There’s nothing particularly special about me.  At least, that’s what I thought.  I was intelligent but not brilliant; passable but not pretty; nice but not noticeable.  That’s not a plea for validation; it’s simply the way my mind was wired throughout much of my younger life. It was exhausting.

Timidity is a shackle.  It’s ironic when you think about it, a weakness having the all-mighty power to confine you.  I graduated high school without a plan or even the faintest clue what I wanted to do.  In my mind, the only talent I had was for spinning a flag in a marching band, and precious few people make a career out of that.  With that mindset I did what a wallflower does: I followed my high school boyfriend.  I applied to Belmont University, and without realizing it, I kicked off the adventure of a lifetime: MY lifetime. 

Here’s how it happened.  Just two months into my first semester at Belmont, the high school boyfriend dumped me. I was devastated. Remember, we are talking about a wallflower here, so to my mind having been a little special to someone for a while had simply been a fluke. I am thrilled to say I was so wrong.

There was a guy.  In fact, in the days before he was an ex, the then-boyfriend had introduced me to him.  I could not remember his name.  I had never noticed him before, but suddenly, I was running into him everywhere.  He was casually perched on a stone wall outside the business school.  He was in the stairwell of the humanities building.  He was at a prime table in the campus grill. 

I thought those chance meetings around campus were coincidence. Wrong again.  He planned it all.  Through means that today could earn him community service he uncovered my class schedule and began planning “accidental” encounters. 

This was my Chris.  He challenged every impression I had of myself and my abilities. In his eyes, I was beautiful, intriguing and capable. I was worthy of being treasured and eventually of being loved. He dropped me into a family that was too much to take in all at once.  They all talked at the same time. Loudly. They drank a good bit of wine.  They had fun together.  They were always happy and always pursuing achievements. They scared me a bit, but thank goodness, they did not scare me away.

After the high school sweetheart, I vowed I would never give anyone that sort of power over me.  I consider it my first tentative step onto the ledge that now is my home. Going out with Chris was supposed to be a one-off.  I even went out with another guy after our first date. He was a perfectly nice guy, and we had a lovely picnic in Centennial Park, but I cannot remember his name now no matter how hard I try.  Chris gently pursued, and after our second date, we were us, and it was the greatest blessing of my life.

In Steel Magnolias, Shelby says, “I’d rather have a half hour of wonderful than a lifetime of nothing special.”  That is what I had with my Chris.  Even in those times when he called me stubborn or I called him a diva, we remembered what made us fall in love in the first place. We were each other’s first call regardless of the news.  We held hands.  Our best times were any time we were in the same room. 

Chris and I had our half hour of wonderful.  In a way, he prepared me for this new life on my own. He made me determined enough to keep putting my feet on the floor when my heart is so broken I wish I did not have to wake.  He encouraged me, he challenged me, and he loved me unconditionally.  We were truly one, as God intended, and we had the blessed wisdom to recognize and appreciate it.  It has taken me 18 months to recognize that the reason I still forget what I’m doing, lose my way mid-sentence or go for too-long stretches unable focus on anything is because his death was a sudden and shocking tear.  I was half of a beautifully woven whole, and now my soul is tattered. I have faith that the symptoms will improve.  The wound will not heal, but I take courage in believing I will tidy up the edges.    

What does any of this have to do with ledges?  That’s easy: A ledge is a scary but exhilarating place to be.  Any self-respecting ledge will offer a spectacular view but will also offer an equally spectacular fall. To a recovering wallflower, any situation that draws attention, tests the limits of bravery or – God help us – could result in public embarrassment or failure is equivalent to stepping out on a ledge. The ledge I stand on now is the most precarious of any I have encountered. 

Launching a blog is a ledge moment in itself.  Will anyone be interested in my stories?  My recollections of the past? Observations of the present?  Perhaps not.  Then again, if just one reader is jolted out of complacency, motivated to try something new, moved to see grief in a deeper way or even just encouraged in spirit, it’s worth that tentative step.