Title: Window Over the Desk
Author: Liz Flaherty
Genre: Essays
Book Blurb:
In 2020, I released the first collection of Window Over the Sink columns. It was for my family, really, and to give my own ego a boost. (Any writer who says she doesn’t need that now and then is lying, by the way.) It was so much fun. Which is why I decided to open the Window Over the Desk. My view out this particular window is a favorite—even today, when I’m drying…things…on the clothesline. Also today, the hay bales in the field that have given me pleasure for several weeks have been gathered and stored for the long winter. I hope the essays in this book give you some pleasant reading time over that winter. I hope they make you remember things, laugh sometimes, and refill your cup and sit down and read “just one more.” As I mention way more often than is necessary, I’m kind of old. The years have dimmed some reflections through the window, brightened others, and changed a whole bunch of them. What a trip it’s been. Thanks—again—for joining me on the journey.
Excerpt:
Lucky in Love, Happily Ever After, and the Last Man
I didn’t marry the first man I was in love with. Instead, I married one of his friends—who he introduced me to. To make our beginning even more auspicious, the friend didn’t like me. Not even a little bit. Which was okay with me because, you know...I was in love with the other guy. It was fast with the first guy, all heat and adrenalin and being thrilled and scared. Is this it? I’d wonder with my heart thumping. Will I always feel like this? Will he always feel like this? Will we grow old together?
However, sometimes love stories that flash heat and excitement in the blink of an eye go to hell in a handbasket that fast, too. Such was the case of the guy I loved first and me. And it was messy. My heart was broken. Shattered. I wanted to...well, not die, but I wanted it to be all right again. To feel all that heat and sparkle and anticipation. Grow old together? I didn’t even get to be 19!
His buddy had been drafted into the army and was going to be leaving soon. We’d become friends by that time. Did I want to go out?
Sure. Why not? Life as I knew it was over anyway.
We went out a few times, and then he left in July. Came home in December for leave before shipping out to Vietnam. We saw each other almost every day. By the time he left, we were in pretty serious like. He proposed and I said no. For more reasons than one, including the fact that I was still carrying a torch for the first guy.
There’s a lot more to it, but it’s not just my story to tell, so I’ll stop it there. Except that when he came home from ’Nam 14 months later, I asked him to marry me because I was afraid he wouldn’t ask again.
He said yes.
We have nothing in common. Through our married life, we have been at different times labor and management, morning and night, liberal and conservative (that part changed), Protestant and Catholic, country and city, talkative and quiet (and vice versa), writing and music, clumsy and athletic, cat person and no-pets-preferred. I like country roads, he prefers interstates, I could travel once a month forever, he could go forever and never travel again. His favorite color is white. Yes, white. My favorite color is all the others.
But this is where you get to the whole “lucky in love” thing. We have been disagreeing about everything for over 50 years. I think it would have been more peaceful if we’d had more in common―you accumulate a lot of emotional scar tissue in a long marriage to someone who’s wrong about virtually everything―but it wouldn’t have been more fun. We didn’t get married because we thought alike; we got married because we loved each other.
We need a better term for Happily Ever After, don’t we? So many of the Ever After days are sad, angry, or dreary. There are door-slammers, suitcase-packers, and don’t-talk-to-me periods among the waking hours. There are times of intense loneliness and times you’d sell your soul for just a few days alone.
But I hardly ever think about the first guy I loved, whereas I start and end every day with his friend. We’ve said “I love you” every day for those more-than-50 years. And done our best to show it. (Sometimes “our best” sucks. Just sayin’.) Lucky, yeah, but luck in love needs to be intentional, doesn’t it?
First love was fun. Exciting. That flash of heat. Last love, though—it’s just the luckiest thing there is.
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If you’ve been a mom with a houseful of teenagers, if you’ve been a wife for a really long time, if you’ve worked at a demanding job at the same time, you’ve probably been overwhelmed. At least, I was. If you have been, I hope you laugh and cry with me at some of these essays.
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Author Biography:
Liz Flaherty is rather bewildered by where she’s at in life. She doesn’t feel…er…elderly, but the truth is that she is. The Magnificent Seven grands have grown up on her, her own kids are all now older than she is, and her husband Duane has the same firm hold on her heart he’s always had.
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