red balloons

I know I have written about how Todd opened my eyes as a single parent and taught me how to relax and take time for myself at the beginning of our relationship. Between a full time job, running a household, herding four kids through school and sports and activities, and the HOURS I have to spend at the grocery store each week, it’s hard for me to remember this lesson on a day to day basis. This week has been no exception and I’m exhausted. But I think I used to be pretty good at taking time for myself and finding things I enjoyed doing, and then taking the time to actually do those things and it’s definitely something I am working on. 

As I started to read into the next step of our story to post today, I realized it’s kind of a big one, the one where fairy tales really do come true, and I don’t think I can do it full justice in my current exhausted state. So I’m going a little off the rails in our story and wanted to add in a few more details from our “courting” phase- and one magical, fancy night in particular. 

Before I get too far into it, I feel like I need to set the background a little. I grew up in a house where we were exposed to the arts- we would go to plays and musicals in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul regularly- I’m pretty sure we even had season tickets to the Guthrie Theater for a few years.  When I was in college, my sister worked for an airline, and back in those days it was pretty simple to hop on a flight wherever you might want to go- which we took advantage of with an annual mother/daughter trip to New York City during the holidays to shop and explore the city, and to see a few Broadway shows (we won’t mention the one time that I was the ONLY one in our party who was able to stay awake through a whole show and had to keep poking the others arms to stop them from being so obviously asleep). 

I could go on and on about the arts and culture I have been exposed to, but when Todd asked early on in our relationship if I liked the opera, it took me a minute to realize I had never actually been to an opera. I don’t even remember ever seeing the Phantom of the Opera musical.

While I jumped at the chance to try this new experience with him, there was a part of me that was worried that the opera might be a little bit too fancy for me. As the daughter of a rock and roll dad, I can appreciate all types of music. While I enjoy a good Broadway musical, I also fully enjoyed numerous three-day long country music festivals in my younger years- sleeping in tents, having Jello shots for breakfast and always ending the weekend covered in mud- without fail (and this was before the days of the actual “Fancy Like” song and Applebee’s).

I had been to see several Broadway musicals during my time in Atlanta. My absolute favorite memory was a trip to see Wicked. My girlfriends and I bought tickets together and planned a fancy day out. I bumped up my wardrobe a bit with a nice pencil skirt, sweater and heels. We made plans to walk a few blocks after the show to a fabulous restaurant known for its burgers, because that is about our level of fancy, to be honest. Also- this fabulous restaurant is known a little bit for its decor that is not so kid-friendly- or at least that is what we were promised- and that is also about our level of fancy. We arrived at the Fox Theater in downtown Atlanta and spent a magnificent few hours watching the performance. Wicked is one of my favorite musicals and these performers did NOT disappoint. 

Following the show, we stepped out on the street, lost in conversation about how much we had enjoyed the show and how nice it was to be away from kids and husbands and responsibilities for the day. We started walking the few blocks to the restaurant, proud of ourselves for coming up with this plan so that we were not stuck in the cars and the traffic that was not moving very quickly following the performance. As we laughed about something or another, I started to kick my leg a little because it was getting hard to walk. It felt like there was something tying my ankles together. I looked down, and sure enough y’all- my skirt had fallen down around my ankles, and I was walking down Peachtree Street in Atlanta, surrounded by the cars of people trying to get out of the same show we had been at, in nothing but my underwear and sweater. I’m 100% sure that I sat down right then and there and laughed until I cried. My friends were confused, but within 30 seconds, after they figured out what had just happened, all six of us were on the ground crying from laughter. Apparently, I had lost some weight but had no idea I had lost so much that my skirt would not stay in place for the day- thank goodness for the drug store that happened to be right next to us at that moment that carried leggings that I quickly bought and threw on instead of the skirt. They are much more my style anyways…

So needless to say, when Todd invited me to the opera, I was excited for a new opportunity, but also a little bit nervous about whether I would be able to handle that level of fancy. 

We made plans, he had the tickets, and it was time to find a dress. I have never been so stressed about appropriate clothing- what was too much? What was too little? There is no actual section of any store for “formal opera wear.” I knew for sure I wasn’t going to be wearing any kind of skirt- it needed to be a full on dress, for obvious reasons. However, once we arrived, I realized that what I was wearing was not important at all. 

We went to see La Traviata and it was perfection (I feel like this is a little bit of a theme to our story as well- but there didn’t seem to be too many things that Todd got involved with that didn’t end up being absolutely wonderful). 

La Traviata is actually the opera that Richard Gere takes Julia Roberts to in the movie, Pretty Woman, and is also the inspiration for the movie itself, which I never knew. This parallel made me shake my head a bit, because in that very first four-hour phone conversation that Todd and I ever had, when he was explaining what he did for his job, he explained that his role in mergers and acquisitions was similar to Richard Gere’s job in Pretty Woman- reviewing other companies and deciding their value. 

That may have been the extent of the comparison from the movie to us though- there was no seriously amazing jewelry shared or private jets to get us to this particular show- which was completely fine with me because as I made clear in my story above, I don’t really do fancy too well- although he did valet park which was excellent. 

The opera was sung in Italian but it honestly didn’t even matter. This particular performance was amazing and although I appreciated the subtitles provided throughout the show, even without them, I believe I would have been able to follow the story line without difficulty. It was very clearly a love story, and one that was heartbreaking to watch, as the characters found true love and had it taken away, only to find each other again when it was too late. “Farewell, lovely, happy dreams of the past” – I watched the final scenes of Violetta, the heroine, dying in her true love’s arms after only just reconnecting with him, through ugly tears. This hits very differently knowing that the person you are sitting next to in the theater, whose hand you are clinging to, has had to live through this exact moment.   

Experiencing this show together opened up so many opportunities for us to dive deep into the hard, difficult, real-life tragedy in conversations in the days that followed. And Todd was so willing to dive into the deep conversations- his willingness to be so open was not something I was expecting and is something that I strive for as I work through my own grief and the loss of him. Without the willingness to get into the deep, and often dark, feelings when speaking about grief, it feels impossible to me to create any real connection.  

He taught me so much perspective about life and about love that I had no idea I would need to cling to after such a few short years. There were so many words of wisdom that he shared that I am sure he never knew or intended for me to use in such a personal way after such a short time together. 

What it essentially comes to is this- you only get this one life to live. You are the only one who can choose to grab at every possible chance for happiness and embrace it fully. You are the only one who can use an excuse of being “too busy” or who can let fear take over and miss out on opportunities that are placed in your life for you to enjoy. Every time I let that fear creep in, or claimed that I was too busy for something he knew I would enjoy, I would hear him say “Just be happy- live life.”

When that moment comes along where you need to say goodbye, whether you want to or not, you are the only one who can make sure that there are no regrets left on the table in that relationship- whether it be a romantic one, a family connection or a friend. 

Immediately after the performance, as we drove home (because again- we weren’t ACTUALLY living out Pretty Woman and there was no ACTUAL private jet to fly home in- and also, without a single wardrobe malfunction on my part), we talked to Todd’s friend who had also been at the show, and he let us know that what we had seen that night had been special and he had never seen better. This quickly became the standard for any type of activity that we did together- Todd was one of those people who never did anything in a quiet, subdued, “good enough” manner. It seemed like everything he touched turned into gold and he had a way of making every moment in life seem like so much more than that extraordinarily ordinary life I had hoped for.

While I was not exactly decked out in the beautiful red dress that Julia Roberts wore to the opera in the movie, Pretty Woman, I now understand the incredible red balloons that I was given in the conversations that followed that night- comforting words on how to face grief straight from Todd’s heart to mine.