Just My Luck ;)

Today I was declared a man hater (all in jest)... Which isn't entirely true.  I am just fed up with non-evolved men who can't be bothered to step outside of their own comfort zone to contemplate what it's like to be with a woman like me (true story).  Let me tell you what, being with a woman like me, or, for that matter, me, is AWESOME.  That is all. 

I stopped waiting, I ain't lookin', and dumb enough to be in a tree? Yeah that's about my luck.

The Blue Fox Cafe

Something's been nagging me... tell me if you have ever had this happen...

When I was recently on a ferry on my way to Victoria, a beautiful woman came to stand beside me and we chatted.  She was stunning in her simplicity.  I could see her pure soul through her eyes.  They were green, like mine, and they sparkled when she smiled.  She told me that I "just had to go to the Blue Fox for breakfast."  "You will just love it, I know it, and really, you just have to go" she said to me... like she knew something.  It was like a nudge...

Have you ever felt that feeling?  Where that conversation felt more than just casual chit chat; where that person, with her pixie green eyes, was there for a reason?

As it turns out, I ended up somewhere else in that following morning's breakfast hour, and never made it to the Blue Fox.  And now, since the moment she told me I just had to go, I have been wondering just what I missed in the not getting there.  What moment was I supposed to have?  Who was there?  Why did I have to go?  And why do I feel so strongly that I still have to go?

Was there some sort of serendipitous moment that awaits me?

It's on my list now... to go.

Because I feel I have to. 

Does anyone else get this?

Is something here?

Blessing In Realization

Outside, the first sticking snow is weakening the last hold of the straggling leaves on the tree out front.  The air has a twinge of bite in it.  It's wet and heavy.

Normally, on days before this one, one would find me complaining, even perhaps cursing Mother Earth for the dredging snow.  But the thing is, today, I watched my best friend walk down a hallway away from me, shoulders stronger than mine ever could be, determined in strength, to face more hours of sadness and willed hope.

It doesn't matter where she was, or what she was doing, or for whom...

What does matter, is today, when I drove home from where I left her, with the snow falling, every thought I had was that I got to enjoy the snow today.  I get to go home.  I get to shovel my sidewalks tomorrow.  Tomorrow I will see my kids...and the day after that, and the day after that, and the one after that, too.  Tonight I am grateful to complain of a fully belly of pizza and how I need to work it off later.  Tonight, I am in love with the warm chair I choose to sit in, and that what I have to worry about is a healing heart, memories, and for what lies ahead of me.

My heart is aching for my dear friend, wishing I could do more to ease her pain.

And all I can do, is be thankful that I get to watch the snow fall.  I get to move forward.

No more complaints...I get to watch the snow fall. 

Reminders

Some days I wish you never would have wrapped your arms around me.  I wish you didn't lean down and kiss my forehead when you did.  I wish you wouldn't have looked at me and smiled.  I wish I never felt it.

Because then I wouldn't be missing it.

But then again...

It reminded me that it was possible.

Hidden purposes...

I Just Don't Want To Miss Out

I've been thinking a lot lately; of the speed at which I live.  Everything is going so fast.  Days, weeks, then months and years are flashing by, going so fast I have to actually stop myself to remember things that have passed or occurred.

And still I fill my free time - always.  I rarely just sit, in fact, I barely know how to... just sit.  I am going a million miles a minute all the time.  Full time mom, full time job, full house, University, kids' programs, friends, events, and now I am supposed to think, or even toss around the notion of dating or inviting someone else into my space all over again?  (p.s soooo not happening any time soon)  I try to jam pack it all in, as much as I can.  I make the most of the time... all the time...

Lately I have been wondering why... why is my satiated level of satisfaction always in depletion?  And tonight, it hits me, as the words unfold wonderfully from someone else's mouth...

I just don't want to miss out...

I don't want to miss one, single thing right now.

And in attempting to gather all those things close to me, so that I don't miss out, so I don't miss a person, or a moment, or an experience... Perhaps I've missed out.

And that's what I didn't want to do.

I just don't want to miss out.

And so now what?  Is my forward movement three steps backwards?  Or no steps at all?  Or slower steps in haste of my wanting?  How do I stop the missing while, in fact, I might just be missing the most important things?

Time Out

The last of the lingering summer is hushing outside, the air is heavy, and biting.  It's eerily quiet; a loud contrast to what the season past held in it's hands.  For as much as is up in the air, hanging on for answers, it's no wonder the weight of the atmosphere is pressing me against the Earth.

There's not much more that I can do but hold on, listen and wait it out.  A whole new season is at my feet, waiting for me to walk it's path.  Thing is... my feet are heavy with exhaustion.  I think I'll just sit a while and watch the people go by, and make up their stories in my head.  When they see me I will smile, and maybe they will wonder why.  Maybe they will be envious of the sitter, watching the passers by.  And one day, maybe someone else will just sit down in the silence, and watch with me.  

And maybe by then...the cold will not seem so bitter.

Harry and Sally

Oh how this has plagued me... over and over, in ever single facet of the argument, I have struggled with this theory. You know, the one where Harry says to Sally that men and women cannot be friends.  It simply is not possible...

Come on... you know the one I mean.  From When Harry Met Sally. You know it... this one:

Harry: You realize of course that we could never be friends.
Sally: Why not?
Harry: What I'm saying is — and this is not a come-on in any way, shape or form — is that men and women can't be friends because the sex part always gets in the way.
Sally: That's not true. I have a number of men friends and there is no sex involved.
Harry: No you don't.
Sally: Yes I do.
Harry: No you don't.
Sally: Yes I do.
Harry: You only think you do.
Sally: You say I'm having sex with these men without my knowledge?
Harry: No, what I'm saying is they all want to have sex with you.
Sally: They do not.
Harry: Do too.
Sally: They do not.
Harry: Do too.
Sally: How do you know?
Harry: Because no man can be friends with a woman that he finds attractive. He always wants to have sex with her.
Sally: So you're saying that a man can be friends with a woman he finds unattractive?
Harry: No, you pretty much want to nail 'em too.
Sally: What if they don't want to have sex with you?
Harry: Doesn't matter because the sex thing is already out there so the friendship is ultimately doomed and that is the end of the story.
Sally: Well, I guess we're not going to be friends then.
Harry: Guess not.
Sally: That's too bad. You were the only person that I knew in New York.

Men, what the effing hell is wrong with you? I mean, not all men, but let me take a safe bet at 98% of them that hold this belief (right now, I will be honest, and say it seems to be every single other living man other than my father and my grand dad). What is so wrong with being friends with a woman? How is it not possible for a man and woman to enjoy each other's company without a presumptuous sexual (however small) expectation? What the effing hell?

And while I am on this little topic of contention, may I just ask - from this side of the coin - how does one (female) get INTO the friend zone? That's right! I want INTO the friend zone!! I want to be able to hang out with a member of the opposite gender, be myself, eat a burger, laugh and be ridiculous and revel in being friends!!! I want to be able to spend time with someone (yes, again, male), go to a movie, see a new place, have some fun and not have to check my behavior or my actions for unwanted invitation! I want in the friend zone dammit!!!

Is it the Harry met Sally rule? Is this a rule that will forever hinder my friendships while I am single? Because that's the hook isn't it? It's the single-domness of it all. It's the unwritten potential of availability, isn't it? I have no problem with male friends that are attached to my girlfriends, the husbands of my closest girlies and ya-yas. That's it - another in the writing aha moment... unwritten potential of availability.

Brought to you by Harry and Sally. Eff you Harry...

Don't you realize, Harry, that all the solid relationships are between the best of friends? Isn't that, really, the best place to start? Relationships... from friendships... dammit! Eventually the rule will always apply... and I am bound to a life of girlfriends...

Eff you Harry... Eff you. I've seen how the movie ends.