On a Personal Note

     During this cruise, I’m following an itinerary other than the one that lists the countries we visit and the scenic vistas we see. It’ s journey into my future and into my past.
     I was married for almost 30 years, and now I’ve been not married for almost one. The itinerary of the past year was one of pain, grief, betrayal, and flickers of a new fire lighting the way. I have reached a point on this particular journey where I am sadder, but also stronger, more confident, and often happier. I am looking at the itinerary into my future with optimism.
     But it’s also a journey back, to the time before I was married. This cruise is the first time I’m meeting new people in a social situation, as a single woman. I knew that at some point I’d be again interested in other people, men, too. I thought, though, that I’d go through a time of wanting to be wanted, more than me wanting anyone else.
     I’ve had a crush, though, for several days, on someone, and it’s this that takes me back to my young woman days. The emotions are as surprising as they are familiar. Thinking about him a lot, that inner lift when I see him, especially when he smiles at me. The self-consciousness whenever I’m around him.
     It’s weird! I’d like to think I’ve learned something during all those married years, all those years of life experience since I was twenty-two. I guess I have gained some cynicism. I can say things like, I think about him, way too much. Or that it’s silly to be self-conscious. I know my body isn’t twenty-two any more, hasn’t been for a long time. But the basic emotions are there, and not much different.
Do we ever grow up?