Soul Speak

Before I got married, I was a list-making sort of gal when it came to love. I could whip up a “pros” and “cons” index quicker than you could say, “How was your dinner?” After I’d come home from a date, I’d cuddle up with the legal pad and the colored markers. (No wonder I spent so many nights alone, right?) It would not be overstating the situation to accuse me of leading with my head instead of my heart.

And then there was Henry.

My husband was shocked one day when I allowed as to how I used to make notes every time I dated a new guy.

“You did what?” he asked, incredulous.

“I made lists,” I said softly, quickly sensing that he did not think this made me a no-nonsense sort of mate.

“What for?”

“To evaluate the positives and negatives of dating the gentleman in question.”

I was hoping Henry might be impressed that I hadn’t been some loose girl who hopped a bus to Tijuana with the first guy who asked (not that there’s anything wrong with that!). No, I was a grown woman who thought things through and charted my path according to potentialities and probable outcomes. I thought it had everything to do with being prepared. In reality, it had a heckuva lot more to do with being scared.

“You mean you didn’t trust yourself, your feelings, enough to know whether it was in your best interest to spend time with the person?” Henry responded. If I had been on the witness stand, I would have pled the fifth. I was, in a word, busted. (I did not craft a list when I fell in love with Henry. It’s one of the many ways I knew he was “the one.”)

Did I really think an outline of political leanings, career tracks, and religious affiliations could accurately gauge the stirrings of my heart? If I found out that the suitor didn’t like salmon, or preferred cats to dogs, was he off the list? What if he wasn’t the doctor or congressman that Cosmopolitan told me I deserved? Or, God forbid, what if John Hiatt’s “Have a Little Faith in Me” didn’t move him to tears?

Really, it sounds pathetic, doesn’t it? (Don’t answer that.) That I was so proud of being practical that I almost missed out on being passionate? And I’m not talking just in matters of the heart here. I’m talking about life. I spent so much time mapping out what might happen in the future — with men and with me — that I almost missed my present.

Today it still helps me to put pen to paper when I need to consider several options or evaluate a big decision. The difference is I no longer scribble away furiously to avoid some good old-fashioned soul searching. I listen to myself more and rely on carefully drafted outlines less. For deep inside, I have found that even the most intoxicating, multi-syllabic words come up short when translating one’s spirit.

So yes, at age 48 I continue to make lists. Only now they serve as prompts to pick up the dry cleaning and get my teeth cleaned, not as reminders to live my life.