Plans

One night, while watching The Bachelorette, I started thinking about a comment Jen made. (Yes. The Bachelorette can provoke deep thought!) She was visiting the family of one of the guys, and in passing conversation with a family member about her age of 28, she responded, “I never imagined I would be this age and not married.”

Hmm. I think we all experience this same phenomenon. As a girl, and even into young adulthood, we plan out our lives. We create this “perfect” time frame of what we are going to do when we are going to do it – career, marriage, family. The funny thing is, most of the things we try to plan, are the things that are beyond our control. We don’t always end up where we expect, but where we expect isn’t necessarily where we need to be. Accepting this reality is manageable for some, but for a control freak like me, it can be a day to day challenge.

I think about what I never imagined my life to be at 25. Not that I necessarily planned on having a marriage at this point, but I never imagined being this age and not have had what I would classify as a meaningful relationship. I never imagined being this age and not have truly been in love. I never imagined being this age and still not knowing my career path.

But that’s the thing about life. It takes you on a journey that you can never prepare for ahead of time, but equips you with the tools to handle it one day at a time. Although you might not be where you planned, you are exactly where you need to be even if you cannot see, feel, or understand the reasons why. It is only now, years later, that I realize that the boy that did or did not call, or the job I did or did not get, was ultimately for my good and allowed me to be stronger or wiser or better off.

Truly embrace where you are in this moment, even when you are tempted to play the comparison game with someone else’s life, because you may never travel down this path again. Take time to smell the roses (i.e. savor the selfish shopping sprees, relish in your scandalous single stories, and maximize your body’s ability to stay up until dawn). Have faith in all the good that is going to enter in your life, because the best things that happen are those that are the unexpected.

Too Much Information

This was difficult to write only because there is an embarrassment factor, but I know I’m not the only one. At least I hope. :) I’ve since cured myself from this curiosity and have learned to let some bygones be bygones.

We all do it. Some of us have only done it once. Some of us do it once in a while. Some of us have just one. Some of us have many. We do it in the privacy of our own homes and would never divulge our secrets to our best friends. But, how many of us are willing to fess up and admit that we are guilty? Guilty of Googling. It’s snooping and spying for our generation.

It started so innocently. It was like when you have a box of chocolates and you take just one. And before you know it, you have taken another. And before you know it, you have eaten the entire box. You just couldn’t resist! All you wanted to do was just see what he was up to. Was he listed in the alumni pages for a job promotion? Did he move? Did he get married? The last is the source of what cured me of this snooping thing for good. I knew I shouldn’t have been doing it, but it once you start, it’s difficult to self-restrain.

It was a random summer Saturday night and for some odd reason I was home alone, bored, and surfing on the Internet. (Yes. Me. Shocking, I know.) I took my Googleing one step too far on this particular evening. While perusing a wedding website for the registry of another friend, I got this bright idea to enter a certain someone’s name into the registry search. I knew there was no way his name would show up. I mean, there was no way he was getting married any time soon. It was unfathomable! Our biggest issue was his lack of time for me and the fact that there were just too many priorities before me on his list.

Well, my eyes almost popped out of their sockets!!! Much to my chagrin, he indeed was getting married. On that very day. That very night. I couldn’t help to think that at that moment, as I sat there in a daze, all alone on a Saturday night, he was off having the time of his life at his wedding. It just wasn’t fair! Not that I thought we were meant to be together – at least not anymore. But he wasn’t supposed to be happy! He was still supposed to be regretting that he gave up the best thing that he ever had, not finding someone new, moving on, and starting a life together. If anyone deserved to find someone, it was me!

Well, if I’ve learned one thing recently, it’s that life is not fair. Yes, I’ve known this for a while, but for some reason it’s still hard to accept when these things happen. I also learned that you have to make the best of what you have, roll with the punches, and move on. Focus on the good already in your life, and look forward to the good that is yet to come.
So after I vented and ranted and raved, I moved on and decided that some things are best left unknown. Operate in the present and concern yourself only with the people in your life who truly matter - they are the ones deserving of your energy.

Redemption

In the world of dating and random encounters of the dating kind, there a lot of cases in which you get screwed. Figuratively. When it seems as if there is no justice. He doesn’t call back. He conveniently forgets to tell you about his child. He is unfaithful. He marries someone else. But once in a while there is a glimmer of hope and you realize that there is, indeed, justice in this world.


Life is funny that way. You think you’ll never find another. Things started off so well and with so much potential before suddenly going sour. So you move on. And then one day….

Redemption. It’s at its best when it’s unexpected. Maybe it was that random evening he saw you and someone new walking hand in hand down the street and you knew he wanted to just kick himself for screwing up with a gorgeous girl like you.
Maybe it was the time that another guy kissed you in the back of another cab and made the first time a distant memory. Maybe it was meeting that other guy who could finance your expensive taste. Maybe it was the issues you found out he was experiencing in his nether regions. Or some other perfectly just act of redemption.

Whatever the case, this type of justice is as rare as the boy actually calling back when he says he will, so bask in the glory of it while it lasts. Let it compensate for all the other hurts and pains and injustices you have experienced and move on. It can only get better from here!

Not Into Me?

Ladies, we are lucky. Finally someone wrote some sense into our worlds and all of our questions were answered in just six simple words – he’s just not that into you. It’s easy, sensible, and rational. But before we allow ourselves the chance to get over it and accept the reality of the situation, we must allow ourselves to wallow in the fantasy. The point between the hope that he’ll call, and the acceptance that he’s not going to after all. That limbo in which you allow yourself, for the last time, to think about what could be before admitting to yourself that it’s not going to be. You are not alone. I hope you can commiserate and realize that even when it seems as if you will never get over it, you will. You are stronger than you think.

I’m starting to break a sweat now as I get into a rhythm on the elliptical machine at the gym. If I have nothing else after all of this, I’ll have really toned thighs. I keep my mind (and eyes) off the passing minutes by propping up this month’s Cosmo as a distraction. I manage to keep my balance as I savor the glossy pages between my fingertips.

About 17 minutes into my workout, I come across the article that beckons, “Read me!” My eyes immediately fall over, “Rule #1 – If he doesn’t call back in one week….” (This was prior to the “He’s Just Not That Into You” phenomenon so this was my wake up call.) In that instant, it all changed. The truth was blazing in front of my eyes and I had to face the reality of the situation. I mean, all of my rationales and excuses and explanations were being refuted right before my eyes. Couldn’t he have been really busy? You know, being a doctor and all. Busy saving lives and what have you. And maybe there was some familial crisis that prevented him from reaching out to me.

Realistically, those practical bones in my body were telling me the truth I was so desperately trying to deny. He wasn’t going to call. Naturally, I should have taken Cosmo’s (and my trusted friends) advice and not tried to hold onto the idea that this time it might be different. At that moment, I should have cut the ties I’d already established in my mind – the weekend excursions, the parties with friends, the romantic dates. You know, the trip to Belmont he promised – and the Louis I know I’d for sure have gotten with our winnings. The weekend excursion to Atlantic City sharing a glorious room for 2. The picnics we’d share on a blanket in the park while we lay in the grass and talked about much of nothing. All the while being the envy of the single girls. The list is endless.

All the things I could have ever wanted. So many checks off my list. I couldn’t give up hope yet, could I? For the first time, in a long time, I had let myself be open to the idea that this could be a reality rather than my usual living vicariously through everyone else. I had let my guard (and my walls) down for some odd reason.

The time ran out on the elliptical machine like time runs out on a statute of limitations. I’d have to face it. This was the one I’d let get away. Weeks have passed since our initial meeting and I’ve gotten over him. Sort of. Rationally I have. I’m even almost over the idea of him, except those moments when I allow my thoughts to wander back to that whirlwind evening. Although I am not quite ready to take his number out of my cell phone, I’m sure one day I will be. Perhaps one day our paths will cross again, hailing a cab or on the dance floor. But until then, I’ll have to settle for my memories.

This isn’t where the story ends. At the time I penned the words, it was the finale. I am happy to report that as always, time heals all wounds. I managed to delete the number from my cell phone without as much as a second thought. Someone else came along and I kissed them in the back of a cab. I had someone else tell me how beautiful and wonderful I was. I nursed my bruised ego, dealt with the deeper issues I wasn’t addressing, and finally realized what my dear friends had been telling me all along - I didn’t let him get away. He let me get away. He didn’t take the time to see all that I was and I want to be with someone does. So on to new stories, new beginnings, and finding one that’s just that into me.

Giving Up

So I'm giving up all the lists. All the "I wants" and the "he needs to have" checklists of requirements that haven't gotten me any further than where I started. Because life isn't a fairy tale and things don't always work out the way you planned in the real world. And sometimes the man with the most checks fails to be all you need and expect him to be. The reality of finding who I'm meant to be with will far exceed any school girl (or school teacher) fantasy of perfect molds cast in the figment of my imagination.

While I can't say what exactly it is I am trying to find or how that is supposed to feel, I can say is that what I want is something real. Something that can be found in any man regardless of his idiosyncrasies and quirks and whether or not he plays pick up basketball or frequents museums. Like everyone else, I want the man with whom I can have the amazing friendship and the amazing passion. The man who I can watch the game with, but also walk in the park with. The man who thinks of me as the woman he wants to take home, but also take home to his mom. But mostly I want the man that thinks I'm the most beautiful in those moments right before we go to sleep - slight traces of mascara around my eyes, hair piled atop my head - all traces of the night vanished. That's something I'm not giving up on.