I LOVE when I have little enlightenment moments. Sometimes they'll occur when I'm having a conversation with someone and I have to wonder, what does the other person see on my face as it's happening? Do I get that starey still look like C-3PO when they turn him off? Or do I get that meditative middle-distance gaze? Or that hyper-attentive listening like an animal thing?
Anyway, today I bounced into work because a miracle occurred last night while I was sitting at home. I was watching TV and noodling around on my guitar, just sort of zoning out, when all of a sudden I focused on what was happening with my hands. I started paying attention and realized that I was playing something I had never heard before and making it up as I went along. Holy capo, Batman, I said to myself! Well, what it turned out I was meant to be writing was NOT a lover's lament about being the Other Woman.
When I opened myself up to what I am supposed to be writing, it turns out to be... a lullaby?
Well, I'm just gonna go with it. See where it takes me. Exciting.
So this morning I ping the Hot Retoucher (from this point forward, HR) with an email, heedless of my "new rule" that we shouldn't contact each other through our work email or through my "name" email because god forbid anyone here at the office should think we're friends. (Side note, if anyone ever asks, I'm gonna say we've been at it like knives since a week after I started. That should shut them up). I'm excited. There's not only the realization that this actually does live in me -- but the more important realization that for the first time in my adult life, I am allowing myself to be... an artist. Just acknowledging.
I have to thank Baby Boy for this. Okay, so the sex was a disaster, but he's the first person who ever introduced me to someone with "oh, she gets it, she's an artist too." (Too bad about the bad sex. How does bad sex happen? He's actually a hyperactive little hottie and we were attracted to each other but somehow couldn't make the parts fit together right...)
So anyway, I guess HR decided that avoiding each other was as ridiculous as I though it was because he actually came right over to my desk to ask what was going on.
So we chat for a bit. It's kind of hard to do in a place as grim as this (oh, there is news on that front, too... I thought I wrote my own death warrant yesterday but it actually turned out to be something good... more on that another time)
Somehow the conversation gets around to monogamy. And he says, "Well, you don't believe in monogamy." Hmm. I'm not sure about that. I know I believe marriage is a bunch of crap. But monogamy? I'm not sure anymore. The most serious relationship I had (with EmKay) was devoted and faithful and passionate for five years. But -- when I'm not in a relationship, monogamy as a concept doesn't even exist in my life. And for some reason, society expects people who are NOT in monogamous relationships to be celibate.
Isn't that a load of crap? Because I'm not in a relationship with anyone, I am supposed to forego my natural and very healthy urges and shake hands at the door? I don't think so.
But as for monogamy -- that's my little secret. And I think it has been the real reason why I won't get involved with anyone. I talk the cynic... but the cynic hides the most hopeless romantic. Not that I wish some handsome stranger will come along and sweep me off my feet... but secretly, I want to be THAT GIRL again for someone. I don't want to be someone's dirty little secret -- I want to be someone's Sunday-morning girl. I don't ever want to be the styrofoam peanuts that fills in the empty spaces of someone else's life, I don't want to make it tolerable for someone to go home and sleep next to THE PERSON HE PICKED for another week. I want to be the girl who gets picked.
So that's part of my dirty little secret.
I also realized that all these years, I've talked about EmKay by telling people how lucky I was.
"I'm one of the lucky ones," I said (probably with insufferable smugness), "I've had the Great Love of My Life." If capital letters could be spoken, I was doing it. "A lot of people aren't so lucky -- they end up settling for someone who can just give security and babies." Frankly, I'm surprised that I haven't been slapped, hard, and frequently.
The FLAW in my thinking is this: I believed that you only get ONE. I believed for all these years that I walked up to the buffet, filled my plate, sat down and ate, and that was all I got. I'm sorry, no more shrimp or lobster for you, miss, you've already been through the line once.
Oh, honey. (I just want to call myself honey and pat myself on the knee.)
Oh, honey, didn't you know this is an all you can EAT buffet?
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