Caterwauling

All right, I know I should be getting ready to go out, and I can’t find the shirt I want to wear, but I sort of had an epiphany and don’t know what to do with it.

A friend of mine ran into a guy she used to date. He got married not too long ago. (Is this a recurring theme lately?) And he’s miserable. He used to be good-looking, and my friend said he’s still hot, but he doesn’t have that spark anymore that was always unmistakable.

He was thrilled to see her. Said he thought back to when they were together and how much he missed being with her. That he wonders what if they’d taken that next step, would they both be happy? (She’s with someone, too, but I don’t get that the positives outweigh the negatives at this point.)

And I thought back to my situation and it dawned on me — are we all waiting for rescue? Do we go that green mile and hope that if the universe itself doesn’t intervene, that someone else will stop us in the nick of time?

There was an image on PostSecret.com last week, a postcard someone sent in of a couple and a priest looking at the camera, captioned, “I waited for you to show up and stop me. You didn’t.” The image haunted me in a way I cannot put into words.

I wondered, when someone tells you that they’re getting married or they’re really making a go of whatever they’re in, what their motivation is. Like when I’ve gotten “those” calls to tell me how happy they are, what was my reaction supposed to be?

I mean, I’m getting to the age that every guy I date moves on and marries the next girl he meets. I feel like “Sally” when she tells “Harry” in that beloved movie that the guy who said he didn’t want to get married, just didn’t want to marry her.

But what if they’re calling not necessarily for your approval — or, more likely, so you don’t read it in the paper first — but for your disapproval?

What if I were less of what I consider to be the “better” person — what if I said, “Oh, HELL no!” instead of squelching any feelings of loss I might have experienced? What if I said, “You fool!” and begged them to think really damn hard about what they were giving up in me.

But I’m not like that. You wanna leave? Buh-bye. Your loss. I’ll shut off my emotional spigot by putting a bullet in it. You wouldn’t hurt me if you really cared about me.

Someone said something to me two days ago that really got under my skin. She pointed out how I get to a point where I’m like, “OK. Whatever you say.” That I don’t stand up and fight for what I want past a certain point. That I internalize my disappointment and disgust and my dreams if it means that someone else can go off and be happy. At least one of us should be, I always reason. Apparently it wasn’t my turn to be.

Ugh.

Just, ugh.

I hate that about myself, my inability to fight for what I want.

What my friend said, though, is that just because someone declares what THEY want or that THEY decided on, doesn’t make it right. Furthermore, I should just open my damn eyes already and realize that they are approaching me because they RESPECT me, that they want to find out MY opinion on the situation. That they feel like they need to tell me what THEY decided but that they are WAITING for me to throw a hot fuss and give them the thing they need to consider that, well, hasn’t OCCURRED to them yet.

I never thought of it that way.

I never dreamed that I could argue with someone whose mind was made up.

That’s why I don’t talk politics. You want to think Dubya is the best president on earth, well, I don’t argue with the criminally insane. 😉

I don’t fight battles I’m clearly not going to win. Even if I know I’m the voice of reason that could change your world if you’d just let me.

Let that resonate with you for a minute like it just did with me. …

“I could change your world if you’d just let me.”

Do you walk away, thinking that I DON’T care if I don’t make my case against whatever it is you’re telling me is supposedly true?

Do you walk that green mile to the altar, looking over your shoulder, hoping I’ll be the crazy person who shows up and says you’re marrying that mess OVER MY DEAD BODY?

Because you know it would take me that long to get my shit together and do it, if I had the balls to.

Once in my life, I made a last-ditch attempt to keep someone in town who’d met that “dream girl” (not the way I’d describe her, but I digress) and they were moving out-of-state together. And you know what? I was too late.

I was waiting for someone else to make the miracle in that situation. But maybe that miracle had been in my hands all along.

I’m tired of saying, “Your loss.” When the loss is equally shared, if it meant nobody fought for it but they sure as hell wanted to.

I always figure, why make even more of an ass out of myself when I’ve just been mortally wounded?

But in battle is when people discover their superhuman strength. That’s when that adrenaline arsenal gives you that kick in the ass that will carry you through. You can recover from it later. But your time to fight is NOW.

I can stare in the mirror and give a million reasons why I shouldn’t stand up and fight. Especially if you don’t know anything about your opponent. And why would the person you care about even bring an opponent for you onto the field if they cared about you in the first place?

I’m more likely to fire up a song like Shakira’s “Don’t Bother” in that instance (i.e., “I promise you won’t ever see me cry”) than strap on a set and say, “No, I don’t accept this.”

But what am I interested in preserving? The peace? Jesus, that’s the first thing to go out the window. The only peace is the silence that follows, and it’s uneasy at best.

I don’t know. In my last case of getting “that call,” I faked cheer. Said I was thrilled for him. He was quite taken aback at that. I was wondering what he wanted me to say, but that he called me at work when I couldn’t really talk, well, I didn’t expect that he wanted me to beg him to reconsider his position. Fuck, he’d given her a ring. My pathetic little plea wasn’t going to change that.

Or could it?

So when my friend found herself staring at her ex and reliving all the good times, do you write it off as resignation, that they fucked that one up and they were going to spend the rest of their lives regretting it. Or do you see an opportunity for Fate to intervene and to right the course that had clearly gone so wrong?

I don’t want to lose out on any more miracles. Even if that means I have to make my own. Losses are only compounded by the “What Ifs.” I’d rather move forward, knowing I made them stop and think.

But I’ll tell you, I admit that if I’m the one about to walk down the “wrong” path, I’ll be the first one to say that I hope someone, somewhere saves me from it. They might “ruin” a special day, but if they prevent the loss of a special lifetime, I think I’d have no trouble forgiving them … and loving them for it.

Moving slowly today after Sabre’s awesome get-together for Tetris’ birthday. Also not breathing altogether that well, as I blew through almost an entire pack of Marlboro Ultra Lights in one sitting … after not touching a cigarette for months. Corruptin’ mah morals, I tell ya!

I love summer and having all kinds of social stuff to do, so on a whim, I contacted a dating service so I could love it even more. A “relationship counselor” called me the other day to get more of a feel for what I’m looking for, and I’m sad to say I’m almost willing to pay for this adventure.

The other night at Tiff’s comedy performance, one of the other comedians was joking about these services that guarantee you three dates. Doesn’t mean they guarantee you good ones! And sure enough, these people were selling me on all the marriages and long-term partnerships their magic has spawned, but they sure as hell don’t tell you about all the restraining orders and hours of therapy that this odyssey probably inspired. 😉

They asked me to give them the three words that would describe my match. I said, “Doesn’t. Annoy. Me.”

I don’t think they thought I was funny.

When they asked what age range I was considering, I said, “Somewhere between a quarter-life crisis and a mid-life crisis, thanks.”

At this point, they’re saying, “No wonder you’re calling us!”

I did settle on 34-42, if anyone out there in that demographic is reading and wants to save me from paying for the crazy stories I know this journey is going to yield!

But it’s interesting, really exploring with this “counselor” where it all went wrong and what has been missing that I never really even considered. I mean, when they said to describe an ideal first date, I sort of was at a loss. I’m not lacking in things to do — just someone to do them with. And the same person to do them with — if a girl doesn’t have a few different people to call, she’ll be pretty lonely on those other nights of the week that someone else isn’t available.

And as for my ideal first date? Am I hopeless that dinner and a movie is my utopia? I swear, I don’t think I’ve ever done that with anyone other than friends or friends with that question mark attached because you don’t know where it’s going or if it’s going anywhere different.

In any event, my theory on that “boring” first date is that I want to have just enough conversation to determine a boy’s level of intelligence and emotional maturity, and the movie bit takes the pressure off talking — ’cause you know we’re all stressed out from trying to convey enough of ourselves without revealing ALL of our neuroses in one sitting.

The way I explained it was that I am not going to agree to go sky-diving or bungee-jumping on the first date (or ever, but let’s stick with the analogy here), only to have a real conversation with the boy on the next date because I don’t want to go, “I jumped out of a plane for this moron? Gah!”

So, really, what’s the reason I’m even doing this? And why now? I don’t know. I guess I was inspired by my colleague’s assertion that his son is getting married this summer after signing up for a dating service. But here’s the deal — as soon as he paid an exorbitant amount of money for this service, he met a girl completely of his own accord.

And he even wondered whether he should take advantage of the dating service anyway, because he’d dumped a few grand into it. But the new girl was firm — you get me, or you go get your money’s worth there. And he chose correctly, apparently, since they’re officially starting their “happily ever after” as I type this.

I want THAT kind of a story. I’m tired of telling stories that make people cringe and laugh sympathetically and say, “Poor you!” I don’t want to always be known as the one who’s better off alone than with the clowns I’m always telling them about.

And most of them aren’t clowns — they’re great people whose most memorable moments in my mind are usually unintentionally comedic. 🙂

My mom even told me recently that I can turn down some of these invitations — no law against it, if I’m not thinking it will be worth throwing on a clean pair of scandalous underwear. And I said it’s almost feeling like my duty to go “do some time” so I can have the story to tell that it will inevitably yield.

It gives me blog fodder, if nothing else. Not like I ever really do spell out my exploits in this space, but you know it’ll all come out in a couple of years when I have another situation that’s frustrating me, I can tell the “old” story to give me some perspective on the new.

Or maybe I’ll be the next one that Serendipity smiles upon, and instead of laughing at the things that have happened, I’ll be giggling with someone about the fact that this period of my life is behind me.

In the meantime, though, I plan to enjoy all the yuks that I can possibly squeeze out of this period of my life!