About ten years ago, I took my first vacation alone, a week-long bike tour in southern France. Despite my years as a traveling salesperson, I’d never liked going to the movies by myself, or eating dinner alone at a restaurant, because I didn’t want to look like a loser who couldn’t dredge up a single soul to join her for an outing.

So, sauntering off to Europe without my kids or a lover in tow felt daring, scary.

Sick of caving to the expectations and demands of others, vaguely dissatisfied,  I just knew that I was ready to do the things that I wanted to do, which was ride a bike hard through a country I’d never visited before.

I left my children with my mom, and my boyfriend—an underemployed man I didn’t really like—on the curb, and I hopped the plane not knowing what to expect.

A couple of things happened while I was in France.

First, I discovered that I absolutely loved being on my own. That what I’d been afraid of, was actually what I needed most.

Each day I’d bike the 40 or so miles at my own pace—sometimes chatting with other tour members, sometimes losing myself in the world around me—then return to my room, where I lingered in the narrow bathtub with a book until it was time to join the group for dinner. For once in my life, I didn’t feel compelled to entertain anybody but myself. The release from that responsibility left me light, self-contained.

Second, I met a couple that totally changed my view of marriage, an institution that, at some level, I had come to equate with a leg in a bear trap.  Which sort of explains why, for the previous twelve years, I’d dated an assortment of ridiculous and/or unavailable men.

Always interested in the dynamics of happy couples, I studied the two over the course of several days. Sometimes they would ride along together; sometimes he’d dart ahead and hang with the fast bunch. Regardless, there never appeared to be hard feelings or disappointment, just pure delight in their individual experiences. The expectation that they stick together at all costs, adjust their pace for the other’s enjoyment or comfort, didn’t seem to be part of their deal. To someone who believed that, to remain in a conflict-free relationship, I had to do exactly what the other wanted no matter how difficult or unpleasant; this was a novel concept.

The day we sat drinking coffee in the square woke me up to a possibility I still have a hard time naming. I’d tripped upon the two sunning themselves like cats at an outdoor café and joined them at their insistence.

We swapped stories. They’d been married over 40 years. He was an M.D. who taught at U-Michigan. She was two courses shy of a Ph.D.. I could feel their connection; their mutual satisfaction.

Then an attractive waitress came to clear our plates.

“Really, darling, you’re old enough to be her grandfather,” the wife said in response to his open interest in the girl and attempt at flirtation. “You’d have better luck with her.” She pointed to an elderly woman with a harelip lumbering past.

The two of them laughed, elbowed each other good naturedly, and then picked up the conversation at the point where we’d left off. No harm, no foul.

As I sit here now, all these years later, I’m trying to figure out why this playful interchange between two long-married people so affected me. It no longer seems the least bit odd. I suppose I had yet to feel that secure in my self, or in my partner. I couldn’t imagine being that carefree, enjoying the charms of another just because I was in France and it felt good to be loved and alive. Perceiving no threat from my partner.

In my ten-year marriage to a Muslim, flirtation wasn’t fun and innocent, it was an insult to honor, which bought one SERIOUS trouble. And, of course, when I upleveled to dating a married man—someone who had demonstrated the proclivity to stick his dick into anything with a pulse—flirtation was a sign that I was about to be replaced by someone far, far cuter.

How wonderful to love someone and not be scared of making a mistake, of driving them off with your needs and wants, of losing them to another. How wonderful, how possible, this not trying so hard stuff, this not being afraid 24/7.

Last week I read this bit on Facebook by Jeff Brown. I don’t know who Jeff Brown is, but I dig his ass:

It’s difficult to let go of the pattern, often born in our childhood tendency to try to get love from a stone (neglectful parents), to be attracted to those who are impossible. It’s like only the emotionally unavailable are credible because they reflect back to us what we came to believe about ourselves- that we are unworthy of love– and it’s like this odd illusion that if we can get the inaccessible to love us that we will finally have our parent’s love. The more obvious approach- that we share love with someone who can truly give it– often gets lost in the karmic shuffle. This pattern is not an easy one to break, but break-through it we must if we are going to finally surrender to the love we deserve.

And I share this quote with you because, when I got back to the United States, I decided that it was time to find myself a real partner, one who was capable of loving me the right way, instead of pursuing my hobby of squeezing love from stones. I had actually seen what it looked like, what it sounded like, so I was armed for bear.

For once, I didn’t NEED a partner—I’d finished proving that to myself by going on vacation alone—I WANTED one to share in my joy. I wanted to remarry.

And that’s when I met Walt.