Chapter Nine: Prayers and Mottos

Smiley Susie Sunshine is at it again.

And here is why:

One crazy night shortly after my divorce I spontaneously decide to catch the red eye out of Divorce Land into Dating Land. And only one thing is for sure: We aren't in Kansas anymore, Toto. The signs are all in Japanese, a language in which I am certainly not fluent, and the customs are just as foreign and confusing. However, I am feeling certain that I can navigate my way based solely on confidence and logic. Before long, it is boldly obvious that I am a lost traveler who really has no business attempting to blend in with the locals.

As my journey in Dating Land enters ambiguity and my departing flight looms, I mourn the fact that I am not sure when and if I shall return to this place again. But thankfully, when I land back in reality my personal Divorce Land paramedics are there to meet my plane. And who else but curly haired Susie is behind the wheel of ambulance driving like Mario Andretti. She takes my pulse, feels my forehead and announces that I will be just fine in about a month, all I need to do is say one prayer daily to recover, "I don't understand God, but thank you."

It's sweet and nice and I accept her advice and prayer. But only for the time being. I don't have the heart to tell Susie that this prayer does zip zilch zero to decrease the growing pile of Kleenex on the floor next to my nightstand. Because Dating Land was fun. And wonderful. And intoxicating. And who wants to say goodbye to adjectives like that? Even if it was foreign and confusing, it seemed so well worth the inflated airfare for the trip.

Two nights after my arrival back home, I am reading in bed absorbed in Elizabeth Gilbert's book, "Eat, Pray, Love" that I quote in the "About Me" section of this blog. Liz, the author and protagonist, is sitting in an Italian Internet cafe in Rome. She has just ended an intense love affair with a man named David, her personal reprieve after the demise of her own marriage.

She has finally gathered the courage to accept the looming reality that she and David are more than likely not meant to be. Thus this scene finds Liz reading David's response to the sad and sorrowful goodbye email she sent a few days prior. As she reads, she is outwardly understanding and accepting of his agreement to move on, but internally hoping desperately that he has instead written, "WAIT! COME BACK! DON'T GO! I'LL CHANGE!" . . . but unfortunately the reality on the computer screen is made up of many many words, but none of them coming together to formulate such an exclamation.

David is not coming back.

Liz looks up from the email, tears streaming down her face, and announces to the wrinkled Italian woman mopping the cafe floor who does not speak one syllable of English: "This blows ass."

I drop the book into my lap and almost collapse with laughter! Grabbing my cell phone off my nightstand I text Susie the following:

New Divorce Land prayer (and motto!)

I don't understand, God. But Thank You.

P.S. God, in the meantime, you have to know just one thing . . . This blows ass.

I am thinking God will not question the sincerity of such a prayer, as I am thinking the big guy upstairs knows a thing or two about broken hearts.