How I Fell In Love & Got Engaged At Age 40

Aka the best birthday present ever!

My search for love has been long and arduous. I’ve had many near misses and wild experiences. Sometimes I would look around at my friends who have been married for many years and wonder whether there was something wrong with me. Why did my relationships contain so much stress and strife? Ultimately, I would always end up walking away because it felt like I had to choose between love and peace.

Even though I had never experienced it, I believed that a relationship should feel good, and calm, and easy. That I shouldn’t have to walk on egg-shells, that I could fully relax around them. That whoever I fell in love with should be smart, and very funny, and very kind, and someone I could completely trust and rely on.

And last year was really a doozy. I felt so bad about my love life that I decided I would spend my 40th birthday in Europe, just so that I didn’t have to mope around my house alone and feel tragic. (Sagittarius South Node = when in doubt, catch a flight!)

But about a month before I left for Paris, riding high on VortexFest vibes, I decided I was too hot and too badass to be miserable! It was time to get back in the saddle and see what dating in Orange County was like. I had previously dated in New York and Los Angeles, and I wondered what the scene was like down here. I got on the apps, and to be honest, I was pleasantly surprised by the assortment!

I started swiping, chatting, and going on dates. I wrote extensively about my dating rules in Hologram Heart, but one that I will live and die by is that first dates should ALWAYS be coffee dates! (Who wants to sit through an entire dinner with someone you may or may not like?! Your time is too valuable, baby!)

So one day, in between a workout and a lunch with my friend Chalene, I met up with this man for coffee. I could already tell by our texts that he was extremely well-educated and thoughtful. And when I met him over lattes, I just wanted to stay there and keep talking to him.

It was a fabulous coffee date. We talked for hours: about the big stuff (marriage, kids, what a relationship should feel like) and the little stuff (where we liked to travel, routines, passions and interests). He invited me to dinner that night but I couldn’t go, so we had dinner a few nights later. I wore a long pink dress with a low back, and he brought me purple roses. We sat in a booth and ate steak and went deep. I did his chart, asked him pointed questions and he just kept surprising me! He might look “normal” on the surface, but there was deep weirdness, unconventionality, and a unique lens on the world underneath. It was at this dinner that I realized I REALLY liked him.

There was so much about this man that compelled me. He was like a luscious rose, every petal containing multitudes. He had experienced so much in his life, so much of which could have hardened him, but instead, it had opened him up. Instead of becoming cynical and jaded, he had maintained his access to the light. He was fiercely competitive and athletic and hard-working, but so kind and gentle with me. He was deep and thoughtful, a sensitive soul who was also wickedly intelligent, and I could see how that had influenced his grown sons (who I adore).

But the clock was ticking on my trip. The day before I flew to Paris, we had lunch. I handed him a copy of my book, Magnetic Mindset, and said, “Since I’m not going to be around, read this book — it will help you understand me!” Then I told him I’d see him in a month!

He organized a car to take Madeline and I to the airport at 4am, and as we rushed towards San Diego airport in the dark, he was texting me to make sure everything had worked out perfectly.

We fell in love long distance. I would wake up in Paris, Rome or Greece, to long paragraphs that made me smile and blush. We would talk on the phone before I went to sleep, and I’d try to laugh quietly so I didn’t disturb Madeline in the other room…

His text messages were pure poetry. At first, they made me nervous, because I worried about whether someone who was so emotionally expressive could actually BE that person in real life. But I decided to throw caution to the wind. I had two choices: I could be suspicious and play it cool, or I could jump into it and have a whirlwind romance. For the first time in my life, I chose to jump straight in.

And it was incredible.

Falling in love with him felt so good. We were chatting all day long, making each other laugh and sending salacious messages. I remember FaceTiming him from a fabulous dinner at Amanzoe to show him the sunset. On my birthday, he organized roses, chocolates, a massage, and paid for our insane dinner. When I was in Rome, he bought me an outrageous birthday present that was a major Cinderella moment. At this point, I wasn’t walking around Rome, I was legitimately floating. I remember stopping to eat an entire pizza at my favorite spot, Le Grotte, and thinking I was the happiest I had ever been: I was completely free, and I was completely in love. It felt more delicious than anything I could remember.

I remember one day in Rome, I walked into Madeline’s room, crying. She asked me what was wrong, and I said, “This man is making me realize there is nothing wrong with me. I’ve been trying to contort myself for every man I ever met, but he completely loves and accepts me as I am.”

I had never experienced anything like it.

By the end of my trip, I was DYING to come home and see him. But I was also completely nervous. We had been sending love notes back and forth, all day every day, for an entire month. But we hadn’t even KISSED yet! What would it be like when we were in the same space? Would we have chemistry? Would it be good? Bad? Weird? Awkward? What are you supposed to say to someone when you’ve been baring your soul long distance?

The flight home from Paris seemed to take forever. I rolled my suitcase into my house around midnight and collapsed, gratefully into my bed.

The next day, I was a bundle of nerves. I didn’t know what to wear, what to do, what to say. I picked a short pink dress out of my closet, and paced around my kitchen.