Ford came over to bring me gifts to help ease the pain of my moon. There were a lot of chocolate themed food items. Then, we decided to go on a hike to the mud flats.
We threw on our boots and he asked, “So do you think we need bear spray?”
“Nah,” I said.
He drove us on his four wheeler to the end of the road and there we greeted a man named Bill. He was so welcoming.
“Do you guys have any bear spray?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
“Do you want some?”
“Ya!” I said in a very little girl kine way.
Ford looked at me like, Oh, Freyja, you are something else.
We started down the path and I felt much more present than the other day. I couldn’t believe I got to reside near an area like this for the next month. We saw fresh moose and bear tracks. There were traces of the bear claws gliding through the clay kine mud, then we looked up to see a big grizzly bear in the distance!
We sat down on a log and talked about life.
“I have a mantra about you in my mind,” Ford said, “I tell myself I will not fall in love with you. ‘I will not fall in love with Freyja.’ But you’re making it really hard.”
I laughed, knowing exactly what he was feeling because I, too, was a helpless romantic when it came to men I fancied.
“I really mean it when I say I have never met another like you, Freyja.”
I placed my head on his shoulder and said, “I love you, Ford. Thank you.” Although I wished I could tell him I felt the same way, I just didn’t and he knew that.
“Have men ever fallen in love with you other than wanting sex out of you?” he asked.
I couldn’t think of anyone other than Orange Man. “I’m sure a lot of the guys I dated thought they were in love with me, however our relationship had been based off of sex/manipulation so I knew it would never truly last off such a weak substance.”
“That’s so odd to me that you think men don’t fall in love with you so easily.”
“Well it’s just clear to me that it’s lust, not love,” I explained, “they also completely miss the fact when I tell them I’m a whore or that I’ll end up sleeping with someone if they do so much as look at another woman.” I thought of Orange again and said, “I’ve also been told that I am a very difficult woman to love.”
At the end of the walk, he talked to me about Africa again. I spaced off as I normally did on my moon. I became all sporadic and jumpy, getting distracted by pinecones and flowers that were painted in warm shades of fire colors.
He walked up to the plant then jokingly began talking to it as if it were me.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“A flower has a better chance at listening than you,” he teased.
When I came home, I reached out to Orange as I wanted to send him a letter. He told me he met someone amazing, right after I had confirmed things would never work out between us. He seemed happy and I noticed myself experiencing regret and jealousy. Then, I remembered he was my friend and behind the painful emotions, I wanted my friend to be happy—even if that meant I was not the one in the picture. It stung, but it was time to apply the same to V.
As I fell asleep, I pondered on Orange and how he never made a move on me when he had known I was taken. It was something I never forgot and realized what a kind thing it really was. I often blamed guys for cheating, but then I thought of how I always hit on dudes that were taken, and why? It truly was not a respectful thing for me to do but I still did it. I feel like this is what this life is all about, the small insights and ‘aha’ moments. It is a slow never-ending process, only growing deeper into the understanding of Self. That is how we learn—through experience—and all of us seem to have different ones, then we teach and learn through one another.
