Escort Service

I lived on the East Coast for all my life until I was 34 and moved to the Pacific Northwest. My story usually goes like this, “my former husband sent out 1 resume for a new job and was hired. The job was in Portland, OR. Before that, I thought I’d never live anywhere on the west except for Los Angeles, being a musician, that made sense to me. But we went out there to check it out, look for a home, meet the company and in the end, he took the job and after living many years in New York City, we moved 3000 miles across the country. It was difficult leaving my family and friends but I knew I needed to leave and experience another kind of living. When I got to Portland I hiked all the time, got a dog and lived in a house instead of the 19th floor of a hi-riser. It was heaven and I felt like I was “home.” (OK Robbie, get to the point!) Ah yes, the point… we got divorced after two and half years, amicably, and both stayed in Portland. In fact, he lived right down the street from me which made it easier for him to visit our dog, Shea. Anyway, the point… always said that he was my escort out of New York and to a new life. But when I said these words again last week, I thought about it and realized that I was also his escort to a new and wonderful life. And when I thought more about it, it made sense to me that we are all escorts for each other. Leading each other to new places, to new depths in emotion, to new lessons. One way or another, you are escorting me to a new experience, and I am escorting you… which makes trusting the way of the universe so much easier. There are always things to be grateful for, even when things don’t work out the way you thought they would, or hoped they would because the truth is, without that thing that didn’t work out, you might not have had the opportunity to so something that was so very fulfilling and such a great pivotal move in your life. Even the rejection of something is somehow an “escort” to another moment, another opportunity to explore. Obviously, we want to be the escorts that offer something meaningful to another person’s life and we want to be attracted to those who do that for us as well. However, some of my biggest upsets in my life, the most painful ones, were the ones that led me to something that I may or may not have had the strength or confidence to do if that particular experience never happened.

My intent is not to minimize the pain of grief or loss, or disappointment because those are very real feelings and no fun at all. But when I am there, now, I feel the pain but there is a little opening in my mind that wonders where “this” is taking me, like a little light shining in the distance on a secluded dark road. So we have all sorts of escorts, ones that we love and appreciate and ones that, well, we love a little less but still appreciate the road they escorted us to. May your next escort take you to somewhere wonderful and deeply enriching

.So grateful that I was escorted in life to meet this man who I am married to now.