“Life is like mounting a seesaw. There are very few people that can touch the sky without the help of others. The ride is best experienced when a trusted companion is on the other end, to watch you soar without envy, to aid in smooth transitions, and to laugh with you when you hit the ground.”
It is always nice to know that I have a friend to listen when I need it. I have been so busy; This journal has acquired some dust over the last few weeks. But it is truly the perfect outlet when the clock reads past 11, and I remain unsettled. I do not need to wake anyone up; I don’t need to disturb the night owl.
I have been coasting lately, like I have stated before. I work until five, then come home and spend time with my sister, have dinner with my uncle, or work at Angellinos until all I can do is pass out. It has been working for me, for the most part- on weekends I see my friends by either going up to Providence or taking day trips throughout Connecticut. I have a routine of de-stressing by going to visit the puppies at the local pet store and then walking the 4 mile Mansfield Hollow Dam. Sometimes there are men in my life, but most of the time I spend the night alone reading my newest Nicholas Sparks book before bed.
This past weekend I got a call from someone very close to me, someone I haven’t seen in months. I tried closing the door to our relationship after I left Providence in effort to make things easier, to snap into the reality that I was in fact moving home. After an intense rollercoaster whirlwind with speed bumps that promised future regrets on my part, we reached contentment by the end of the summer and kind of said goodbye for the time being. He was in Glastonbury last weekend though, and asked me out to dinner. Chemistry bounced off walls as we sipped wine and joked about same side sitters… time seemed to roll backwards while we caught up. When the subject of relationships surfaced though, I told him about my new philosophy. I was working on doing me. I was a little less “fairytale” about the idea of love and “all that stuff.” My life experiences to date have forced me to become a lot more cautious about who to give my heart to.
I drove home that night thinking to myself, “when did I get so pessimistic?”
Last night I tossed and turned, tortured by it all. It is not that I want a serious relationship, but I AM a relationship girl. I like having a one- on- one companionship, no matter how much I try to play the lone-warrior role. I know that my independence has reached new levels, I have now realized the importance of solitude, self fulfillment, and friendship. But my callused attitude lately has overshadowed the fact that down deeper, there is something missing. I am out of my element.
I looked out my window and immediately, a shooting star soared across the sky. It was the brightest one I had ever seen, and my mind went back to the days when me and my high school boyfriend used to sleep out on my deck and watch them above us. I used to wish on every one, cliché as it was. I believed, once upon a time, that the wishes would come true.
And that is what used to set me apart from the rest of the crowd. I believed in all of that stuff. The glass was always half full in my mind, and even though I recognize the naivety now, I miss the innocence. I miss the part of me that believed that everything had some good in it, that every place was new and exciting, that everyone had something inside them that was impossible not to love.
Throughout the last couple of years I have been told that the world is not a fairy tale, that I shouldn’t take pictures but instead enjoy the view (of what I was trying to capture in effort to preserve the memory), that my writing is different than what really is, that love isn’t all its cracked up to be. I have been broken down by relationships and have been told that no one can make you happy but yourself. So I have evolved.
But there is still a part of me that wants to believe in something.
