Move On

September is a month filled with anniversary dates.

In September along the Gulf Coast, people commemorate big hurricanes that have made land fall.

The 1900 Storm is the big one. For me, there is Hurricane Carla in 1961. She was classified on Sept 11th as a Category 4 storm. Our home was too close to Moses Lake. It was no longer habitable. We moved on.

Hurricane Ike hit in September of 2008. That storm directly impacted my entire life. It was a disaster that drastically altered the lives of countless others. Like many storms, it changed the topography both onshore and near shore.

I literally had to move on from this one too. The apartment I lived at on 2319 Strand was uninhabitable for months. I finally got to go back around Thanksgiving to try and gather the muddy remnants of my life there.

At that same time, many people were reeling from the Financial Crisis. People my parents age had their retirement savings reduced to half. The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers was Sept 15, and like a hurricane, it quickly spun into a full blown, out of control, international banking crisis.

Worldwide, people had to figure out how to move on from this. One way or another, people move on.

And of course, there is September 11, 2001.

That is a day that many people use to divide the timeline of their life; before 9/11 and after 9/11.

For me September 11 is a ‘dividing date” too as it is the anniversary of my Boat Wreck; Before Boat wreck and After Boat wreck, September 11, 2011. I can still move; I have moved on.

September is when my very close friend Eric ended his life. (I’ve written about this before/see ‘Hung Up’) That was apparently the way he decided to move on.

Hurricane John hit Baja around the same time Eric died. My good neighbor/friends in their mid-sixties, Patti and Tommy lived next to our surf-shack ‘trailer’ in Baja. They were asleep when the lahar (mudslide) struck.

It rushed straight down the paved road through the trailer park and easily pushed that area of our trailer park directly into the Sea of Cortez. Another friend, Tecate John, whose trailer and boat were not in the direct path of the mud avalanche and did not get pushed into the water, took off at day break the next morning in his trusty Boston Whaler to sea search for them.

He found them located many miles away, miles apart. They were alive, utterly exhausted, and carefully clinging to pieces of debris that provided lifesaving flotation. Their kids insisted they move back to San Diego.

From these September events, hopefully we have moved on.

Honor what happened. Keep hope in your heart. Move on.

Why in the world did I ever think I wanted to do this?

I did not need a boyfriend. I did not want a boyfriend. I was not looking for a boyfriend.

I had not even been on a ‘date’ since my very last date, which was on September 11, 2011.

For me, it was a disaster; “serious disruption to functioning that exceeds capacity to cope.”

To the 3 loyal people who read what I write, that was the date of my very nearly fatal boat-wreck.

My ‘date’ was driving the boat. I ended up in the ER. Unconscious. The boat sunk. Enough said about that date, both the man and the event. (I do want to let you know that I am nearly fully recovered.)

It is now Sept. 2023. That is 12 years. A dozen years.  I had absolutely no interest in dating. Ever Again.

So, am I dating now? I am not sure what you would call this. Is talking on the phone almost daily considered phone dating?  (My computer just suggested that I put a period here, not a question mark but for me, this is a question, with the larger question being WHY. Why am I even talking to this person)

I have seen him two times in two months. We don’t live in the same state. We live 1234 miles apart.

The night after I met him (an accidental / incidental meeting) he sent me a text asking if we could continue talking. My phone service was not working where I was, so I did not see the text right away.

And honestly, if I had seen it, I am not sure how I would have responded. But eventually, I did see it because I needed his help again on my project (which was why I had ever met him in the first place.)

So here it is. Two months have gone by and sometimes in a day, we will have spent 3 hours talking.

We have things in common that we are interested in. Big things like how to get water to populations that have been affected by disasters, bio-char, carbon credits, growing food more sustainably. Those are just the some of the things we have been talking about.

As our conversations have evolved, we have shared stories of our past, hopes for the future, and events of the day.

He has listened carefully enough to my stories of my kids and grands to remember their names and to ask about them.

I have tried to listen actively too but with all the ‘improvements’ with ear buds, headsets, and all that, sometimes, our conversations have long moments of silence. We will just end with a text that says “Good Night/Sweet Dreams.”

I am rather certain there were things he has said that I did not hear. Without seeing the other person, you certainly lack the nuance of body language. And maybe that is all this really is or was, a sweet dream.