All by myself (don't wanna be...)

So, when I was first single again, for the first time in seven years, I felt invigorated, invincible, inspired- now I feel single and dumpy. What happened?
I should be enjoying this time and making the most of it, not hoping it doesn't last forever. I can do almost anything I want right now- my goal posts are wide open and unmanned.

Howard "Bud" "Buddy" Joseph Tarleton
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On another topic altogether, yesterday- June 3, 2006- was the 17 year anniversary of my maternal grandfather's death. I was almost 15 when he died.
He was a salesman for Kimberly Clark after he got out of the army. He was a WWII veteran, but never, ever talked about the war.
He was my grandmother's second husband- she was a WWII widow the first time around. She and my grandfather met right here at the Jersey shore while she was vacationing here one summer and they moved here permanently in the late 60's, just several years before I was born and after 3 of their 4 children were married. I grew up less than five miles from my grandparents and saw them several times a week plus Sunday dinners and sleepovers on the sofa bed with the steel bar that broke our backs all night. My grandmother laughed about that bed for the rest of her life.
My grandfather was a fisherman and a golfer, too. He retired from KC in the late 70's and in the 80's he took a job at Spring Meadow golf course in Spring Lake.
He often fished at the Manasquan Inlet and had coffee almost every morning at the Freedman's Bakery in Manasquan. Almost everyone would say so about her grandfather, but he really was an extremely kind person. His was the kind of name you could mention if you wanted to find friends. Just by being Buddy's granddaughter I had an instant welcome.
My grandmother is buried with him now. Several days after her funeral I went to the site and laid down on top of the grave under the tree. Thirteen years elapsed between their deaths. It was comforting to be with the two of them together again.