Can I Actually Date?

The one-year anniversary of SCA- Sudden Cardiac Arrest (9/5/09) is around the corner. That also marks around a year since the final demise of my nearly 30-year relationship with the ex. Ex husband. Totally ex. Tom, or as a friend refers to him -- "Old what's his name". I laughed when I first heard that sweetly dis-empowering reference last October, and it still makes me laugh today. It was a rocky late summer and fall last year, to be sure. Relationship ending, heart stopping without warning, enter Skippy the defibrillator stage left.

So here I sit, one year later. Overwhelmingly grateful to be here - to be alive, to be relatively undamaged by the SCA, to be in my home, to be among friends, to know I am cared about, to be so close to the water. To be just here.

So thoughts turn to couple-hood, or couple-ness, to love, to companion, to partner, to that dreaded word "dating". A ritual designed for kids. I am not quite there, but in the words of my very favorite 'southernism' - I am thinking about fixin' to get ready to....argh.... date.
I know I am getting there - I have pretty much stopped thinking of Hatred and old what's his name in the same breath - emotional health returns slowly in these parts.

Just regular, ordinary dating as an adult is bad enough, but now - now, there is a whole new level of baggage to be introduced - Skippy the defibrillator and how it/he arrived.
On what date do we cough that up? Can you imagine the scenario: Oh, by the way, first-date-man-I-just-met -- my heart has taken to stopping, but it's really OK because I have this tiny little set of paddles in my chest wall, wired with leads into my heart with a little tiny dude ready to yell "clear" and flip the switch - as needed. So not to worry.

Clearly not date number one. Isn't Date One reserved for really benign pseudo-information? Favorite color? Do you read? Do you like soup? Is that real hair?

So not Date One ---- but just as clearly sometime before THAT date - After all, there is a physical presence to Skippy that will be apparent.
Oh God. Maybe the Mormons have it right; I don't think the fundamentalist women ever really take off the "sacred undergarment". Is it too late for me to convert? I really think this may be a valid reason to convert.

One of the many positive things that come after surviving SCA (like - those lottery odds start to look better) --- you can get through anything. For now, I am just going to assume that will include dating.
OH God. Dating.

P.S. a new favorite New Yorker cartoon has a woman saying "To get through this, I've had to rely on an inner strength I never knew I had --- in the medicine cabinet"