May 7, 2008
I guess it is too much to ask of anyone, but somehow I thought it would happen. In hindsight, my needs and inadequacies are my own. You keep thinking something will fix everything, but marriage didn’t do it, kids, while very clarifying, didn’t do it, not that these things failed. Far from it, it is just that most things that you hope others will fix end up being something you need to fix about yourself.
It is almost too much to ask that fairy tales and Hollywood endings happen in our lives. That the story should happen, or things should happen to make a good story.
In my middle age, I am finding two remarkable things, one: I am less willing to put up with stupidity, more on that later, and the second, the realization that all those platitudes that we scoff at while growing up are true:
Count to 10 before you speak. Look before you leap. Be yourself. Blood is thicker than water. You never forget your first love. Time heals everything. Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
I don’t know how many of you remember what it was like to feel lonely, looking at people in the street wondering if perhaps they were the one. Today I was walking and staring at people as I walked. Most people are too busy to notice, others turn away or look down when they notice you are looking at them. Occasionally someone will look back and they look into you as if they can read your soul. You hope for a connection, because if there isn’t one, it is chilling. The fortunate, or unfortunate, thing of it is that it is brief and in a moment it in a moment, it is gone.
On a rare occasion you catch someone’s eye and they meet your stare and you find yourself giddy and smiling for a time after.
We all have in our hearts a little corner of heartache that never completely heals.
I watch a couple talk. I can’t see his face, nor hear what they are saying, but she is grinning when she talks, like she can’t help it. It is nice to be in love.
“I like you.”
“I like you too.” I think in my mind.
I smile to myself and remember when I too was young.
Your cerebellum shrinks