Dear Cary - Dyan Cannon [128]
Happiness or sadness? Love or hate? Faith or fear? Intelligence or ignorance?
I chose to be happy. I chose to be smart. I chose to believe when everything around me was screaming not to. Most important, I chose to love.
Love love love.
Not just in March but in April, too.
I realized that life was more than something just to get through, that it was a treasure—every moment of it. That it was a gift. A precious, beautiful gift. I became a better mother, a better friend . . . a better me. And because I changed, my life changed. There were still temptations with men and undesirable roles, but I learned how to say no with grace and yes with gratitude.
Now when the road gets rocky, I know exactly what to do. I try—and “try” is the key word—to be gentle with me when those feelings of fear start to pull me into their undertow. But no matter what, I stop and then reach inside for that power called LOVE . . . not little love . . . not the limited love that comes from Dyan, but the big LOVE that comes from a Higher Power—the same power that held me as a happy hostage that extraordinary night on the beach.
Of course, sometimes I slip back into thinking that I’m running the universe, but not for long. I’ve learned to be abidingly patient with myself when those moments of anxiety or frustration and panic set in.
How do I feel now? I feel as good as I felt in my twenties. No, that’s a lie. I feel better than I felt in my twenties or my thirties or my forties or my fifties.
I’m alive. I’m complete. I’m whole. I’m free. And safe.
Finally, it feels good to be me.
Dear Cary
I’ve been waiting for this moment for what seems a lifetime. And finally, once again, I’m in a place where I can completely open my heart to you. It’s been so long since I’ve been able to do that, and it’s taken many years of revisiting our time together for me to get there.
It’s been like going into an old house that has been shut up tight for many, many years but finding things just as they were when I left. I opened all the doors where the memories were stored—went down to the basement and up to the attic, looked inside the closets and dug in the garden. It was as if I could see everything that happened between us back then . . . but this time around, I was seeing it all through different eyes.
There is so much I want to share with you, Cary. So many things I’ve needed to say that I couldn’t talk about then because I just didn’t understand them. I couldn’t piece together the puzzle of the hurts, the disappointments, the shame of it all. But with the passage of time have come clarity, understanding, forgiveness, and grace. Now so many things that I thought would never make sense seem perfectly clear, and I can finally write you the letter I’ve wanted to write for so long.
From where I’m sitting now, I have a clear view from the ocean to the Los Angeles skyline. My town house faces La Cienega Boulevard, and now, in the afterglow of dusk, I vividly remember a distinguished, handsome man and a spunky young woman walking hand in hand down the boulevard. You remember the night I’m thinking of—I know you do! We’d been seeing each other for six or seven months, and after another exquisite dinner we took a long, leisurely walk down the boulevard. It was well after midnight and the city was unusually quiet.
We came to a corner and decided to cross the street. And halfway across, there in the middle of the boulevard, you stopped cold, looked deep into my eyes, and asked, “Do you know how I feel about you, Dyan?”
“I’m not sure I do,” I replied.
Right then, you went into a free fall, toppling like a redwood and landing facedown on the cold pavement. Then you turned your head ever so slowly, looked up at me, and said, “Head over heels! That’s how I feel about you, Dyan! Head over heels!”
That made me go weak at the knees. But before I could respond, you sprang to your feet, picked me up in your arms, and carried me to the sidewalk. Still holding