Real Life- Stranger than Fiction

I was a spiritually mature child with an emotionally broken spirit. The kids at my High School all went to dances at the hall on the nearby State hospital grounds but I thought or was told it was "worldly". I was an "Amish" soul on" Long Gy-land" and something of a misfit; I carried the bible to all my classes and had prayer meetings in home room. My Social Studies teacher allowed me to have the morning prayer group and said I was a "lady". Lady or not I wanted a date, but who asks out a " bible broad" at 16?

My prayer group expanded to about 20 girls who met at my home once a month, I wrote the bible studies and baked the desert, I was on my way to ministry. As an honor roll "A" student, my goal was to attend Gordon College in Massachusetts (I was accepted there) and marry a good Christian and work in the Social Welfare field or Ministry.

"The best laid plans of mice and men" Steinbeck wrote, my dream shattered when my parents told me they could not afford Gordon. I would have to go to Stony Brook and pay for it myself.

Then the boy with the leather jacket entered my world. He was quiet, shy and physically appealing to me. He was dangerous, he was "unsaved".

I was now considered "back slidden", "out of the will of God" and I was "in love". Rian made me tingle like no one else (there had really been no one else), he was stable, steady and made me feel safe. His family did not fight but had cocktails before dinner, they lived near the beach and seemed to be comfortable financially and my family was always fighting over money.

Like the scene in "dirty dancing", I was on new turf. Shame, guilt and cognitive dissonance ruled my soul while he took me on a ride I never thought existed. This must be what cocaine does to the brain--the high of young love for the first time...so intoxicating, so compelling so thrilling. But like all roller coasters, there comes the descent downward into depths I never knew existed.

Forty years later I look at this "dangerous man" who is really quite ordinary yet extraordinarily unique. Secure in his skin, he still desires mine which bears many scars from wounded emotions and a lop sided breast which survived cancer and three children. I often wondered if I we would be together if God had not invented breasts, they were a major part of courtship and marriage and without them I wonder how post cancer couples survive (fearfully and wonderfully made, spiritual beings with bodies made from the dust of the earth that God breathed upon). I think about the day"he" walked in with a stride, a leather jacket and sun glassses like Patrick Swayze and I was a hopelessly dirven addict with no way out.

I am 60 years old (at the time of this writing) and I wonder (and fear) many nights what I would do without him. If he goes to be with the Lord first, will I be wild, crazy, vulnerable and act like a "wackadilly" (one of his pet names for me and my friends), will I survive, thrive, remarry or date? I'm afraid, I pay over $400 a month for a smokers life insurance policy. He still secretly smokes in the back of the garage with the door open and thinks I don't see him.

I hope I go first because I will either burn the house down by leaving the pot on the stove or the water running in the sink will drown myself in rivers of his love drug. Or maybe not, maybe I will be one of those contented souls who loves to read (I do) and write (I do), have lots of friends and do lots of ministry and just love God and people and feel full! I actually know people like that- I call them "godly".

He tells me not to worry, I will go first (or he will kill me)-I've never gotten over my first love and probably never will- he is a part of me like my arms, my legs, my breasts. I watched "Dirty Dancing" last night, he strutted his stuff before me again, like 40 years ago. I think tonight when he comes home from work I will turn on a seventies station and we will dance again, I will get intoxicated with his love and then the dog will bark, the grand baby will come over unexpected and we will be back to the sobriety of life again, never forgetting having had "the time of my life..."