Head over heels in love?

Head over heels in love? 

(Author’s note: if a body part is missing, feel free to take the shirt off my back)  

She was a sight for sore eyes.  They’d been separated for just six months, but when you’re head over heels in love, six months can feel like a lifetime.

When he left, to travel halfway around the world, she was heartbroken, and his heartfelt words: “Keep your chin up” fell on deaf ears.  To survive the separation, she purchased an expensive piece of art (freely admitting to a friend one day: “It cost me an arm and a leg”). 

Over the years, her penchant for buying expensive works was a bone of contention, after all – he worked his fingers to the bone to support them, and here she was, in the twinkling of an eye, drawing down the account.  He racked his brain to find a solution and tried his best to remind her: “You know, dear, we’re just getting by, by the skin of our teeth,” but she was unable to heed the warnings. 

Fortunately, he had the presence of mind to know that when two lovers are apart, all bets are off. 

As his departure date neared, she began to give him the cold shoulder, preparing herself as best she could. He, on the other hand, came down with a severe case of cold feet, often asking himself: “Am I making a mistake?”

But he left, and though down in the mouth for weeks, he managed. Early each morning he composed a love letter, reminding her that she remained close to his heart. He missed her dearly, and his colleagues were quick to notice. Noted one: “His head is always in the clouds.”

He kept telling himself: “It’s mind over matter,” often recalling his friend’s assurance that, once abroad, she would be “out of sight, out of mind.”

But, alas, for him, it was not so – in the evenings he would cry his eyes out, giving lip service to the notion that his emotions would wane. He thought to himself: “I’d give my eye teeth to be back home with her,” and he had half a mind to quit, but he knew that leaving now would jeopardize his ability to rub elbows with the big wigs. 

Throughout the separation, she maintained a stiff upper lip.  But, deep down, his decision to leave left a bad taste in her mouth.  Yes, his love, expressed in letters, was music to her ears, but she remained bitter, and it opened the door for a young, handsome gentleman caller to sweep her off her feet.

She tried her best to keep the young Casanova at arm’s length, but she was falling fast. She told a friend one day: “He makes my toes curl.”  In jaw-dropping speed, she was suddenly, inexplicably, in love.  And her friends understood – after all, he was easy on the eyes (a close friend once confided: “He even leaves me weak in the knees”).

Ten thousand miles away, her first love caught wind of the dalliance.  He vowed to fight tooth and nail to keep her, telling a colleague: “I can’t let her slip through my fingers.”  And when a friend quietly told him: “I think you’re going to lose her,” he shot back: “Bite your tongue,” adding quickly: “Over my dead body.”

Now back in the States, in his neck of the woods, he committed to put his best foot forward.  Tired of the endless ribbing that he was “all skin and bones” (his lack of stature, he once shared, was his Achilles heel), he hired a professional and promised himself: “This time, I won’t drag my feet.” What were the chances of winning her back?  A friend of hers told him: “Don’t hold your breath,” but he was digging his heels in, determined to bend over backwards not to lose her.

Each day he rose bright-eyed and bushy tailed, certain that they would soon be reunited.  With his nose to the grindstone, his dream was soon realized.  As they nestled on the lawn, overlooking the pastoral lake, she turned to him and said: “I want to be with you forever,” to which he responded: “From your lips to God’s ears.”

##