Fires and break-ups and birthdays, oh my!

It has been a doozy of a summer so far... Between my town being on fire for most of June, the back and forth break-up styling of my most recent beau and I, and in the middle of it all, my 34th birthday deciding to show up, it was basically the perfect storm of suck.  I have, of course, learned some things as a result of these events.  

First of all, I am quite terrified of fire, especially when it is more or less in my backyard.  
Secondly, I am not normally the type to get back together with someone after a break-up has been established.  But I'll tell you, there's nothing like a mandatory 2a.m. evacuation to bring a couple closer together.  
Lastly, I was apparently not prepared, mentally or emotionally, to be suddenly thrust into my mid-thirties.  

Everyone says I'm being silly and 'you're only as old as you feel', blah, blah, blah, but the fact is, I'm not where I thought I would be by this age.  Now, I have a tendency to over think things.  What?!  No... Not The Poor Man's Carrie Bradshaw I know, you say!  But it's true.  I have often wished I could be more fearless with regard to love and life decisions.  I have known people who have been married; divorced; remarried; and had a child, all in the time it takes me to decide whether or not to let the guy I'm seeing have a key to my apartment.  What can I say?  I'm cautious.  

But, I'm getting better... I'm still seeing my sweet, uncomplicated, man-child of a boyfriend, even though no one understands our relationship.  In fact, I've become aware that some people are downright annoyed by it.  

"You deserve better", says one of my bar regulars who has been trying to court me for awhile, but who I've repeatedly rebuffed.  To him I say:  That's great that you think so, but the fact is:  

• You don't know him at all.  
• You don't really know me either.  
• You may look good on paper, but I don't desire you.  I desire him.  

Life is too short to spend with someone whose presence doesn't set your heart and/or your pants on fire.

Just gettin out some blues...

She'd spent years tracing over the unfinished tattoo on his back with her fingertip.  He said it was the abstract outline of a scorpion (his sign), but she couldn't see it.  To her, it was just a bunch of lines and shapes creating a mural across his smooth, freckled skin.  Something she could stare at for hours...get lost in; hypnotized by.

Though she thought of him often, it was these small details that seemed to have completely dissipated with time, only to be brought back into her consciousness quite suddenly and painfully as she innocently stroked the soft, taught skin of a new lover's back while lazing around in bed on a recent morning.

A cool breeze blew through the open window and across her bare legs that early June morning and she could hear the solemn coo of a mourning dove outside.  It was over.  She'd known for awhile, but it wasn't until last night that he had agreed.  It was alright...it was never meant to last in the first place.  What began as two friends scratching a mutual itch, had developed into feelings.  Love, even.  But, nothing so strong as to cloud her judgement or make her think this was something it wasn't.

Still, she was sad.  It's easy to grow accustomed to having someone around.  Easy to get used to their smell, their sounds, their presence.  To subconsciously file away information about them so that for years afterward, a certain line from a movie, type of food, or brand of shampoo will still remind you of them........

Nothing's gonna change my world.....

I recently spent a week back east, visiting my family.  In the 12 years I've lived in Colorado, I've found myself making the journey back "home" at least once a year for either a wedding, a reunion, or most recently, a burning desire to see my precious nephews, whose childhoods I am completely missing out on because I live so far away.  


Although I love my family and friends and it's always wonderful to see them, the last few times I've visited I end up feeling so sad and miserable by the third day, I can't wait to leave.  It's difficult to pinpoint exactly why, though I think it's becoming clearer.  It's as though everything there has changed, yet nothing has changed and I'm caught somewhere in the middle.  


When I am in Colorado, living my life, I am generally happy.  I have friends and interests and goals and I don't question every life choice I've ever made.  Then I go there.  Suddenly, I'm seeing people I knew a hundred years ago, and while they are still living in the same area where we grew up and in some cases, are working the same jobs, they've gotten married, bought houses and had babies.  I tried my hand at this "normal", grown-up type of life, but it didn't stick.  So now, after years of always feeling so mature, I instead feel like a confused teenager being pressured to evaluate my life and make decisions I don't feel equipped to make. 


Another thing about the area where I grew up?  Babies.  Babies as far as the eye can see.  I swear it's something in the water.  Every time I turn around, someone else is preggo.  And here's the thing about babies.... unless you have one of your own, you will soon find that you have absolutely nothing to talk about with those that do.  It's all breast-feeding and stretchmarks; daycare and poo.  I'm interested in these things to an extent due to my naturally morbid curiosity about all things gross/unfamiliar.  However, I can guarantee they don't give a rip about the new cocktail I created at work, or my most recent trip to Vegas.  They say things like:  "We're about to refinance our mortgage at a really great rate!" and "Our youngest just said his first words!".  
Meanwhile, I'm like:  "Yeah, my boyfriend's in a death metal band....."  


When I sit back and take all this in, it once again makes me question what I want or don't want.  I'm pretty sure I don't want to be 60 years old at my child's high school graduation because I waited for the "perfect" time/guy.  Nor do I want to be one of those chics that gets knocked up accidentally/on purpose with any old dude that happens to swing by on ovulation day just because the clock is ticking.  


Rock------Me------Hard place.

I'm smiling next to you, in silent lucidity....

I am beat.  I had forgotten how much work it is to be a "girlfriend".  From the "doing stuff together", to the "talking about your day", to the "having sex all the time"... it's exhausting.  Plus, even if you aren't living together, you typically end up spending so much time together that it feels like you are.  As a solitary person by nature, this is my biggest hurdle.


Over the last few years, I've become accustomed to a certain lifestyle and routine, nerdy and loner-ish as it may be.  I enjoy listening to NPR morning edition while I get ready for work.  I can read or busy myself with seemingly mundane tasks like reorganizing my linen closet for hours on end and be perfectly content.  And if we're being honest, I like being alone so I can burp, fart, talk to myself or take an un-self-conscious poop with the bathroom door open.  It's the little things...


As anyone who knows me can attest, I have an uncanny gift for/annoying habit of comparing any life situation to an episode of either Friends or Sex and the City.  I'm sort of like a Trekky, but with less pasty skin and better fashion sense.  Recently, I was reminded of the episode of SatC, when Aiden moved in with Carrie and she started going crazy due to his constant presence and barrage of questions as soon as she walked in the door: "Where you been?"  "Who'd you see?"  "What'dya know?"  I feel your pain, Carrie.


I try to tell myself to be less rigid and more open.  I've gotten a little better over time, but what it comes down to is, I spend the majority of my life listening to other people's problems and drama due to my chosen line of work.  Bartenders are basically underpaid shrinks without the luxury of a comfy leather chair and climate-controlled office.  That being said, I don't think it's selfish to want silence and solitude, at least sometimes, during my off hours.  The irony of course being, my Ex talked more than an auctioneer on speed and my Current also very much enjoys the sound of his own voice.   I think it would behoove me to marry either a deaf/mute or a long-haul trucker...

Don't look back in anger....

It seems to me there is an age at which people start taking stock of their lives and asking questions. Questions like "What might have been?" I don't want to label it a "mid-life crisis" because I don't quite think I'm there yet, but it's similar and I find it happening all around me. Ghosts of lovers past, suddenly start popping up on facebook and the like to ask "How have you been?!" "What are you doing now?!" "Are you married?!?!"

I get it. I am at an age where my peers and I have perhaps had a serious relationship or two, maybe even popped out a couple of rugrats, but things ultimately didn't work out and now instead of looking bleakly ahead into the unknown, it appears a lot easier and more enticing to look hopefully and optimistically to the past.

What ever happened to So-and-So?, you muse one night over a bottle of merlot. You begin to think he might have been "the one" and you were too young and foolish to recognize it. You think "Hey, we both liked Marilyn Manson and Red Lobster and Beavis and Butthead reruns... how have we not reconnected and gotten married?" Thankfully, the next morning when I awaken surrounded by empty wine bottles, chocolate wrappers, old journals and my high school yearbook, I have the clarity and presence of mind to realize that ship has sailed.

However, there are those who think that because we went our separate ways and got our respective shit together, we should absolutely give things another shot because obviously it would work out this time. 15 years past and 2000 miles apart be damned! Never mind the only thing we ever had in common was alcohol and low self-esteem, let's turn our lives upside-down and give it a go!

Don't get me wrong, the temptation is there. Unfortunately, the few times I've ventured back down this road, I wound up feeling as though the idea of re-falling in love with someone from my past was more enticing than the reality. Not to say they aren't amazing people with a lot to offer, but some things were meant to end. Besides, I have a whole lot of fresh mistakes to make with shiny, brand-spanking new people... I don't have time for hindsight.

Sweet surrender....

Spring is in the air and with it, love. It seems everyone around me is in love. One of my childhood bff's is getting married this month and 3, yes 3, different girls at work just announced their engagements. Even my annoying bar customers seem to be coupling off and if 'Creepy Juggler Guy' and 'Crazy Chocolate Martini Lady' can find a connection, then I feel like there is hope for us all.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I have been MIA from the facebook/blogosphere world for the past couple of months due mostly to a boy and the copious amounts of time we have been spending together. However, far from planning a wedding like my friends, I am simply enjoying his company and accepting the relationship for what it is: a passionate, caring, mutually beneficial situation that we both know is headed nowhere.

I know to some, this may sound strange and pointless. Quite honestly, I have always been the first one to opine about and question quite loudly why people stay in relationships that aren't right and state how I'd rather be alone than be with the wrong person. What I never figured into the equation, was how many amazing new experiences you might miss out on if you don't at least give things a chance. So what if the person you currently love isn't someone you see yourself with forever? Does that make the love you feel any less real?

In a strange way, this is the best relationship I've ever been in. I am rarely stressed out since I am not required to wonder "Where is this going?", nor do I waste energy nagging him about things that would most certainly annoy the hell out of me if I were secretly planning our future together. Instead, I'm free to live in the moment and that makes me happy...for now.

All my Valentine wants is some catnip...

Well, it's arrived. Tomorrow is the fateful day when grocery stores will sell out of their crappy, cream-filled candy, street corners will be littered with shitty, over-priced carnations and roses for sale, and I will have to answer no fewer than 400 phone calls at work, from frantic, desperate- sounding dudes pleading: "Can you please get my wife and I a reservation at 7:00 tonight?!? I completely forgot today was Valentine's Day! She's going to kill me!!"

Any sympathy I might have for these guys ends abruptly around the 5th call, at which point I want to tell them all to go suck a d. I'd feel slightly more sorry for them if it weren't for the huge signs/candy and flower displays that popped up in every store on earth the day after Christmas and the 200 or so full-page ads that have appeared in every newspaper for the last month, detailing restaurants' "Special 4-course Valentine's Day dinners", each complete with their own variation of shrimp cocktail, seafood bisque, cornish hens and some chocolate-raspberry nonsense for dessert. Get it together guys. I know you don't give a crap about this stuff, but chics dig guys with a game plan.

What is equally hilarious to me is girls who go overboard with V-Day plans for their boyfriend/husband. Here's a tip ladies, from me to you, that will save you a lot of time and money: Guys don't want flowers. Or candy. Or even a card. Guys want blow-jobs. There. Now put that money back in your wallet and use it to buy yourself a kick-ass scarf later.

Finally, I'd like to discuss Valentine's cards and what a piss-poor selection there is. I come across this problem whenever I have a special someone in my life at this time of year. Historically, there have been times when I was so ass over teakettle in love, that the gooey, "I-never-knew-what-love-was-until-I-met-you" cards fit the bill perfectly. However, more often than not, I am needing to convey a slightly more complicated sentiment.

Something like:

"I'm not yet sure if I love you, but I certainly enjoy your penis."

Or:

"I can't really picture being with you forever, but this last year has been super fun!"

Or:

"I love how you make me laugh, but I wish you satisfied me sexually."

Since card shopping is a constant source of frustration for me, I think perhaps I have found my new calling in life... Hallmark, you're going down.