Mummy Toes

Mummy Toes

I lay facing the foot of my bed across a pillow that it is causing my back to ache. I am texting like a school girl with a crush with someone I have recently met. We are both recently divorced; additions to the statistic of a 60% divorce rate in the good ole US of A. Both of us have been thrown into chaos by spouses who fell out of love or something like that.

‘Phuch them’ I laughingly text and begin the wait for his response.

‘it is cold outside’

‘I would say that I would keep you warm but that would be inappropriate.’

‘ur a bad girl!’

‘yep, say it again’ then ‘sorry it’s that crazy rock n roll music I have been listening to’… Donny Osmond.

‘U R funny girl!’

Now the analysis begins. Lmao. What did he mean when he said I was funny? Was he thinking OMG! This chick is nuts. Or, maybe he really thinks I am funny. I did refer to the Museum Trip we took last weekend by telling him that my mummy toes were cold. Step back…we saw a mummy’s feet and I told him they looked like mine and asked if he would like to see them. His quick retort was ‘not if they look like that’. We have been in contact every day since that trip.

We found each other on the internet. We knew each other, sort of, in high school. He invited me for coffee at Starbucks under what I thought was the guise to see if I really looked like my online profile pic. I passed the ‘alleged’ test and received an open ended invitation for drinks after a two hour conversation that ended with a hug.

We endured more cyber contact for a few weeks and even the final return of my estranged spouse. After the later mentioned person left I suggested that my cyber friend let me buy him a cup of coffee at the Museum. He accepted and took the reins. OMG!, he did everything. It may not seem like much to some but to me it was like stepping into the twilight zone. He opened doors, offered soft touches at the small of my back to move me on. I tried to remember every detail. I had obviously failed at picking a gentleman the first time around.

This time I had a list. A list of 50 traits I want in a man. He is only missing one or two, I think. I do not know him well enough to know if there are going to major road blocks to a future. A future? What am I thinking?! We have had one and a half dates and I am ready to marry the guy. We are both still going through divorces. Anything could happen. He could reconcile with his spouse, I cannot. I tried everything I could think of to save my marriage but in the end it was pointless. TTUN .

There is much fear in the documentation of this tale. I find myself becoming more and more superstitious these days. The avoidance of writing certain things is driven by the belief that if I say it out loud or write it down, it won’t happen. This belief started when I was a child and dreaming brought premonitions. If I kept the dream to myself it would come to fruition but, if I told someone I would break the chain of events leading to the prophecy. I learned early to share the bad stuff even though it created a bit of concern for my parents. My mother rolled her eyes, my father understood for his mother had the gift and so does he.

I was nineteen years old when the first of only two times I saw my father receive signs happened. It was February and a few days beyond a raging ice storm. Ice is what we get here in Texas and we are never prepared. I was anxious to get out of the house and back to work that morning. I chipped the ice away from the windows and doors of my new car and returned to the house to warm up a bit. My throat was bothering me and I mentioned it to my father who said maybe I should stay home. But, I was eager to get out so with the indestructible confidence of a teenager I continued to proceed with my plans, all the while my father telling and asking me to stay home…just as his mother had done some thirty years before.

I remember the conversation with my father, it was the last thing I would recall.

When the phone rang at our house, my father knew something had happened to me before he ever picked up the receiver. It was the hospital calling to say that I had been in an accident and he should come right away. I had not heeded his now obvious warnings but he did not express his feeling of dread in a way I could understand. He told me later that he somehow knew I shouldn’t leave and he told me the story of his mother having a very similar seeing when he was a teenager. ‘She told me not to go’ he offered, just minutes before the car he was in rolled many times across a field not far from his home.

The next time I ignored his warning was just before he walked me down the aisle. It was late March. ‘You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to’ he said just before we started walking towards the man I would share my life with for the next twenty years. I simply smiled at him and started walking.

A miracle is what I received that morning in February for I hit black ice, crossed the two lane road and collided head on with a car much larger than mine. I had to stay in the hospital for a week to mend my broken ribs, bruised kidney’s and a head injury that caused a form of amnesia and short term memory loss. Would this have happened if I had heeded the pleading in my fathers’ eyes? Of course I will never know.

So now I wonder as I write if this will be the inevitable end to my cyber relationship. I won’t know if I don’t take the chance. Perhaps this will break the chain of events that have created my superstition.

After all he did text me on a full moon night with ‘OMG! Have u seen the moon?’lol.

TBC.