Memoir-in-Essays Series: Entry 7
2007 to 2012
Love letters. Mix CDs. Improvised Vows. Minecraft. D&D.
After my divorce from Fred was final, I was fried. Crispy. Burned out to the nub. So I did what any depleted woman in Madison, Wisconsin, would do: I got my own apartment, bought new furniture and too many supplements, and adopted a scrappy little puppy who had been abandoned in the woods. Her name was Sable, and she immediately became my shadow, therapist, and partner in healing walks and lazy afternoons. Losing Rocky had left a hole in my heart, and she filled it with muddy pawprints and unconditional love. Like me, she had been left to fend for herself. We were both a little battered from neglect, but together we began to heal.
Those first months were about radical rest, reflection, and testing out every naturopathic cure known to humanity. If it came in capsule form or required a tincture dropper, I probably tried it. I made sure I drank plenty of water and ate my vegetables. I also rekindled old friendships I had let slide after leaving Madison years earlier. For me, maintaining friendships has always been like trying to keep a balloon inflated in the middle of winter. It takes more energy than you might think. I care deeply about the people in my life, yet I often lack the capacity to be the one constantly keeping in touch. During this period, though, I was saying yes more often, trying to get back to normal after leaving Fred. I reconnected with old friends, grateful for the familiarity, even though many of those ties eventually faded again.
Around the same time, I was also testing the waters professionally. I dabbled in independent tax preparation because apparently I cannot resist the thrill of a 1040. Then I slid into a part time accounting job that morphed into full time as general accounting manager. That is a common theme for me: I step in small, fit myself into the cracks, and before long I am holding up half the building. I only left when the company relocated so far away that it doubled my commute.
Romantically, I was convinced love was not in the cards for me. But in a moment of why not, I signed up for Match.com. It felt less like romance and more like listing myself on Carfax. Low mileage, reliable in the snow, needs a little body work. I even listed my favorite physical feature as my feet. That one still makes me snort with laughter. Around the same time, I was still hanging out on MySpace. It was early 2008, so kindly keep your judgments to yourself. I was reconnecting with high school classmates, and one of them was Jason.
Sidenote: I later learned Jason had been trolling Match back then, and we came up as something like a ninety-nine percent match. He recognized me from high school because I used the same photo as my MySpace profile, and he reached out there instead, without mentioning the Match connection. I only found out later about the near-perfect match, but by then it was already obvious.
At first, we were just writing long emails and making each other mix CDs. Yes, actual burned discs with Sharpie titles. Jason always included inserts with notes about why he liked certain songs, sounds, or artists. I specifically remember how significant the tone of Brian May’s guitar was to him. It sounds quaint now, but it was ridiculously sweet then. He was still edging out of his first marriage, and I was freshly out of mine, but our friendship was instant comfort. He made me feel safe, seen, and understood in ways I did not even have to explain. No translation required.
Eventually, when his chapter closed, we stepped into a romantic one together. Suddenly we were inseparable. Not in the red flag oh no here comes another codependent spiral way. In the we literally cannot stop laughing together way. Jason was a morning radio DJ and professional comedic improviser then, with the kind of quick wit that still floors me. Later he transitioned into freelance voice acting. Our connection was brain, heart, soul, and funny bone all at once.
We got engaged at a Summerfest Cowboy Mouth concert, one of the bands from those early mix CDs. We married that October in a quirky, nontraditional ceremony with improvised vows that had me way outside my comfort zone. Improvised vows? Who even am I? But it worked. It was beautiful and meaningful and perfectly us.
The early years were joyful. We worked, but we also played. Friends, parties, movies, live music, endless laughter. Quiet nights too, building pixelated houses in Minecraft, rolling dice in our first Dungeons and Dragons campaigns, writing, dreaming. I even started my own chick lit novel as a side hobby. Sable eventually got a sibling, Hershey, a floppy eared black and tan coonhound who immediately claimed the spot beneath the space heater because she was always cold.
I healed in that space. Fully, or as fully as anyone who has been through burnout and years of trauma can. I was loved, supported, and finally, finally home.
We tried for kids, though for a while it felt hopeless. My first marriage had left me convinced something was broken in me. We had begun to settle into the idea of a childless future, which was starting to feel comfortable because I was with my true soulmate. But after working with a specialist and balancing my hormones, a miracle happened. A positive pregnancy test. We were floored. Overjoyed. And we joked for years that the universe must have a wicked sense of humor, because it happened just after we leased a two-seater Smart car.
Still contradictory.
Still happening.