A New Chapter

I’d just gotten back from a much deserved but heart wrenching birthday on the coast, spending my waking hours eating oysters and bubbly and reading in the sun, and trying to figure out what way was up. Every year for my birthday since I was 18 I went to the best restaurant in the region that I was living. This year I was on my own, and did not want to celebrate with a meal, I wanted something new. By chance a seaside resort that I wanted to go to, but was always a splurge that I felt was beyond by maturity level, seemed like a needed and necessary splurge. I was upgraded to the top room, and felt at once beyond happy and finally free, and then experienced crushing bouts of crying and loss.

It was during the king tide. When I arrived the water was a hundred feet from the balcony, at two in the morning it was lapping at the underside of my room. The stars were magnificent, and I was thankful for once that I couldn’t sleep so that I could be outside appreciating them.

On my birthday, alone in my room, I gave myself permission to download a dating app. It was a present to myself, permission to make a baby step towards moving on and putting myself back out there. Coffee Meets Bagel, I’d heard about it on Shark Tank and it seemed friendly and innocent enough, although all I really wanted was to get laid. Have sex with a stranger, like I’d done so many times easily in my early twenties. It was “Like” or “Pass”, was dating going to be this easy? I hoped so. Although I started to realize that while many people could be meeting other people at the bar, restaurant, park, etc., we were all looking at our various dating apps instead of making an IRL connection with the person next to us. Le sigh, but that was all changing on this day.

I met my friend for a drink at Prizefighter in Emeryville. We’d then gone out to dinner, and when we got back to her car, hers and a dozen others had been broken into. I called the police, and moments later he showed up, a gorgeous blonde knight in navy blue armor. At the same time, a tall attractive Italian man came by and was checking on his car parked in front of us. He asked if this was our bag, that he found in front of the wheel of his car. It was. We were both amazed and so grateful. He lingered, we talked, and before I knew it we were swapping numbers and making plans to see each other that night.

We met up at Honor Bar, one of my favorite spots. I was so nervous and excited. We kissed in the parking lot. It was the first man I'd kissed since I met my ex husband over a decade before.

#single #coffeemeetsbagel #ElizabethGilbert #Prizefighter #singleinoakland #HonorBar