ShareThisTwo stories, two different people, same advice.
Some weeks ago, I was at a big event where I knew almost no one. I'm usually fine milling among folks I don't know, but I'd had enough for one night and was headed for the door when I bumped into a good-looking "kid," nice dresser, late 20s, younger than my youngest.
Clearly he'd had too much of something, if only of himself.
"Look at you," he said, grinning, "you're gorgeous."
I laughed. "Thanks, sonny," I said. "Don't try to drive, OK?"
"Wait," he said, taking my arm, "you're also really smart and you know a lot of stuff and I really need your help."
"Excuse me?"
He leaned close. "See that girl over there? She's after me. But I don't know. I think she's a little wacko or something. What do you think I should do?"
I glanced at the young woman in question -- beautiful, poised, definitely a match. Then I smiled at my new best friend.
"Run," I said.
"Huh?"
"Run for your life."
His eyes spun like hubcaps. "I knew it!" he said. "You can tell she's crazy?"
"No," I said. "I can't. But you can. Trust your gut."
He hugged me, promised he wouldn't drive and waded into the crowd with her in pursuit.
It was the same advice I'd have given to anyone, and have, more or less, countless times.
A year ago, our young friend Abby stood in our kitchen and asked me a question.
"How do you know," she said, "when someone is the right person to marry?"
I knew she was in love with Steve. I knew they were "meant" for each other. I think she knew it, too. But she needed to look for the answer a little longer, a little deeper, until it felt all her own.
Some questions -- even if you know the answers -- need time to ripen, like fruit, to perfection.
"You'll know," I promised her. "You'll just know."
Six months later, they were engaged. I couldn't wait to ask: "So how do you know someone is the right person to marry?"
"You can't know for sure," she said, laughing. "You just have to jump into the abyss!"
Last weekend, on a hill green with spring, high above San Francisco Bay, surrounded by family and friends and God and all his angels, Abby and Steve pledged their love and began a journey Tennyson called "that new world which is the old."
My favorite moment in the ceremony was when the rabbi asked, "Will you?" Abby answered, "Absolutely!"
I elbowed my husband, and he smiled.
She knew. She just knew.
Life might be easier without its great mysteries -- without the questions that keep us up late at night raiding the freezer for pistachio ice cream and racking our brains for answers --but it wouldn't taste as sweet.
Some answers -- the truly important ones -- can't be found in the brain. You have to look for them in your heart, search them out on your own. No one can help you. You have to find them for yourself, though a pint or two of pistachio ice cream probably can't hurt.
The heart is a dark and scary place. It takes courage to search it and to live by what you find.
No answer is ever as resolute as one that is rooted in the firm convictions of the heart.
It's the stuff that moves mountains.
It's the faith that walks on water.
It's the difference between "wacko, run for your life" and "absolutely, happily ever after."
How do you know?
You'll just know.
(Sharon Randall can be contacted at P.O. Box 777394, Henderson NV 89077, or at www.sharonrandall.com.)
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