When I sat down to write I truly didn’t know what was going to flow from fingers to keyboard to screen. It’s Sunday night. So I’m doing my thing where I make sure the dishes are done and laundry is in the hamper and lunch is packed. Where I clean out my inbox and respond to any lingering email and pay bills and generally make sure my life is in order to begin a new week.
Only the lamps on the desk and the piano are lit. My iTunes is playing from my favorite “sad and sappy” playlist. My balcony door is cracked open and the blinds are dancing wildly on the chilly breeze that’s rushing into my living room. I can hear the wind thundering through the trees outside. It’s that kind of night high on my hill with nothing to stop it.
There’s a lot on my professional plate about which I’d like to write. Trials and tribulations. Frustrations and goals. Plans I’d like to put in action. There’s the recent visit with PF that I’m still processing. Conversations with Aaron. Reframing of so many relationships in my life. I’ve been taking stock.
And in the midst of that, I’ve been surfing. And I stumbled across a blog entry. Posted on my employer’s blog. The context is not important. The sentiment is. The post talks about our past and how we’re affected by it. How we are deformed by it. That it is always there. Always present. And how we react to it.
And it gave me pause.
Because I’ve been cracking a little under the strain of my life in recent days. My baggage has all come back with a vengeance. My drive and my ambition. My need to have a plan for everything. My belief that if I put up strategic walls it will prevent me from getting hurt. The tears that come with the realization that logic is complete crap. My constant need to fill the voids in my life with project after project. With meaningless sex.
I’ve heard myself say more than once recently, that I’m just tired of being alone. That I’m tired of being on my own. But have I actually been doing that? I look at this blog and see how everything is about a constant search for a partner. For my happily ever after. I’ve been working so hard to get to my finish line. My perfect job and perfect relationship arrangement.
I don’t think that I’ve ever taken the time to actually be on my own. To entertain myself. On some levels, yes. But I can also look at a staggering number of sexual partners in the last two years as evidence to the contrary.
I’ve always counseled friends with the words “if you can’t make yourself happy, you can’t expect anyone else to either.” And the truth is, I’m in love with two pretty wonderful men, both of whom are long distance, and both of whom are pretty clear on the fact that I’m not to be sitting around waiting on them.
In the past I would have approached “not waiting” by strings of random dates. Filling my time with pleasures of the flesh that only leave me empty at the end of the night. On wallowing with sad movies. Junk food and girly magazines. An overpacked social calendar and too many projects that I can really handle.
Instead of exploring the museums that I want to explore. On taking road trips on my own just because. I’ve spent my time at big parties and group outings instead of quiet dinners with the people that matter most. There’s a stack of books on my nightstand waiting to be read. There are career steps I’d like to take that will require work on my end. Simply paying dues isn’t enough. Not to go where I want to go. There’s a type of life I’d like to live and a type of home I’d like to have, and what I’m doing now is only getting me part way there.
A few weeks ago I sat at a bar, across the table from a dear friend, a friend who looked me dead in the eye and said, “girl, you need to simplify.” I’ve taken baby steps that direction. But I think it’s time for bigger ones. Because I know what I want. And I know what I need to do to get there. I’ve just let the path get a little cloudy.
