Whole Foods

On my way home today I stopped by Whole Foods Market and ran in to pick just a handful of things up. As I was pushing my grocery cart to the check out, I stopped just as I pulled in. From the corner I noticed an older man trying to cut me off so he could get ahead of me. I was so amazed at the spectacle that I looked at my cart then at the stuff he had jumbled in his hands and said, “Go ahead” a little bewildered. It all made sense when the lady ahead of me who just finished her transaction told the puzzled cashier, “This is my husband, we forgot a few things.”

I live a life full of males, my house is full of them, I work in a very male dominated industry and I have always had at least a few close male friends, which is great, it keeps me in the know for my little guys. Plus, it is not that there aren’t any women in my life, I am very close with my sisters and I have a group of girlfriends.

About the same time my ex-husband came back into my life, before he was even my husband, I had started to spend a lot of time with Frank; the company he worked for and mine were working on a project together that I was assigned to write the manual for it. Frank and I had an easy, natural friendship. This particular time Frank had to take a customer and his wife out see a game of hockey and to the local Chop House, he called to let me know he would like it if I went with them. That night he kissed me for the first time as we were waiting for the shuttle to come and pick us up. When he kissed me it was different, somehow more special than others before and as he held my hand, it felt protected.

When you are walking the line between a friendship and a relationship someone has to take that jump of faith and tell the other how they feel. Neither of us did that, so we fell back into our friendship, nothing was mentioned about the kiss. And I started seeing the man who would eventually become my ex-husband more seriously. Frank and I stayed friends though my marriage. As I was going through the divorce Frank would always tell me how he had written me a couple of letters but never sent it, several times. I didn’t understand if it was something to help me through a hard time or something more. I wish Frank had sent me those letters because then maybe I wouldn’t have lost a great friend, maybe I still would have. It wasn’t until well after our communication slowed did I realize what may have been going on. Maybe it wouldn’t have changed anything, but we will never know. I wouldn’t have thought that older man at Whole Foods today was so strange if he had just said, “Excuse me that is my wife ahead of you”.