My new friend

So banish guitars playing sweet melodies

And then please murder the birds and the bees

Unring the bells and then drain all the wishing wells...

Frank Wildhorn Not gonna fall this time

Time is my new friend.

Middle-aged people don't say this much. Mostly, we are trying, with our Botox and diets, our social networking and exercise routines, to outrun it.

Myself, I have an ambivalent relationship with Father Time.

But this summer, I am keeping an eye out for him.

For I know that the hours and the days can heal. And I realize that intense pain can be forgotten by the daylit mind -- although the cells and dreams remember.

In a few months, I will be a different woman. I will have re-collected the parts of myself that got lost, somewhere along the way, or suppressed. I will be able to face what I now avoid, as though it was a bad traffic accident. In a few months, I can drive by the dead flowers and the cross with only a twinge.

Moaning about the weight of this time, writing among boxes and the debris I need to sort before we move out, I got some good advice from another friend. Focus on what you can control, she told me.

I know I can't help my ex-husband, except by picking up the slack when needed -- and I am deeply distressed by his suffering.

But I can pack boxes.

I can meet my writing deadlines.

I can do the laundry and even, damn it, make sure my bank account doesn't get overdrawn again any time soon.

I can take care of the kids, and move.

In the future is a lovely home, and hopefully a healthier ex-husband, and even, perhaps, a guy -- a companion, a friend... a lover.

Embarrassing how I court male admiration, inhaling it like wine. Come the evening (s), soon, when I must tell these men how unready, bruised, sad and baffled I am. I didn't think I was the kind of person who would behave this way -- but I am all female. And this is what many females do.

It's up to you, I'll say. Here's what I can offer right now -- and here's what I cannot. You choose.

In time, I can choose, too -- I look forward to that day.

In the meantime, I count on time, and rejoice in what I can accomplish, small toddler wobbles that will lead, I hope to strides.