That’s Right… I’m back in the SADDLE… AGAIN!

I’m back in the saddle again.

Out where a friend is a friend.

Where the longhorn cattle feed.

On the lowly gypsum weed.

Back in the saddle again.

-

-Gene Autry

It’s been about 6 months since I got bumped off of Bumble. Well, the app wasn’t loading on my old phone! So, I just stopped trying to load it… and took a much needed offline dating break.

It was the most liberating feeling not having an app on my phone for dating. I felt super free.

And no, I didn’t date anyone for 6 months! That was also very liberating!

In those six months, I just spent a lot of time with myself . I worked on my projects. Spent time with family and friends. I’m pretty self sufficient and I love to go out and travel solo! It helps my creative side.

I know… that all sounds pretty amazing… pretty squeaky clean.But here’s the dark side of all of that:

I started corresponding with an old paramour.

Ouf… I can just blame it on the teenage girl that was dying to come out. And much like Winona Ryders character in Heather’s, she needed to figure things out.

I’ll just blame that on my inner teenage girl. That one that loved to write letters. The one who had pen pals all over the world. That one who was too shy to meet her teenage pen pal in Milan, Italy at the age of 13 when she was visiting her aunt on a family vacation. I chose to keep my identity, my true persona a secret. Even at 13! After all, all the great writers have a “nom de plume,” and keep their true identities a secret.

One of my favorite old school movies is Heather’s. I rewatched the film a year ago, and I loved it when Winona Ryder wore a monocle on one eye, and wrote about all her schoolmates in her diary. She was trying to figure shit out! Well, I did the same. Except, those notes didn’t stay in my journal, they actually got transformed into “love letters” and were sent to an on again offagain guy I was dating. He’s the paramour .

A year ago, when I was allegedly “on again” with my paramour, I had watched Heather’s and gotten the idea to write him a letter. There was a lot of “high strange” happening in our relationship. I was feeling triggered, confused and lost.

Spoiler alert: I’m super psychic.. but hell these days if you’re paying attention and not binging on Netflix… I’m sure you are too!

I started getting what I like to call “downloads” messages from the universe or the collective consciousness.

One day, I couldn’t stop crying…. I felt like a basket case. I couldn’t stop until I was teaching a writing class to one of my students. And in the class she started channeling her dead aunt! That’s a story for another time…

Prior to my class and in the middle of my crying fit I was on a walk in silver lake. I decided to write my paramour a letter since I kept thinking about him and couldn’t stop crying . I stopped in Los Feliz and found myself in a little knickknack store. I asked for some “stationary” oh how my pen pal self LOVED writing on stationery. The shop owner crinkled her nose and said “ I don’t think so. But I do have this.”

She pulled out a small pad of paper that to me looked very much like “stationary.” On the top in bold red letters it read “NOT TODAY SATAN!”

I immediately started laughing! “That’s perfect! I’ll take it!”

As I was paying for my stationary, a necklace in the jewelry case caught my attention. It was a silver necklace with a scarab pendant. I had also been reading a ton of Carl Jung, and loved the story of his patient dreaming of a scarab and then while they were having a session together, a real scarab happened to fly into his office.

I immediately bought the necklace. I then asked the shop owner if her life ever resembled a “screenplay,” kind of like the movie stranger than fiction? She looked at me quite confused and said “No!”

That evening after my writing session / channeling session with my student, I started to compose my letter to my paramour.

I hadn’t heard from him in three days. Then suddenly, 2 hours into my letter, a text came through from him with a painting of a curvy naked woman.

“ I haven’t t heard from you in 3 days. and now you just text me a painting of a fat naked woman?” I furiously texted.

“Don’t call my painting fat” he responded.

I had asked him where he was at 230pm that Sunday. That was when I couldn’t stop crying.

“I was at the labyrinth in Bryce Canyon” he responded.

“What the hell were you doing at the labyrinth?” I texted.

“Contemplating stuff. I was thinking about you.” He texted.

I then texted him that I was writing him a letter and mailing it to him.

“Really? That’s cool!” He said.

A couple of days later, he told me he still hadn’t received the letter. He asked if I wrote the correct address. It literally took a week to get to him. He only lived 15 minutes away from me. I thought this was peculiar.

After that letter, I wrote him another. He did love them. I know because one day when we were out and having wine and table nachos I noticed that he carried them around with him in his side satchel.

I noticed he would pull them out when I wasn’t watching. I noticed it was like he was referring to them like some type of cliff note. I noticed something wasn’t right.

This scene that was playing out in front of me, The scene where my paramour was carrying my letters in his satchel and re reading them reminded me of the movie “The Notebook.”

It’s a love story about a couple growing old together. The female protagonist slowly starts loosing her mind to Alzheimer’s. She was an artist. Her husband, the male protagonist was a writer. Everyday until his wife dies, he reads to her the story of how they met.

“The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds and that’s what you’ve given me. “ Allie waits years to read these words written in a letter to her from Noah a year after they broke up.

- The Notebook

If you have dry eyes after watching this movie… you have no soul and you’ve ever been in LOVE!

We still chatted after our break up. And yes, my paramour was experiencing lapses in memory. I’ll save those stories for my screenplay.

During the past 6 months, I think I wrote him about 3 more letters… one got returned back to me for the “wrong address.” I’m kind of glad it did since it was a pretty nasty one!

But, he still enjoyed reading the letters because he confessed that they were sent to him at the perfect time when he needed to read them the most. At those times he was going through the death of an uncle and the death of his mother. Once again he thanked me for them and still keeps them in his satchel where he can refer to them often.

So, that’s my dark secret.

But, I’m ready to venture back into the dating world. My paramour is on his own personal journey, and I’m on mine.

What I’ve learned: to be secure in myself, in my true identity. After all I’m a soul having a human experience on this planet that keeps spinning around and around. I might as well just enjoy it!

Originally published at http://notoriouslysinglegirl.press on November 4, 2021.