I just realized–after two and a half hours at the dealership–that everyone else in the service area has someone to share their news with. Men and women with kids or teens, find out the news and then make a call (“it’s a starter” “it’s not the engine” “I told him to fix it”). Now granted, I text Rose and told her but she didn’t need to know. I just wanted to share my news with someone too. 

These people have someone that has to know about their vehicle diagnosis. And I look at them. They have someone waiting on them and their cars. Sadie doesn’t care the Maxima is getting a brake job. Sadie doesn’t care that this is causing me to miss kickboxing. My stomach growls. I growl. 

No one here cares about the Thanksgiving Jäger Massacre of 2015. They were busy. Busy with the people who needed to know about the starter. Nagging one another (“are you wearing that?” “Hurry we are gonna be late”). And devouring family dinners. 

So many of these are accurate. 

I envied the literary couples as I left Barnes & Noble.  There were at least three pair of them (and a man in a skirt running, but that’s a different blog).  Holding hands and having conversations I couldn’t hear.  I have always wanted to be one-half of a literary couple.  What does that feel like?  What conversations do they have?  Do they split up and go to different sections once inside the store, like a divide and conquer concept? They look so happy.  I mean, duh, they are obviously part of the world population that is getting laid and walking into a store that sells coffee and books.  Why the hell wouldn’t they smile?! My best friend Barry and I used to go to bookstores all the time together in high school and college. That’s the closest I’ve ever had to sharing the bookstore with someone.  This has always been a desire and yet unfulfilled.  I want to hold hands and and not be alone in the store with both coffee and books.  

I watched them and wondered about their relationship and how they came to be such happy, cute literary couples. And then, as I unlocked my car door, I smirked.  The irony of this world is that you have no idea who may be watching you and envying your life.  I stood apart from these other patrons in the parking lot.  Not simply because I was single, but they all looked as if they had not been to work today (or they don’t dress like I do for work) and here I was looking uber professional.  So it here was that the girl in a dress that was originally marked well over $100, a beautiful and originally exorbitantly priced blazer, cubic zirconia jewelry (no one knows that) (ok, now everyone knows that), a $6,000 watch, dress pumps, and a plastic bag containing the poetry of Charles Bukowski was eyeing these people in awe.

I don’t mean to sound like “hey look at me, I’m the only pretty girl in Gulfport”–not at all, we all know that’s false–but I mean if you’d look around at us and had to guess what was going through our minds, it probably wasn’t that.  In fact, seeing as how life works so oddly, it would not surprise me at all if one of the couples wasn’t discussing how pathetic my life must be to have to dress up everyday and wear a tub of makeup.  And now I’ve gone off in a whole tangent of a paragraph feeling the need to justify what I felt was ironic.  Kinda takes away from the irony doesn’t it?

Anywho, I’m leaving the desire to meet a guy who wants to go to the bookstore with me on the bucket list.  But for now, diving into my Bukowski.  He gets it.  Me and Bukowski in the bookstore….there’s a novella waiting to happen.

“Is this real?” he had asked her. She didn’t know. But the question kept her up that night long after he was gone. Was it real? Her reality had been cosmetic and she no longer dabbled in the deep end of the universe. Experience is a cruel and persistent instructor. Like the slap of a ruler across knuckles, it had in the harshest and swiftest of blows thrown her to the shallow waters. Given her ample reason to believe that she had no business believing in things that drove the poets, artists and musicians mad. 

Hours in the middle of the night turned over into a day and she stared at a mosquito and asked it, “Well, do you know?…was it real?” A mosquito flying around while the heater noisily skyrockets the utility bills! What nerve. While the survival skills of the mosquito impressed her, she couldn’t let it live. She watched it fall to the cold ground and sighed. 

She liked numbers. Numbers and figures are safe. Though many a man has died because of them, it was usually a bad bet or some sort of emotional charge that killed not the numbers themselves. They were rational. They made sense. But as she looked at the mosquito she couldn’t help but think, “are the numbers really real or do we just believe they are and accept that the math makes sense when the truth is we can call a 2 anything and as long we believe it is what we call it, it’s real to us.”

I spoke of you today. Did your ears burn? Does that work when you’re half the world away? Oh wait, you may be stateside again. I had not considered that until just now. I prefer you far, far away in a foreign and magical land. Or was the magic something inside me? No, I think it was partially the magic of the Italian countryside. After I know you have vacated the beautiful foreign land, I want to go back. I want to go the house I took pictures of and write about the scars inside me. And how I managed to gather a few on the outside in trying to heal those within. 

I said the words today to someone.  I told him how you managed to break my heart not once but twice in a single lifetime. My throat closed up. The words were hard to form and even harder to get out of my mouth. But you see, this man said he deals strictly in truths. And you are the beginning and the end of my truth. No one can know me without knowing that part of the story. And he listened to the few sentences I could form about you. He listened with kind, knowing eyes. Had we not been in public I may have used his sweater to wipe the tears away, but that’s not much like me. 

It felt good to be honest and perhaps in a small way, just maybe, possibly by looking into his kind, knowing eyes and releasing the truth to him, it freed me from you just a bit. I wanted to run, but I didn’t. I stayed and I finally said –in a vague way though–how it killed a part of me. It isn’t that I don’t believe in love. Oh quite the contrary. I know it’s real. I have the scars to prove it, inside and out. I told this man about the scars on my hands. He shares a love of Bukowski. You wouldn’t like Bukowski. 

Or would you? That’s the problem with the truth, I fell for your lies and so it troubles me not knowing what was real and what exactly was false. What’s truth? How much was honest and how much was just a game?  

It’s all grey matter now. Whatever I thought was black and white got all mixed up. A giant, dusty pile of greyness. When everything collapsed, a cloud of dust filled parts of my soul and, as the man with kind eyes and sexy shoes noted, women are notorious for being messy. I just keep it in the corner of my soul and don’t look there anymore. I haven’t looked in a couple of years now. It’s not safe over there. It hurts to get near it.

And now I wonder, does pain beget pain? It’s quite impressive how I have subsequently managed to pick out a couple of the absolute worst people on the planet to trust. Miserable failures. It’s like your ghost is here helping me create more pain. Maybe it’s the dusty, grey debris field clouding everything. I tiptoe around it, trying not to stir anything, afraid what might happen if I look at it. 

The attractive man with those kind eyes that pulled me in like magnets said he believes it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. 

Maybe one day I will go to the house in Italy and write. Maybe there I can pick through the collapsed parts and see if anything is salvageable. 

  
 Walking down an Italian road, we came across this vacant property and I dreamt of renting it and writing a novel there.   
    
 

Sitting on the patio with a cup of decaf and listening to leaves rustle as Sadie checks the perimeter of the yard. The moon is a perfect crescent that looks like something should be hung from it. For some unknown reason the term “Prince Charming” came to mind. As I sip my coffee, it occurs to me that Prince Charming really isn’t my kind of guy. 

I’m not attracted to the perfectly polished type with proper poses and charm. I prefer much more grit in my man. I want someone who has been through some messy times and came out ahead. I like wit, humor, and of course some good looks (who doesn’t?) but I prefer above all a man with a story. I can’t tolerate a complainer. The narcissist phase has ended (once was quite enough, thank you). 

Not that any of this really matters. It’s not like I’m on The Coast Bachlorette or anything. My calendar is full, but none of it with dates.  I just find it odd how the older my taste changes. Certainly for the better next time. 

My 37th birthday is in six weeks. I’m not taking it well. AT ALL. Apparently the heavens agree because it’s been nothing but grey and rainy since I realized that yesterday. And since I counted it up, the dooming thought of turning 37 is eating me up. I painted my toe nails about half an hour ago. I looked down just now and realized this color is not 37 years old appropriate. I’m not sure this bright purple is 36 years old appropriate! But I’m too lazy to change it now. 

This aging thing isn’t depressing because of nail color; that’s simply a reminder of bigger issues. One day I was 30 and had all the time in the world to find someone and start a family. Now? Well, it’s kinda creeping up on me fast. And I’m smart enough not to chase after any old person just to do it before it’s too late. But that leads to the issue of, “might be time to accept it isn’t happening.” And that is what can be depressing if I let it. I’ve always been stubborn and had visions of the way things should be and slow to let that go. I can do it…it’s just gonna take a minute so please bear with me over the next six weeks. 

One helpful thing is asking myself what would I do differently? Any step off the course I have taken would not have given me the fabulous life I have now. So would I change anything? Maybe. Maybe not. I would tell a younger me to not waste time with people who don’t deserve me. That’s the biggest one. I’d tell the younger me to be alone than with people who suck the life and the good out of me. I’d have learned sooner the difference between alone, lonely, and identifying people who make me feel lonely in their presence. There were many times I put people I loved and their needs far ahead of mine. I’d do less of that if I could turn back time. 

I’d spend less time in bad places, saved a crap ton more money when I could have, and spent more money on experiences and not on useless things. I would have gone out into the world quicker. Found kickboxing sooner!! Quit smoking. Fearlessly be me before now.

Oh the “what ifs” in life will break you down if you let it. So I just won’t let it. I can either be sad things are not the way I thought it would look at 37 or celebrate a life full of lessons. A lot of people didn’t make it this far with me; they too had lots of stuff still left to do and no clue they didn’t have enough time. I might not make it six weeks. Would I rather enjoy the days or mourn what’s already passed? I think I know the answer to that! 

You know, I can only count one person on the planet I can’t forgive. I realized that this morning after spewing out an angry text. Even I didn’t know I could be that mean. But hey, it’s true.  It’s my truth anyway.  I know certain people–like this one–show everyone a different side and then have so many little images built up that depending on who they are around depends on what guy you see. And if he’d just leave me alone, it would probably make forgiveness come sooner. But more likely, the universe is trying to teach me something. 

Am I happy after I spit fire and feel nothing but ice in my veins? No. 😕 The guilt of being hateful eats me up …and swiftly. You know what else eats me up? Someone with no respect for me, for boundaries and who will gamble in one night the entire sum of money he owes me. If it weren’t for that, I’d block him entirely. Pathetic, but I guess he keeps that hanging over my head as his way of making contact with me. And I know the person behind all the masks. I know he’s a bad person who has nothing nice to say about anyone. And I stoop to his level every time we come in contact. It’s still toxic months after it’s over. And, if I could afford it, I would find a way to pay the loan without his money and then I could block him. 

But like I said, maybe this isn’t about him as much as it is about me. Of all the things I could name and this is the one person I can’t forgive in 36 years. I keep thing of the prayer of Saint Francis. I think my answer is there. It’s the how can I do it that trips me up. How can I find away to thank him for treating me so bad and continuing to do so? What can I do inside me to just let that shit go? 

For now, I shall repeat this until I figure it out.