New Year, Old Love

The New Year has come and gone and it’s already the 13th. Where did the days go?

On reflection, I know.

My days have been spent mostly living in the moment. A few of those moments have been shaky, even scary. But most were full of love, possibility and discovery.

New relationships, even those being built on foundations of the old, are rife with challenge and opportunity. When you get to be my age, there is a lot of stuff to uncover…old patterns, old fears, old dung.

There are also lots of buttons. Some get pushed. Some don’t.

It’s a process, getting to know someone, a dance…two steps forward, one step back, side-one-two, dip, slide, crash. Get up, dust the dirt off, curtsy, bow, laugh.

In this way, we learn our partner’s moves and they learn ours.


We find out what we’re made of, separately and together.

We make decisions every day. To keep going, or not. To keep dancing, or not. To love, or not. To grow, or not. To forgive, or not. To let live, or not. These are, in fact, the same decisions we make in our lives every day.

For me, I’ve decided, did before I ever left California, only days after reconnecting with him on Facebook.

“How can that be?” you might wonder.

Some things just are. Some things you just know. I know him in my heart, in my soul, in my bones. He is the earth that I am made of.

And that’s all I need to know.

The rest? Just noise.

In the silence, I know.

Pictures courtesy of Randy Jeffers Photography, from top to bottom: Sunset on the Dawsonville Water Tower; Sunset over Dawsonville; Randy and Olivia, First Reunion