I like football. It's an enjoyable pastime to watch it on Sundays. (College is okay, but there are so many teams it can be hard for me to follow with any great enthusiasm. Even my Pac-12 tendencies are limited to just a few of those teams). The problem I have is, it's difficult to watch all the buddy-buddy ads without feeling some remorse. It seems as though everyone's having a good time, enjoying a cold brew, having a bunch of friends over to watch on the new big screen, whatever. Now I understand a lot of that is my own fault. I don't have an endless supply of pretty friends that couldn't get along any better, with certainly an equal division of males to females, all about the same age and presumptively reasonably successful. I don't particularly like bars, or watering holes or road houses, or whatever the present hip description of like establishments is. If I really wanted a $6.00 beer, I really wouldn't want it. And since I was in college, sharing a pitcher of Coors Light is about as classy as those little weiners with toothpicks. Which actually aren't too bad, in moderation. I prefer Vienna Sausages, although not sure how they claim the sausage part with a straight face.
As such, with the advent of Valentine's Day just a few hours away, the incessant imagery of ring-giving, chocolate-sharing, flower-presenting happy folk makes me feel angry, melancholy, humored and depressed.
You guessed it. I'm unattached, with no positive prognosis.
Actually it's a double-edged arrow, because for one I am unable (read: not permitted) to express my feelings to one whom I miss terribly. (To be fair, it's been nearly two years since we decided to part ways after numerous years and the problems leading to the disintegration were in my oven-mitted juggler's hands). But two, because of my inability to accept reality, cannot move forward without feeling dreadful sorrow, immense guilt and my steadfast belief that not only am I not ready to try anew but feel presently that I had found my soulmate and being with anyone else would simply be settling.
Far be it from me to spew forth rhetoric that's been said before by lonely, disenchanted, disillusioned, skeptical, cynical and/or jaded folk. Well, okay, not that far. I did read an article in the newspaper this past weekend, a newspaper replete with a potpourri of advertisements on precisely the perfect gift for "that someone special" (if that isn't politically correct, I couldn't begin to tell you what is). The reading I allude to is concerning the three different types of personalities that people can be in a relationship. Now, many of us have done those tests where we fill out about 347 questions and are assigned a color, a four-letter acronym, or ultimately decide whether that mirrored Pollock-esqe drool of ink is a butterfly or a bat. And then we're feeling bad because a bat is icky and a butterfly is beautiful, and why do we see the icky bat and we can't we see the beautiful butterfly, there must be something wrong with us.
Anyway, Secure, Anxious and Avoidance are the three types. Secure, per this article, and by the mere sound, imagery and emotion the word evokes (think silk versus mud), is apparently good. Avoidance describes, among other things, the types who like their freedom, enjoy being alone, a lot. They are also non-committal, maybe good for them, not so good for their partners. Anxious is the worrier. This would be me. Wondering if I was good enough, wondering what she might be thinking, was I being judged, was I doing enough (no, obviously), was I doing too much (in a different aspect, yes, obviously.) Worry, worry, worry. Too much internal sweat, not enough external sweat.
I thought I had felt secure in this past relationship, and perhaps I was, but then a series of Lemony Snickets occurred, some through my own crude crayon blueprint of my life's design and others by, well, others. I lost sight of land, but never of the simple fact that I would firmly beach myself in paradise once again. And I did. Unfortunately, my "beach" was a sandbar too far from shore to wade in, and ultimately the waves of despair eroded my tenuous sandy hold and set me adrift once again, floating out to sea, losing forever my sight of the terra firma that was my love.
I had become entrenched in a static, complacent role. I took things for granted. It was me first, although I didn't think so at the time. Again, I take a majority share of the blame. Like maybe 98%. I figure, if no one's 100% perfect, no one can be 100% imperfect, either. Justification, yes, but the logic works for me.
So here I am, on the eve of a day that used to make me giddy with the thought of her opening her gift. Of sharing conversation and dinner, becoming a veritable pair of Russian nesting dolls as we snuggled on the couch and watched one of our favorite films (egad, that sounds pretentious. Why can't I just say "movie").
Yes, here I am. And brilliantly happy. Brilliantly happy to know I don't have to put up with this particular crap for another 364 days. And maybe by then I'll have found a worthy recipient for some chocolates or flowers, or Vienna Sausages.
