Divorce, Self-Esteem, and Hummingbirds

I never saw hummingbirds "up close and personal" when I lived in Minnesota.  Now that I'm in southern California I have a feeder outside my window where I write. I hung it out there just recently and was totally awed and elated when this little guy came by.  It was the first time in all my years on this planet that I could observe a hummingbird up close.  I call him "Pumpky" for some reason.  I open the bottom part of the window and sing to him  He comes to visit the feeder about ten times a day.  People say that if you have one hummingbird, you actually have six. They also ask why I think it's a male.  I have no idea, I just liked saying, "I love him." 

And now it's been weeks since Pumpky and/or his clan has been visiting. And it's become an everyday kind of thing.  I have to ask myself, "Should I take yet another picture of him at the bird feeder?"  Whether or not this is the same hummingbird that comes to my window each day, there are a thousand things I could explore about the one I call mine. And yet, I haven't.  Life is getting in the way. His coming and going has become a bit commonplace. Don't get me wrong.  I still love him.  I still want him to come by every day. I really, really, really do.  It's just that I can feel myself start to take Pumpky for granted like I do the perennial palm trees and stunning hibiscus and brilliant bougainvillea that bloom so plentiful here in Orange County. 

I was married for 18 years before I knew I was becoming commonplace.  Was I any less amazing at that time or even now as I was the first time he saw me and started to fall in love?  No. I was always me.   

I could take this little thought in all kinds of directions--how we need to find a way to not become commonplace to our spouses--how, conversely, we need to find ways to make our spouses continually intriguing to us,  I could add that when we are intrigued with them, it makes them more intrigued with us.  But I  don't want to take this there. 

I want to speak to only to my peeps, to "the walking wounded," those of us who have been abandoned, discarded, replaced.  I want to tell you to keep the image of the hummingbird in your mind and let it help you realize that even a creature as amazing as a hummingbird, as delicate a beauty--a tiny being who illustrates a remarkable adaptation studied by scientists and engineers--even a hummingbird can lose its fascination in the eyes of a person who has let it become commonplace. It can happen to hummingbirds and princesses and some of the loveliest people in the world. It happened to us. Someone took his or her eyes off of our essence, but that essence is still there.