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I feel like I’m a teen again being lectured by my Sunday School teacher. Except it’s not Stella who’s lecturing me, it’s myself.
“What can I do to help? If you need me to take the dog until things are put back together, I can,” she offers.
I shake my head. “I’d miss him too much. By the way, we named him Jerry Rice, and he’s been so cute.”
“Jerry Rice? A perfect name for the perfect football dog parents.” She’s smiling broadly, and I get the sense that she’s behind the scenes of a lot of matchmaking around here. It just seems to be part of her personality to want love to conquer all.
We get started with the training, and she’s a quick study on form. It dawns on me how enjoyable this is. I like helping her, and I can tell she’s enjoying herself. Besides, none of the players on the team ever gave me this look of maternal concern before. Not a single one. And I’m drawn to it, like a fly to a flame.
“You seem a little sad. Preoccupied?” she asks me.
“Oh, I’m sorry about that. I’m not sad.” I pause. “Maybe a little preoccupied,” I add.
She stares at me a good long while. “If you’re healing a broken heart, remember that each experience we have, good or bad, is just a foundation upon which we build our lives.” She nods once, as if that clears it all up.
I panic. Because, again, I’m not used to clients giving me advice, especially in the way she’s just done—so personal and deep. And she’s not just a client, she’s Alec’s aunt, and he adores her.
But lately, the mess with Brandt feels more and more this way. Like, somehow, those terrible things were preparing me for a new life. A rock bottom foundation to rebuild upon. A pathway to Alec.
“Th-thanks,” I stammer. Instead of denying it, I charge ahead, my mouth moving faster than my brain can keep up with.
I’ve not been myself ever since I got here. I don’t even recognize myself sometimes. I sleep in most mornings, for heaven’s sake. And ever since I left the house this morning, I’ve missed Jerry something fierce. I even think the words: “something fierce.” Wow. This is Colorado, not the rural south.
I address her earlier comment about a broken heart. “How could you tell? I mean, it’s not—I don’t know. The relationship was short lived. And now that it’s over, I—” I shrug. Why am I talking to her about my past?
Stella finishes her set and places the free weights on the rack. “I just have a sense about these things. Something in your eyes.” She offers a small smile. “Don’t worry, you’re not walking around with doom and gloom all over you. I’m acquainted with this kind of thing, though. How long was your relationship?”
I think of Brandt, his indifference, his disconnection. How so many times, we’d be in the kitchen together or pass in the hall in my apartment and there was no acknowledgement that I was even there. He was lost in a world I’d never be a part of. That always bothered me.
Now? It hurts less. I feel like I’m seeing it as a bystander might. Objective. Outside of myself.
“Just a few months.”
“It hurts when a relationship ends, even short ones.” She’s looking at me closely, like she wants to make sure I’m okay.
“It hurts,” I acknowledge. “But not for the reasons I thought it would. I don’t even miss him. There was just too much that happened. I can’t see anything good about the relationship anymore.” I chew on my lip, until I feel a sting.
“Don’t let that stop you from loving again. Trust me. You don’t want to be like me.”
There’s a whole pile of parts of her story in that statement, and I want to just listen as she tells me all of it.
I feel like my momma in the beauty shop she used to own, where it was basically eight hours of therapy sessions, wrapped up in the pungent scent of permanent solution and women’s intuition.
I wait for Stella to follow up with more explanation, but she only shakes her head. “I’ll tell you more another time. Right now, I need to get this booty in shape.”
So I ask her to do a few more squats.
“I need some more time,” I finally say, sure she knows what I’m referring to. And all the while, I kissed her nephew last night and I’ve never, ever felt like that before.
She nods. “You probably do. It’s usually a good idea to focus on yourself for a while after a breakup. But don’t let a good person get away. If he’s right for you, he’ll wait until you’re ready.” She pauses, her large eyes searching mine. “If you give him the opportunity.”
Momma always said all her problems could be solved in one afternoon with her regulars, ladies who spanned all ages and life experiences, but who could, nonetheless, say just the thing sometimes, in all the laughing and gossip, to make things right again.
I’ve scoffed at that lifestyle before. Mine has always been a medical and physical life, the precision, the predictability, the sterility of a sprain, strain or slipped disc. You do the treatments and if the client complies? Success. Healing. Ba da bing. Ba da boom.
A life where I’m dishing with other women and finding meaning and purpose in that? Really? This is messy. Is this what I’m actually doing now? I’m not my momma doing hair. But it feels close to that.
And I’m not hating it.
