Love in the Land of the Oakland A's

Yesterday’s adventures to the Bay Area were just what the doctor ordered for a woman who lately hasn't physically been feeling at the top of her game.  Despite the few extra stops along the way to manage some physical issues, the weather was perfect, the game—despite an A’s loss—was fun, and the scenery along northern California’s farm corridor was beautiful. 

I am still scratching my head over the fact that I wound up with The Devil I Do Know as my travel companion.  We spent 13 hours together yesterday.  I don’t think we spent that much time together in all of last year combined. 

When I ended our marriage sixteen months ago, it was a decision based purely on logic.  He had become physically dangerous, and I was not safe.  I could not afford the luxury of looking at the situation in any other conceivable light.  To do so could have continued to leave me in a dangerous spot. 

Over time, it has been my prayerful, loving, and human objective to find peace between us; to find a place where he and I could platonically connect and find healing in the tragic circumstances that tore us apart. 

In the past year, on those times when we needed to have contact—closing out personal and business issues, exchanging belongings, dealing with lingering legal issues from the nightmare that broke both our hearts—I would insist that we meet in public.  Given the degree to which he had physically harmed me, it seemed more than prudent.

To say the least, things were not easy between us in the early days of that break-up.  There were tears, shouting, anger, and frustration for both of us.  Over time in the past year, as tensions cooled, we've reached a place of a common peace.  We are friendly, and we are friend-ish.  Though, I still have a hard time trusting him. 

But what I do know, as I have healed over the past year-and-a-half, I have felt the mantle of my existence resonate and propel me with regard to him—just love him.  My job isn't to judge, it isn't to decide what’s fair, it isn't to change him, or tell him how to fix himself, or how to live his life.  My crusade in this regard has nothing to do with any reparations he might owe me, emotionally or otherwise.  My job is simply to love him. 

Now, don’t get me wrong—I have no notions of sharing a life with this man.  I have no dreams of being loved by him the way he so beautifully once did.  I have zero expectation that the piece of my heart he has held since I was fifteen years old will ever be what it was.  Those things are gone, and the vessel that I am, broken and reconstructed, likely would no longer hold the love we shared in the same way anymore.

But loving people has consequences.  Done so properly, with appropriate boundaries, loving people changes them.  And what I’ve discovered in the past year or so, is that choosing to love a person, no matter the circumstance—it has changed me, too. 

So yesterday morning, when I was still scrambling around to find someone to go to Oakland with me, it was almost comical how none of the conversations I was having with people were able to yield a travel companion.  One girlfriend wanted desperately to go, but there was no way to truncate her parent’s departure that morning.  Another buddy wanted to go, but he had no way to make it from Weaverville to Redding in time for us to make it to the game.  My neighbor was hot on the idea of going, but he couldn't commit because he had to leave at 10:00 last night to head out of town on business, and yesterday’s agenda was sleep, sleep, sleep. 

And then Devil I Do Know texted me, and said, “I've never been to a MLB game.  Wanna take me? :-P” 

I frankly was surprised.  I didn't realize we were even still connected on Facebook anymore.

I was hesitant, but ultimately decided that I was willing to take the risk.  I let a girlfriend know what was going to go down, and I brought my ninja weapons with me on the trip. 

I’m a pretty big sucker for anyone who says, “I’ve never done ______ before.”

In addition to loads of small talk, laughter, lunch, $11.25 ballpark beer, some good baseball, and some great fan experiences, I learned a few things:

The Devil I Do Know is also a man on his own healing journey.  It turns out, in all the things that tore us apart, he lost a wife he loved very much.  He lost a future that he held dear.  He has had to make peace with all of the same, and some similar, losses as I have. 

I don’t think until yesterday, I had ever considered that he had suffered those things too.  Most shocking to me, was his admission that part of what had helped him come to this place of healing for himself, was that I chose to love him through it, even outside of our marriage. 

When the mother of his children was causing him a new layer of grief over the kids, I went to bat for him.  Letters were written, therapists were contacted, and things that might otherwise have been stuck, got moved along.  No matter the problems between him and me, the problems he was encountering with regard to his children were wrong, unfair, unjust, and ridiculous. 

When he found out he had diabetes on his birthday, I took him to supper, just so he could talk.  He told me yesterday that he was really scared about the diagnosis, but that having me break it all down for him in my usual humorous way helped him move along. 

None of this is to toot my own horn.  There are loads of people out there who are better ‘lovers’ than I am—more thoughtful, more consistent, more caring, more concerned, more whatever it is that people who need love may need in life. 

What I am learning, is that loving in the best way we know how, in each situation, and for each person we encounter, is all we need to do.  And that is enough.