Between the Lines

I think it’s time to explain two things to you—one is the title of this book and the other is the first part of the dedication. I had an experience many years ago that I would like to share with all of you. I was working as a medical examiner for an insurance company, and on this particular morning I happened to be driving east through Sudbury, Massachusetts. It was seven o’clock in the morning.

At that time of the morning driving east was directly into the sun. That particular day the sun seemed brighter than usual, and I could barely see the car in front of me. Instead of panicking, I decided I would just stay “between the lines”; I figured if I could stay “between the lines,” I would eventually get to my destination. I sat there in silent reflection and realized that driving into the sun was like being in love.

The truth is, when you’re in love, most of the time you can’t see two feet in front of yourself or in the case of love, two days into the future. I won’t sit here and tell you there’s no future in love, because I truly believe there is.  What I’m trying to say is that when you’re in love, more often than not you have no idea what the future holds in store for you.

The truth is that love is deaf, dumb, and blind. Love is deaf because when we are in love we have a tendency to turn a deaf ear to the obvious. Love is blind because we don’t always see what is staring us in the face, and on occasion love can be dumb because of the stupid things it leads us to do. I will expound on these three notions in a subsequent chapter. 

The other thing I would like to touch upon is a part of the dedication, “to lost love and broken hearts.” I decided to dedicate this book to lost loves and broken hearts because this is the true essence of this book—love! At some point in our lives, we have all suffered a lost love or a broken heart. 

With this in mind, I believe everyone can relate to this book. This book is about love and our ability to hold onto it. When I have the opportunity to be in the presence of a beautiful young woman and I am raising my glass to toast, I will invariably toast to “lost loves and broken hearts, may neither of us ever have another!”

I do believe in the unfathomable depths love can take us, but only if we allow it to! This book is designed to be your “white lines.” I can’t in good conscience sit here and tell all of you that everything I’ve written in this book will help you, but guys, I can’t do everything for you. The object is for each of you to determine what, if any, of this information applies to your situation.

The truth is that writing this book doesn’t mean I believe I know it all. In fact, I will readily admit I don’t know it all. There were times in my life when I wondered if I really know anything about love or relationships. 

When my friend Nicole read an early draft of Between the Lines, she told me the only real problem with what I had written was that I kept saying “I believe” or “I think.” She informed me, I should say “I know,” and I told her I couldn’t do that because I really don’t know. I actually decided to write a whole chapter on what I believe “the truth” is, based on my conversation with Nicole.

That chapter is the thirteenth and final chapter of this book.  Everything I have written in this book, every theory, is based on experience and supposition. I have a vast amount of experience in human relations, some pleasant and some not so pleasant! I can’t sit here in good conscience and tell you I know all that is good or bad in relationships!  I have been blessed with the friendship of a great many good people in my life, and it is their experiences as well as my own that you will be able to benefit from. In some cases I have chosen to change the names to protect the innocent, as well as the not so innocent

To tell the truth, I’ve had my share of blunders in love and in life. I’ve literally made every mistake in this book! If any of you are reading this book hoping to learn about love or relationships from a modern-day Sigmund Freud, perish the thought. I am not now nor have I ever been a psychologist or a psychiatrist. I really am just like all of you. I just have a little more time on my hands than most.        

I’ve actually been writing this book for fourteen years, the completion of which has been interrupted by a marriage or two. I don’t profess to have all the answers. None of us really does.

We all want to go through life believing that there is a “soul-mate” out there for all of us, that one beautiful person whom we can spend all of our waking hours with. I believe outer beauty is transitory. It comes and goes with age.  That outer beauty is borrowed. All that truly matters is the beauty inside each of us.