Everything But the Kitchen Sink

I promised myself that this was going to be a week of rest and relaxation. A week to spend some quality time with my daughter, a week to do little things around the house I've left undone, and a week to simply take a break from thinking too much about things that don't really matter much at all. And for the most part, I've done quite a good job at keeping my priorities straight, although as I am bound to do, I did slip a few times, checking my work email from home to keep tabs on the happenings at work. For the time being however, I have promptly put those thoughts back on the backburner where they belong.

So just what have I been doing with myself and all this free time?

Yesterday KC and I went to the movies (Eragon gets a 4 out of 4 stars rating) and ended up sitting with one of her girlfriends from school and her father. It was an odd sort of thing being that we didn't know each other from a bag of beans and our daughters had us looking like a happy extended family on an outing, but we managed to get through it. Or as I really should say, I managed to get through it without completely turning red and making a complete ass of myself. Though truth be told, he probably wondered if I was able to speak since the entirety of our conversation consisted of me saying thank you when he held the door open for me at the end of the movie. It was at this point that my initial shyness was finally overruled by politeness. Needless to say, Dad was cute, Mom was speechless, and the girls struck out with the fix up.

KC and I also took some time this week to do a little bit of shopping. Gift card spending to be exact, and I thank each and every one of you who remembered that the best gift cards are the ones that can buy me books... Altogether, I got three new reads, two books of poetry (Pable Neruda and Louise Gluck) and one by Bishop T D Jakes on being a Christian woman of faith. I also bought two new CD's, both by Mary Chapin Carpenter and two movies, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (most excellent movie for woman of all ages) and Something's Gotta Give (a movie I identify with for more than one reason and something I will probably write a whole lot more on later.)

Anyone who has tried to find a book of poetry at my local Barnes & Noble's knows that trying to find something there is like trying to find the mythical needle in the haystack... It seems to be that it's only within that section that the books are never in alphabetical order or any sort of order for that matter, so I have learned to look first in the most ridiculous spot in order to strike gold. The man next to me evidently wasn't in on that little secret as he stood in front of the bookcase desperately trying to make sense of something without any reason. Finally after what seemed like hours, he turned to me (being that I must have looked like I knew what I was doing since I found my items rather quickly) and said, "Is there any kind of order to this section?"

Now I don't normally have conversations with strangers (at least never ones that I start myself) but he seemed so genuinely confused that I couldn't help but find myself wanting to help him out finding his book. (Wallace Stevens to be exact.) And though it was a short conversation with my brainstorm that he should check with the helpdesk to make sure they had that book in stock before he spent too much time searching for it, it did light a little bit of a light bulb in my thoughts. (Especially after our paths crossed again in the parking lot as he smiled at me and waved goodbye.) Perhaps the message that has been trying its darndest to get across to me is that each end has its own beginning. In other words, I can either choose to nurse my broken heart and waste the next few months being sad, or I can choose to be thankful for the small amount of time I did get to spend knowing someone as I did.

This is the part where unless you're my Mother, Brenda (or an extension of Brenda such as a friend/co-worker who are frequently updated on the ever continuing (though not at all very exciting) saga of my personal life) or my friend Susan, you're not going to have a clue what or who it is I'm talking about... (Thankfully who I am not referring to is my former roommate, a man I am more than happy to say is completely out of my life and out of the picture forever more.)

But my point here is that sometimes the things you really want to work out, just don't and there's nothing you can do about it even though you really felt that your heart had finally found the right person, in the right place at the right time. Perhaps I gave my heart too soon, but I don't think so. I think for the first time in my life, I opened myself up to someone so completely that despite our outcome which at the moment is the kind of silence that beats like a drum in my ear, I'm thankful for having met him and for having him in my life for the time that he was there. He got to know me in a way I don't think I've let myself be known and I think he too was surprised at how much he gave back to me in very much the same way.

So it comes down to this, I guess we were both a little scared, and if I had to hazard a guess at what went wrong, I'd like to think that it's this fear which has stopped us in our tracks. This somehow makes me feel better than thinking that he just didn't want to choose me... Regardless, I could never think bad of him...(Not now, and not in a million years.) We were both adults, we took a chance together, we reached for the stars and both of us felt the fall that brought us back to earth. And it was one word.

Wonderful.