It wasn’t in the cards.
For 30 years I’ve collected greeting cards but have given up the habit for how much it hurts. It’s been a favorite pastime shopping rows of card racks for hours at a time walking out with all the very best wishes for any occasion or holiday or simply “just because.” The funniest, the best written, the most beautiful and all the ones that made me wipe my eyes in the store over the years ended up in three crates, many now yellowed, none of which were ever sent. Turns out I couldn’t bring myself to part with them when someone’s occasion or holiday was approaching. Today a foot-high stack each got their own final read and their last cry before being buried in a 13 gallon sack of memories whose optimal times had come and gone, now rolled to the street for their crimes of assorted missed opportunities. Everything Mom, every Wonderful Dad and all those bought to give in case I ever fell in love again, which at my age has turned out as unlikely as me sending out a card to anyone who’d deserved it at just the right time or occasion.
So after a productive afternoon and a half box of tissue, it’s time to make myself dinner and climb into a melancholy dreamland of rest and regret. From this day forward, if you ever get a card from me, trust it will be freshly picked and never too belated to matter when it really could have.