A past-lives reader once told me that I hadn't had a good relationship since ancient Greece. I remember thinking, "I knew I was in a slump, but wow."
This reading was somewhere between Marriage Number One (in which, two years in, my husband realized he was gay) and Marriage Number Two (in which, 14 years in, my husband realized he was just not that into me).
Apparently I'd been a woman in every lifetime (rare) and I could have children if I wanted (I'd had plenty of children over the centuries)—but my job in this lifetime was to learn to love and be loved.
That reading was a gift…only in that it was gifted to me by a friend. Otherwise, it was a curse, because as I waded through the rubble of yet another breakup—deleting travel plans from my calendar, putting photos in a folder I won't stumble upon daily—I am coming to terms with the idea that this lifetime might be a wash.
That's hard for an optimist to admit.
I am also coming to terms with the idea that I might no longer be qualified to be an optimist. Because here I am, in my fifties, after writing two books about relationships, having my own relationship column in both Glamour and O, The Oprah Magazine, and writing five seasons of Sex and the City, reeling from a breakup that caught me so off-guard it might have put me off dating forever. I feel like I'm going back to square one.
And I was going back to square one. I was about to spend a week in ancient Greece. |
