Tryst

Tonight I said these words: "I'm looking at 30 coming up like I'm staring down the barrel of a gun."

Sitting in the driveway 10 minutes ago with all the lights blacked out and a A Woman's Work streaming out of the speakers, I had ALL these thoughts coming at me like raindrops falling on a sidewalk at the beginning of a storm. Even with rushing right into the house to pound them out on the keyboard, they were streaming by too fast for me to remember them all. I always think so clearly in that car. Always...

Essentially, this is the thought that I couldn't escape: I want more than this.

I hate the feeling that thought leaves me with...I dislike putting it out there even more, but to be honest, all the recent trysts are just appetizer to an appetite for a happy life. Things like this are never enough to satisfy you competley , it's just an introduction, a taste, a runner up to the main course. To the real thing. It's like eating the frosting off of all the cupcakes, eventually, it's going to be too sweet and you're just going to puke up sprinkles. I hate sprinkles. They're like rainbow colored mouse turds. I know what I'm writing is spiraling out of control fast so yes, to clear it up, I am talking about my.secret.lover. Ugh...I know you can hear it too. Let's all run our hands through our perms and brush off our shoulder pads...go ahead let out a dramatic groan. I know. I know. I hear the song playing in my head and yes, it.is...turrible. "Seeeee-cret loooooovaaaah..." Whew.

Secret, huh? Yes...we make appearances together in the time and space that fills the setting and rising of the sun, the-breakfast-is-always-good-at-1am cohort, the pillow talk conversation under the flicker of early AM infomercials, and the goodbye kisses in the parking lot. Just recently, I accidentally fooled the F in the BF by using his actual name in a text and not one of the myriad of nicknames. He's that guy...that ____(fill-in-the-blank)____guy.

I know what those 20-something relationship odds look like. They reflect back at me from my friend's lives like I'm looking in a funhouse mirror. I don't mean that as a knock against any of them, but I'm quasi-glad to just be an observer at those distorted visions where clear reflections of lives full of love and promises should be staring back. I'm not trying cast my own bubbling shadow of happiness on anyone's heartbreak and I certianly don't think that I'm any better off in the long run for not having gone through a divorce in my 20's, my scars are just a different shade. It's a conundrum...I'm glad that I'm not one of those statics & I wish I was one of them all in the same feeling. Recently, I've been on the receiving end of questions like "Do you want to get married? Do you want kids? Do you think you'll ever get married?" Yes. Yes, yes, yes!!! Have I really painted myself into THAT corner that I have made even the people who have been with me for years not know the answers to that without having to actually ask me? Casually over dinner, those are the questions that feel like I'm sitting on the end of a cocked trigger. Loaded.questions >>> full of gun powder and lead.

Honestly, truly, and well only partially, (because I'm not totally self-depricating) I can add up all the accomplishments in life and feel good about myself except for when it comes to the relationship part of that pie. I feel like a failure there. Well I guess you can't fail if you never really try but still the feeling remains.


Mostly I've just run out of excuses & I stopped believing the ones that I want to feed everyone else.
It's been long enough that I can't use "being fed up with the games."
I wouldn't fool anyone with "I'm just too into my job right now for a relationship" (that fucking ship sailed years ago).
"I'm too busy"...yeah, no. Not for the real thing. Never.
I don't need anymore "me" time on the books, I'm all stocked up on that and crazy.

Just for good measure, just tonight these thoughts almost drowned me as I was barrelling down the freeway with the cruise control set enroute to the night's rendevous:
Tomorrow's plans for a girl's makeup shoot were cancelled because the main model was accidentally head-butted by her 2 year old while she was putting her to bed. I was headed for bed too, just not mine. The irony was nauseating.
The only light that I had to stop for in all of the downtown thoroughfare was the one that was RIGHT next to the bridal shop where the glare from the white dresses nearly blinded me. It was like a train-wreck, I couldn't stop staring. That feather dress that I keep locked in my hope chest memory bank. It.was.stunnning.
Finally, muttering the words "...staring down the barrel of that gun..." to Tryst himself was a scene in itself. I'll spare you the details of that one.
This is the serious vein of thought in the tiny adventure that was my day...there was moderate comedy, but that is an entirely other blog in itself. The humor is always there bubbling under the surface and thank God for that. It's those doses of funny that keep my universe from spinning totally out of control.

Now that this is recorded in time for mostly me & only me, don't you think that for even a minute that I'm going to start renting box seasons of The Gilmore Girls and drinking fertility tea while sitting in my velour bathrobe on the couch. I believe in love...I also believe in safe sex. I'm still gritty and sassy and too stubborn to give up what I think is the control of my destiny, but I am admitting without reservation that the writing on the wall is too now far too bold for me to keep ignoring it. I am really staring down the barrel of a gun. It's the now or never bullet. It's the make a decision bullet. It's the take a gamble bullet.

I know it's not attached to a number and 30 is just that, a number, but still, that painting that I started creating in my head when I was a young girl about where I would be in life as a young woman is missing some brush strokes.

Now, mostly because I am running out of metaphors and also because the tea kettle is whistling, I am going to hang up this blog post, put the biological clock on snooze, and go crawl into bed. Good night, 4am, good night.