So my beloved L and I made reservations at Lola last night.
And although DaDa will always be “our” place, Lola is a very close second in our eyes.
Of course, anywhere that we can order cheese for every course is A-OK by us!
She said there was something different about me last night. I was relaxed in a way I simply haven’t been during the six months she’s been in town.
We attribute it to Philadelphia. I mean, why not, right? 😉
Maybe it’s bigger than that. I really am relaxed about a lot of things right now. When we met, I was in a job that felt about as comfortable as shoving a grown-up size 8 foot into a baby shoe with brute force.
And turning 36 last month wasn’t a huge deal for me, but whereas other people’s biological clocks start to tick, my “my life is half over and what do I have to show for it?” station started to play on my internal clock-radio.
But what I didn’t realize as I was trying to hit “snooze” with a hammer and the song kept playing louder and louder, was that I had experienced way more than I gave myself credit for. And it took going away to see that.
I always felt kind of stunted when it came to matters of the heart. I made a good career and as good a life as I could. But I always felt that I never managed to love or be loved.
And while, one one hand, that’s life … on the other hand, it’s like how can such a reasonably intelligent individual have failed at what some of the stupidest people on earth have found?
And with just a couple of days, the vortex of confusion and self-pity in my head has calmed down considerably. I’ve realized I didn’t just “almost” have it all. I’ve had everything and then some … and perhaps I’ve had it even better than the people who claim they have it better than anyone else.
What I’ve had may have been brief, but it’s been real.
And unlike a certain boy that L used to know, I have far from peaked. He’s wasted every chance and ruined every life that he’s come across. So now he’s in search of the meaning of life in New Age hocus-pocus. (Good luck in that month-long sweat lodge visit where you’re staring at corpulent men in tiny towels. I’m sure THAT will fix your broken soul. *snort*)
It’s in talking with my friends and finding about the douchenozzles they’ve encountered that makes me doubly blessed A) to have such wonderful, worldly friends, and B) that I don’t think I’ve ever actually felt my time was wasted by anyone I’ve loved or been loved by.
So, the calmness you see might be alcohol-induced at times. But it’s mostly a general peace now that the universe hasn’t been withholding anything from me and that the best is truly yet to come … and that all I have to do is be on alert to look out for it when it comes, and be open to receiving it.