So, GMSS has been very quiet. This is only the second entry since November. Why is that, you might ask. Mostly because I only use GMSS for my bigger, more thoughtful writing. I don’t know why this is so; it’s probably because that’s what almost everyone does. A blog is for good writing, whereas LiveJournal is more for little flighty stuff. *shrug* Maybe I’m just generalizing, but that’s how I see it.

I’m gearing myself up to hit 35 in March. If I’m going to live to see 70, that’s the middle of my life. How odd is that? I certainly don’t feel like my life is at its middle. There are times when I’m honestly surprised that I’m 34, when I have to remind myself that I’m not 24 anymore. Of course, my body tells me that plenty enough.

I’m trying to come up with ways to make my 36th trip around the Sun special. I’ll probably do the photoblog thing, just because it’s easy. That way, everyone will see my world through my eyes. I’m also going to continue my current trend to be more brave. I’ve been going to restaurants to which I don’t usually go because I don’t like their spiciness (Indian, Mexican). There’s a small Thai restaurant that I want to try, too (at this point, I don’t like Thai because the first time I had it, there was so much lemongrass in everything that it tasted like I was eating Pledge), just to see if I actually do like it.

I’ll be ramping up the posting here, I think. I’m going to start by blogging once a week for the next six weeks. My birthday is Sunday, March the 9th, and the fun begins then.

Author’s Note: While the names in this piece are real names, and some of the situations are real, the entire story itself is fiction.  And no, Mom, I didn’t do it to make you cry.

“Grandma, who is this?” I asked, holding out a somewhat out-of-focus black-and-white photo of a man in an Army uniform. We were cleaning out an upstairs bedroom so that I could move in with my grandmother to help cut costs while I did my student teaching.

Taking it from my hand, my grandmother smiled sadly, sat on the thin white chenille bedspread, and was quiet for a while, lost in her thoughts.

“This, dear one, is the first man I ever fell in love with. His name was Karl, and this was taken two days before he shipped off to Korea. I was seventeen, he was nineteen, and he also gave me this,” she said, flashing a thin gold band, set with a small round blue topaz, on her right hand. “I’ve never taken it off, even through forty-five years of marriage to Grandpa Jack and having your mother and aunt and uncle, and you grandkids growing up. Karl will stay in my heart forever.”

She stopped and just stared at the photo. I sat next to her and looked at the young man in that picture. He was tall, taller than me. I could see why she loved him. His eyes were a medium color; even with the monochromatic medium, I could tell that they weren’t brown, but probably a green or hazel. He had strong cheekbones and a square-ish jaw. His hair was cropped short, as he was due to leave for the war. Broad-shouldered and narrow-waisted with powerful forearms, I could tell that my grandmother in her youth shared the same taste in men that I do today.

“What happened to him?” I asked, somewhat apprehensively, not wanting to hear the possible worst.

“Oh,” she said, sounding tired and sad, but trying to hide it behind a thin, transparent veneer of resigned happiness. “He came back three years later, still in one piece. But by then, I’d met and married your grandpa. Grandpa knew about Karl, but also knew that nothing would come of anything between Karl and me, that I’d given the lion’s share of my heart to him. Karl went on to play music in night clubs. He’s still wandering around, as far as I know. We lost contact, oh, somewhere in the ’70s.” She got up and went to the door. “I’m going to make myself some tea. Would you like some?”

I nodded and smiled at her. “Thank you, I would.” As she went back down the stairs, I looked back in the box at the other photos and bits of paper in there. Some old letters, with Army return addresses, from the early 50s. I picked up a newspaper clipping. Reading it, I discovered where I get my imagination. Karl Jacobs, aged 22, killed in action in North Korea by enemy snipers. So very little about this man who touched my grandmother’s life so briefly and yet so powerfully.

I thought about the strong, selfless woman downstairs making tea for us. About how she’d always been a driving force in my life, and the tears started. All that pain, and she never let it show. I hope I grow to be half the person she is.