November 2004

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Okay, where did November go? It just started a few minutes ago, and here it is the end of the last day of the month. Again.

I told you last November 30 why this isn't one of my favorite dates on the calendar. I had occasion tonight to think of one of those reasons, the ex leaving me (for the first of several breakups) on this date years ago.

The occasion was writing to a far-away friend whose husband has left her, and telling her why it was I understood her reluctance to talk about it much just yet. When she had written to me, she commented that his leaving was very baffling to her. And even this many years later, my ex's departure that November night still has some components that make no sense.

Those baffling components serve to remind me that life itself contains many mysteries, and to allow me a certain amount of understanding when the story someone else tells is similar to mine. They are long past a point of being painful, and I have long since quit trying to make them be un-baffling.

Living through a personal crisis like that allows you to find strengths in yourself. It pretty much forces you to find those strengths, in order to stay in the world around you. And one of those strengths is the strength to move on, even though you're not quite sure why it is you're moving on alone.

My friend already knows that she has much strength. And for her sake, I'm glad she's beginning to see the big pile of baffling as just that: a big pile to step around so that she can get on to the next page of her life. Around, not over or through, because either of those might cause you to fall in. And that's never, ever a good thing to do with a pile of baffling.