time for a change

brown hair. blue eyes. older. career oriented.

ex. 

I obviously have a type. The type is not working for me. My dad, smart man that he is, suggests that I date people with my hair color. Apparently matching hair is the key to relational success. Its a nice idea? But it's been a while since I've met a blonde guy without the word 'Player' written across his head or the phrase "'scuse me bro" coming out of his mouth. I'll pass.  

How about eyes? I don't generally notice eye color right off the bat, but maybe I'm drawn to blue eyes because daddy has blue eyes. Don't girls subconsciously attract to guys who remind them of their dads? My subconscious likes blue eyes. I can change that. The next one won't have blue eyes. 

They don't get much younger than me without coming with a statutory rape warning. And I've known since 4th grade that guys mature 4 years slower than girls mentally. (Is that a true statistic? Or at some point does it even out? Regardless.) Thats why I date UP. I don't think I need to change that one. If he is older, I'll always be younger. I just like the prospects. 

I don't necessarily want to be featured on the next "Real Housewives of _____" series, but I wouldn't mind being taken care of. Sounds like a pretty posh arrangement to me. How does a girl get herself taken care of? Marry a guy with a serious job. A serious job with serious money and a serious future. Doesn't that mean that now, in his 20s, he'd need to be pretty career oriented? I vote yes. But, this one has a crossroads. I wouldn't ever be happy as just a housewife. I need a job. I need a career. I need to do something I love doing. So.. am I the one doing the care-taking? Alright. I can get rid of career oriented, but the kid better still have a job. I am not going to be Britney to anyone's Kevin. 

Brown hair. Brown eyes. Older. Life oriented. 

Enough of a shift? 

Brown hair. Brown eyes. Younger. Life oriented. 

Hope so. Fingers crossed. 

L 

fearless

I don't know how it gets better than this

The first night was full of harmless flirtation. Subtle at points, but sometimes terribly obvious. We parted at day break, leaving the dark night to go into a gorgeous sunny day. Still, though, separate.

You take my hand and drag me head first, fearless

The suspense built for two days while we went on with our lives in separate places. Two long days. Really, days the regular length, but oh how they stretched out while waiting for replies to text messages and thinking up clever but cute responses once the phone decided to chime.

And you know I want to ask you to dance right there, in the middle of the parking lot

It seems to take forever, but I finally see him again. We meet downtown; I walk in and see him waiting for me. I catch his eye and I swear his eyes smile. We start sitting at least a foot apart. Minutes pass. Move closer. 6 inches. 4. I don't have to try to seem magnetically attracted to him this time, I just am. I don't have to wonder if he noticed my hand brush by his, he notices. Suddenly it's so simple. It happens all by itself. Gravity really does want us to be closer.

Absent mindedly making me want you

We leave, each driving ourselves, and meet somewhere else where his friends are waiting. I try my best to be surreptitious, no one needs to know I am here with him. That's for me to know. That's for me to smile about. Some subtle hand holding. Some half hugs. Some smiling glances. Someone else tries to make a move on me, and immediately I'm whisked out the door. No questions asked. No words to speak, I know he wants me to himself. Heart racing.

So baby drive slow, until we run out of road

He gives me a ride home. Smiling. Holding hands. I feel like a giddy teenager on a first date. All hope, no fear. No past, no present, no fear of the future. Everything has fallen into place and I wasn't afraid for a minute. I'm floating through the night, and so quickly it's over and I'm back to solid ground. Walking to the door, I feel like it's all over too soon. Why can't it last till day break again?

Wait.. why can't it?

And it does.

You stood there with me in the doorway

My hands shake

I'm not usually this way but

You pull me in and I'm a little more brave

It's the first kiss, it's flawless, really something

It's fearless

Fearless.

L

*lyrics from Taylor Swift's Fearless

sleep smiling

One of the steps to recovery is trying again.

I was convinced I wouldn't try again. I'd avoid whatever came my way, change the station whenever a love song played, and generally devote my nights to reruns of Frasier and 30 Rock. (Okay, so my nights will probably always be devoted to reruns of some sort. TV is my first love. I cannot move on from that one.)

BUT! In the words of Taylor Swift:

"Hey Stephen,

boy, you might have me believin'

I don't always have to be alone."

Mm, I can't help myself.

I've been listening to 'Hey Stephen' all night, texting digital sweet nothings back and forth with my own Stephen, understanding more and more why Taylor wrote this song.

"Can't help it if I wanna kiss you in the rain, so...

Can't help it if there's no one else.

I can't help myself."

I know I've felt all of this before, but it has been so long, and I was so convinced it'd be longer. So, even if this is destined to be short lived or tainted with unpleasant residual emotion, this smile has been plastered across my face all day. And now I'm going to sleep, and the smile... doesn't look like its going anywhere.

Sleep smiling. It sure has been a while. :)

L

the butterflies

The first steps are cautious.

I wonder, 'does he want me to text?' or 'is he just saying it to be nice?'. I flirt, shamelessly, to see how he reacts. Nothing. Did he notice? Should I be more bold? My hand grazes his. It wasn't a mistake. Does he think it was? If I do it again, is that too obvious? I want it to seem like I'm being magnetically attracted to him, like gravity is pulling us together, not like I'm calculating my every move to be closer to him.

But I am. Oh but I am!

Hours upon hours of this game of hit and miss, hit and hope. And hope. And hope.

And before I know it, the night is morning. The sun is coming up and we are right where we started, making subtle friendly gestures and holding eye contact longer than necessary. I am not sure where I stand, where he sees me, if he sees me.

Morning breaks, and I've all but given up.

I wonder, 'is he happy i left?' or 'is he thinking about me? what is he thinking?'. I drive away, and my phone chimes. My heart skips. My hands tense. My stomach twists.

Caution be damned.

Text message, from him: "I'm thinking I should have kissed you goodbye".

"You're probably right"

"Dammit"

Oh those beautiful butterflies.

L

the other side

Instead of romanticizing the lives of other people, try to think about how they might feel. The teenager walking down the street in the black t-shirt with the angry look on his face may actually be faking that scowl to seem more self-assured than he is in this questionable neighborhood. The woman with the Chanel earrings and Louis Vuitton bag chatting on her cell phone at Starbucks may not be the stuck up city girl her looks suggest, perhaps she is visiting her sister and borrowing her accessories.

I am not a big people watcher, but I think the general ideas behind it might be useful in multiple situations. For example, to help dig up a smile when a frown is looming and imminent.

The frown: Instead of seeing someone who looks remarkably like J at the mall today with a blonde woman, I imagined J shopping with ‘her’, even though he would never shop with me. Instead of recognizing that the person there was not J, my mind began to spin and tumble, convincing me that J would shop with her, that he would even enjoy shopping with her.

Walking to the car, I noticed my hands were shaking visibly. And why? Because there are brown haired men in the mall? Irrelevant. My mind’s treacherous story had already spun itself a web all through my imagination. 

As I got into the car I said out-loud to myself, for no reason I can account for, “what is on the other side”. I can only assume that I meant the other side of this river of heartbreak. The drive home convinced me otherwise.

The smile: Instead of seeing someone who looks remarkably like J at the mall today with a blonde woman, I imagine J shopping with ‘her’. Instead of being upset that J would shop with her when he would never shop with me, I wonder if J likes shopping with her, or if his being there is only a quick trip because she offered to buy him a new tie. Instead of being heartbroken and crying on my way to the car, I imagine the webs his mind would spin if he had seen someone who looked remarkably like me in an unusual place.

He is just as shaken as me.    

That's the other side, and the view from here is so refreshing.

L

past perfect

Ever seen the ABC show 'Samantha Who?' ? The main character, Samantha, was hit by a car and has had amnesia for about 2 seasons now. She's trying to live an honorable life and be a friendly wonderful person, but every so often (about once an episode, coincidentally...) she gets a flashback from before the accident triggered by a similar situation to which she promises to react differently. In these flashbacks she is an evil bitch, just a horrible backstabbing egomaniac. That's all the background you'll need to catch up with tonight's thought process. 

Lately, I am Samantha. I feel as though I have forgotten everything before 2005! I remember meeting J up until now, but when it comes to remembering dates before J, my lifestyle before J, how I operated around men before J, I am a blank slate. 

Until the flashback.

This morning I was hit with a bit of insight into the pre-2005 L. It hit me like a rock this morning because last night I was her. And to be honest, for the last 2 months, I've been her. And she... she was not always the nicest person. 

Shall I decompress that cryptic file? 

Since I don't remember how my relationships and flings functioned pre-2005, I wasn't entirely sure how to flirt or date when J and I first cut loose. I tried to stay out of the line of fire, flirt lightly to get the hang of things, not get into anything serious. I succeeded! 

Or so I thought. 

Pre-2005, as my flashback reminded me, I was... either a bitch or some type of superhero. I led guys on, although I didn't know I was doing it. I'd date a guy for a bit, and then, when I got bored, I'd ignore them until they stopped calling. Does that make me a bitch for leading them on? Or a superhero for attracting all those men and then giving them a taste of their own man-medicine? 

Much as I'd LOVE to say superhero, I'm afraid it is the former explanation thats most logical. 

(damn.) 

Pre-2005: I led guys on. Flirted shamelessly until they were texting multiple times a day, and then I moved on. Cut them out completely without any warning. 

Now: I've already done this to one. As I realized this morning, I'm in the process of doing it to two more. 

The pluperfect tense refers to an action that happened in the past and continues in the present. I am living the pluperfect, minus the literal sentence structure. Am I evil? Or am I me? Do I need to change the pattern before it continues, or is that just me? Is that just how I work, how I find love, how I operate in relationship situations? Do I need to change it up? Do I need to give out a warning? Or should I just learn a better way to give guys the old 'heave-ho' and jump into the fire? 

I thought dating would be the end of the trouble. 

Oh how it seems to have just begun. 

Again. 

L

and show me a sign

There is a tiny tickle at the bottom of my stomach every time I drive far enough up the highway to cross into the city J and I called home. 

It is a really unpleasant tickle. 

That's putting it softly. Too softly. 

In reality, every exit along the highway through that city makes me cringe. My stomach turns. The nausea is equally unpleasant, reminding me of how sick I was when we first broke up. 

Just when I thought I was doing well enough to leave the house with a smile every day, well enough to have civilized conversations with J, I start having emotional reactions to highway signs. 

The natural response to my new-found fear of highway signs is that the signs remind me of J, remind me of my 'old life'. That, however, is not very fun. In fact, that explanation is mundane and predictable. If I'm going to be sick at the sight of a highway sign, I'd prefer a more creative explanation. 

So from now on, when I drive through the city I used to call home and feel that horrible turn in my stomach, I will blame the nausea on the elevation, the increasingly clean air, the disgusting displays of wealth via unnecessarily large vehicles, the infuriating glare of the sun off the carpool lane signs, an inexplicable pang of hunger which I could blame on any number of fast food signs along the 4 exit stretch... 

Or just what it is. Stop avoiding it. 

The highway makes me sick because it has so few overpasses, obviously. A stretch of highway that long should have overpasses. The lack thereof is blatantly responsible for my sickness. 

Off to petition the city council for more overpasses... 

L 

blink, breathe, smile

i blinked today and something changed. 

something changed inside me, but i did not lose my footing. i did not falter. 

i blinked today, something changed, and the day is still going to end with a smile. 

first and foremost, i am not ready for a new relationship. i am not ready for anything. i am too damaged to even spend time with the same person multiple days in a row! i feel suffocated, stifled, and to be quite honest, i get bitchy. i get bitchy and i do not care. i, my friends, am not ready. and happy to say it out loud. 

but i am ready to cut ties with my old relationship. today J and i cut our final tie to one another. we were each still paying subscriptions on a monthly basis that served the other person. when we lived together these were expenses that just evened out. when we broke up there were bigger things to deal with. for the past couple months, salvaging our friendship was more important than thinking about bills that pretty much cancelled each other out anyway. 

but today we took a step. a big step. today we cut our last tie. and i feel fine. 

overall, today i ventured into new territory, and decided that this new place, lonely as it may sometimes be, is exactly where i belong. 

i belong. 

what a wonderful reason to smile. 

L 

vienna

slow down you crazy child, you're so ambitious for a juvenile. 

i've been avoiding reality. you can do it too. just convince yourself that the inevitable is completely negotiable, and then you'll have a fun delusional time just like i've been having. think "it has only been two months, but i am doing GREAT. like nothing ever happened!"... think "we are both moving on, we are doing so well. so completely almost healed."... think "we are still friends. i still love him and want what's best for him, but i'm so okay with us not being together."

but then if you're so smart, tell me why are you still so afraid? 

reality is confronting me and insisting, against all i know to be true in the world, that real life is going to win this round. i can pretend and imagine and tease my mind all i want, but in the end, reality wins. like it or not. i believe the technical term for that is "sucks to be you". this is not the first time it has sucked to be me, you'd think i could handle it by now. why am i still trying to convince myself that my make believe reality is the real thing? why can't i own up to my own life? why am i always hiding from something?

slow down you're doing fine, you can't be everything you want to be before your time.

i still wear my tiara when i get sad. i use too much soap when i do laundry because i love the smell of detergent. i put band aids on anything that hurts, even if there is no visible injury. i keep my mouse ears in the car incase i need them. on that note, i keep a tambourine in the trunk for that same reason. so much of what makes up my me-ness is beyond the scope of a normal reality. i have no regard for saving money. band aids are expensive, but the comfort i get from knowing my ouchies are covered is worth it. i wash clothes that i've worn for only 5 minutes, because i need to smell that familiar detergent smell and know that some things don't change. instead of learning to fix a flat, i learned to call AAA, and have devoted my trunk space to child-like objects. but wearing my tiara when times are tough, that is one protection i'm not willing to give up. that tiny piece of plastic has protected me countless times. 5$ well spent. better protection than any therapist could've given. 

you've got your passion, you've got your pride, but don't you know that only fools are satisfied.

i am well on my way to succeeding at what i wish to do. i am young enough and strong enough to accomplish my academic goals well before i turn 30. even this rift in my plans hasn't thrown me far off course, i'm still moving forward. i am the little engine that could. i have made it this far unscathed, so of course i'll make it the rest of the way with flying colors. right? or am i telling myself that to close out reality. when i take off my tiara, when i've run out of bandaids, when i am paying to do my laundry with a roll of quarters and using generic detergent, will i still 'think i can'? the little engine did it. casey junior thought it long enough and hard enough that he made it up that hill. so i can do it, too! . . . there i go again, replacing reality with story books. the lesson here seems to be that i'm not ready for reality. i can't even face it when i type it all out. 

dream on, but don't imagine they'll all come true.

L

*lyrics from Billy Joel's Vienna