Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Do you believe you deserve love? Not like from your kids or your cats, but actual love?
I pose the question to our little grief group’s message thread before laughing over the meme that Viv sent in response to yet another pair of socks Marin is knitting.
As I hit send, Frank groans beside me, curling his old-man body into the couch like he’s been doing this his entire life. I stroke his wiry fur absently, already used to the way he sighs like an overworked union rep every time I move.
Viv replies first, as she always does, with her full chest:
Viv: Obviously, yes. Romantic, messy, hot love. I didn’t spend my twenties figuring myself out to shrivel into some tragic cautionary tale. We’re not corpses, Birdie. We’re widows. Huge difference.
Marin: Not sure. I think I used it all up. Or never even got it in the first place. My cat cuddles with me consistently. That’s more than he did.
Viv: Marin, that’s not right. Also, don’t try to justify owning eight cats.
Marin: Seven. And they’re judgmental, which feels familiar.
Viv: You need a vibrator.
Marin: I knit. That’s enough repetitive motion for one woman.
I laugh, in that weird bark-sigh way that still surprises me. Then Viv, relentless as always, circles back.
Viv: Speaking of love… how’d things go with your mailman?
Me: There’s nothing going on with the mailman. He’s Owen’s old college roommate and ex-best friend. We were friends in college and remained friends after that.
Viv: Details. Now.
Marin: We need a visual.
Me: Tall. Dark hair, blue eyes. Built like someone who splits firewood for therapy, but still somehow reads books with tiny print.
I had the biggest crush on him before I met Owen.
But meeting Owen was like finding a missing piece of my soul.
I never looked back, never bothered to ask if Noah felt the same.
Didn’t want to know the answer. We were good as friends.
Now Noah’s been our mailman for years. Always kind of there. I never really noticed.
Marin: And now you do??
Viv: Oh she notices.
Me: No. I don’t. It’s not lust or love or anything in between. It’s perimenopause. Fluctuating estrogen and the emotional side effects of too many Doritos and running endorphins.
Viv: Maybe. Or maybe it’s being human. You can miss someone and still want something. Or is it an urge that needs to be tended to? You know, you can have grief and urges. They’re not mutually exclusive.
Marin: Oh my God.
Viv: I’m just saying. You’re alive. You’re allowed to want someone to admire your new flannel pajamas besides us.
Me: I knew I shouldn’t have sent you two that picture!
Viv: You need to read a spicy book. Reignite the flame of love for your own body and its amazing potential. Get reacquainted with yourself.
Marin: Viv, you’re going full-on granola-crunching hippie enthusiast on us.
Viv: I’m trying to save all of your yonis. I’m sending you a link. You need to go on Reddit. There’s a thread called r/RomanceBooks. Trust me. It’s steamy and enlightening.
Before I can object, the link lands in our message thread, and after washing the dishes, reorganizing my spice drawer, and color coordinating my sock drawer, my curiosity wins.
I scroll, skimming past a thread about morally gray vampire boyfriends, alien anatomies, and a post about girth that makes my face heat to a thousand degrees. Then I see something that I wasn’t expecting to find there.
Click.
Posted by: GinnyHotFlash1945
Title: Romance Checklists: The Love Reboot for Whenever You’ve Stopped Waxing
Hi.
This is Ginny. I don’t know how this works, and it’s only after sharing this message that I realized I accidentally added a picture of my left elbow along with it, but let’s press on.
My friends and I finished helping our younger friend, Emma, find love. She works at our assisted living center, and let me tell you, we put her through the wringer. Dancing in the park, sexy baking dates, meeting the parents, costume changes, even a fake heart attack.
It was glorious.
Here’s the thing: it all started because we were tired of seeing Emma give up on love, but not only love, on life. Watching her believe that she didn’t deserve the real, heart-throbbing, panty-dropping, life to lead with full abandon and passion, the kind of life we read about in spicy books.
She deserved to live it, and this time we could yell at her instead of at the pages when the heroine made a terrible decision (putting your whole life on hold for a man with a motorcycle and no helmet? Ma’am…).
So we made a romantic checklist. A list of all the tropes that she should try. Here’s the kicker, it wasn’t just about a slow burn, workplace romance, or forced proximity. It was about helping her see she could trust herself to fall in love with someone, with herself.
And you know what? It worked. She got her HEA.
So now we’re thinking, maybe it’s not only for Emma. Maybe it will help someone else too.
If you’re stuck. If you’re lonely. If your love story feels like it ended after one too many bad dates, or the person you thought you knew left you with a house, a goldfish, and a tax mess, maybe it’s time to write a new chapter.
Start small. Our friend started with spilling tea on a sexy psychiatrist on a bus. Yours might start with arguing over the last rotisserie chicken at Costco.
If you want a copy of our checklist, we’ve stashed it on Helen’s computer (in a fancy kind of file thing that Emma told us about. Don’t ask, it’s a whole situation).
Know this: love doesn’t go out of season like shoulder pads or crinoline.
(Helen and Betsy say I don’t need to put this, but this is Ginny. Writing on behalf of all of us, even though Helen swears she doesn’t “have any needs” ((liar)), and Betsy keeps asking me to go to the coupon thread ((she’s got a problem)). But I still love them both.)
I scroll past it. Then scroll back up.
Read it twice.
The corners of my mouth twitch at the image my mind’s forming of the women behind this post. My eyes subconsciously wander to my large bay window and the empty street outside.
Noah’s mail truck had driven by hours ago. Frank had followed his urges and barked valiantly at the poor man while he tried to deliver my mail.
What would it be like to complete a romance checklist? I chuckle at the idea. Completely ridiculous for someone my age to even think about such a silly thing.
But my fingers start to move anyway.
Username: BirdieLawson49
Okay. I wasn’t going to post. I was simply lurking. But something about this made me laugh, and ache, a little too hard not to say something. I lost my husband a little over two years ago. Suddenly. No warning. Brain aneurysm.
One minute we were arguing about lawn fertilizer, the next I was calling 911 and forgetting how to breathe.
I’m not looking for romance. I mean, unless you count my mailman who keeps offering to trim my fennel plants (which is probably not a euphemism, but who even knows anymore?) and is also my dead husband’s old college roommate who I previously had a crush on.
Yeah, it’s complicated.
But I’ve realized there’s something I miss.
Being seen. Being known. Being happy. Is it okay to be tired of being sad?
I’m not signing up for a romance checklist or a dating app. Not yet. But maybe I’ll let the mailman prune the garden.
Thanks for the post, Ginny. And tell Helen she’s not fooling anyone.
Reply from: GinnyHotFlash1945
Oh, sweetheart. I read this out loud and now we’re all teary over here (except Helen, proper ladies don’t cry at things on the internet and all that, but she did blink more than usual, so she was clearly moved).
Listen, grief’s a heavy coat. Some days you wear it like a classic trench, buttoned up tight, shoulders squared, looking put together.
Other days, it slips off your shoulders like last season’s ratty, worn-out cardigan, and you feel the sun on your skin again.
No one can tell you when to take it off, but you can always change the fit.
Maybe try something that breathes a little.
You don’t have to toss it aside, just loosen the seams.
(Betsy says grief can’t be compared with fashion.
Which isn’t true. Everything is a metaphor for fashion.
She also wants me to add: You’re not broken, Birdie.
You’re still you. And whoever he was, he’d be damn proud you’re still putting one foot in front of the other.
She also wants you to know she has coupons for Froyo, if you need sweets.)
(Helen says, and I quote): “It is not inappropriate to accept help from a mail carrier if one’s hedges pose a hazard.”
We’re rooting for you. Whether it’s a checklist or a chat with the mailman.
Love,
Ginny, Betsy, and Helen (who reminded me it’s impossible to love someone on a Reddit message stream. Don’t mind her.)
I don’t reply again.
And I don’t upvote because I’m still not exactly sure what that means.
But my fingers do move to save the post.
______________
I’m still thinking about that ridiculous Reddit thread, the one with the romance checklists and spicy book tropes and the overly confident women, and now I’m spiraling through the idea of grief checklists, too.
Is it possible for both to exist? Can there really be room for love and sadness at the same time, like mismatched socks you wear anyway because the laundry didn’t get folded?
It’s all starting to feel far too philosophical for this early in the morning, which is a surefire sign that I need either a run, a nap, or a therapeutic stroll with Frank.
I settle on the stroll option, because it turns out existential crises don’t pair well with sports bras.
I’ve wrangled us out the door, me in one sneaker and one sock, Frank circling like a senile rodeo horse, when I hear the unmistakable sputter and hum of the mail truck turning onto our street.
Of course.
Perfect timing.