought was possible before I became a parent. But, they also drive me crazy sometimes as all children do. As great as our family of three is, I still long for a partner and companion in life.

I just have to keep moving forward. While I’m not sure if soulmates are one and done or if there is a possibility of more than one, I do know how to recognize a special connection when I find one. I have also come to realize that the slam dunk I felt with Greg early on is impossible to repeat at this age and life stage with kids along for the ride so you’re much more cautious and guarded. In the untethered days of our twenties, our hearts were still fresh and open. It was so much easier to be vulnerable back then. Everyone dating in their forties has likely been through something really hard. That takes a toll on a person and their ability to be in a healthy relationship. So, the questions become how are they handling that and how does that impact how they show up for you? Has their struggle made them bitter or better? 

Because of this, I imagine that my confidence in pairing up with a future partner won’t hit me like a freight train in the beginning the way it did with Greg. I believe it will show up quietly over time through a long period of earned trust and emotional safety. I’m guessing I will be assured in  unexpected new and subtle ways that I have not yet even considered. My Second Act will bring care and comfort. I believe that my future forever partner will also bring an ease to my life and accept my circumstances in a way that allows our complicated family and life dynamics to fall into place. 

My future person also has to be someone that Greg would have been friends with because to love me is to love Greg too, since I truly believe that Greg has become a part of my being. My Act 2 partner has to be the kind of stand-up guy that would take on the challenge of helping to raise another man’s kids with nearly as much dedication as if they were his own. I need an unselfish person whose ego would not stand in the way of taking a chance on loving someone who had previously found her soulmate. I need someone who is confident in his own unique attributes and the unique skills that he brings to the table. I realize this is a very tall order.

In a writer’s blog, K.M. Weiland, an award-winning and internationally published author writes this about stories, “Although the Second Act may look like “just the middle” of the story, it’s so much more than that. The Second Act is the story’s beating heart. It is the place where characters are tested, stretched, and transformed in ways that make the ending not just possible, but powerful. In many ways, the Second Act is the story.” I love that. This gives me hope.

I am filled with gratitude. I am grateful for the 10 years I had with Greg. Grateful for the two healthy, amazing people we made together. Grateful for our spacious house in a supportive community that has been our sanctuary through Covid and life’s many ups and downs. I am thankful for the family that has been there for me through every hard moment, every step of the way. I am lucky to also have many friends that are like family who I have leaned on for everything from putting air in the jog stroller tires to celebrating my 40th birthday. 

I am grateful for how the struggles of the past eight years have made me stronger, less judgemental, more patient, more open-minded, and an all-around better person. I am grateful for the experience of knowing what a soulmate looks and feels like on all levels. Some people go their whole lives without ever experiencing this. I am no longer a hopeless romantic. I am now a hopeful romantic. 

Thank you, Greg. Your existence is indelible and you live on in ways I am still discovering with each passing day. You are and will always be with me. You are the parts of me that are better than who I was before I knew you. You have made your mark on my soul.