Grounded

When you fall in love in your forties, you cherish every moment of feeling that way again, and since you don't have much time, you waste no time drawing up plans. You decorate your life together on paper, and choose colors for walls you have yet to build. You drive up the coast with the radio on, and when you arrive you make a nest, drink ginger martinis, and wake up early the next morning because you can't wait to start another day.

But when you fall in love in your forties, your baggage might feel more like cargo, and its weight might exceed the limit allowed to fly. When you return from the coast and get ready to board your flight to the future, the outside world stands waiting--hands on hips, with needs, wants and demands.

When you fall in love in your forties, it feels like time is running out and standing still. You've been here before so you see clearly, but you've never been here before so you've also gone blind. Like a lucid dream, you're awake enough to know what surrounds you, and asleep enough to be blissfully unaware--that no matter how many seeds you plant in your new garden, or how many beautiful colors you choose for your new walls--no matter how much anticipation and hope you use to fuel the engines of your pending flight, if the weight of your baggage exceeds the limit, you may never have the chance to take it off the ground.