I just woke up. Not a tossing and turning, and I guess I can’t sleep, but an ok, there’s the sun and another fresh new day kind of wake up. Except it’s three am.
It occurs to me that I seem to be a harbinger. In the last several relationships that I’ve had, I’ve been the closest thing that the other person has had to a real, lasting, meaningful adult relationship. I’ve been their brush with the domestic, and their taste of things like family, and settling down. Even in rather casual encounters, I seem to be the person who makes other people think about getting serious. The thing about this that seems to have ripped me out of my sleeping state is that all of these people have felt, for me, like brief stop-overs. I came close to feeling like I could stay forever once, but then that old restlessness set in again, and soon I began to feel like it too was temporary. I feel, in relationships, that I have to deliver a message, extract some information of my own, and then move on. What if that never, ever goes away?
I have tried most of my adult life to reconcile my bohemian thirst for experience and adventure with my biological impulse to find one solid mate with whom I can settle down and make babies. Now, the vastness of the universe seems to unfurl before me, and the possibilities are incalculable, but I feel like there is one more big piece that needs to click together before I can hope to get this right. Those of you who know me, probably can clearly see what that is, so if you feel inclined to send me a private note with your two cents, you are most welcome.
I’ve un-learned selfishness in the most masochistic fashion, I really have a firm grasp on compromise, I think I’ve sorted out fidelity, my grip on reality feels pretty tight now, I know when to hold ’em and when to fold ’em, and I think for sure I know when to walk away and when to run.
Is it that I just now need to know that I can spend several warm summer evenings on a train bound for nowhere, with only myself as company, and that it’s still a great ride?
I am never having beer and chicken wings for dinner on a school night again.