As you may know (I've probably mentioned it at least 10 times on this blog and at least once each day) I was in a few weddings this summer. It has been wonderful and fun (I may have actually enjoyed dancing), but at times really awkward. There are a series of questions I get asked at events like this that make me wish I could orchestrate great stories so the real answers feel less painful.
Here are some examples:
"So do you have a boyfriend?"
What I am thinking: "none of your damn business "
What I say: "no not right now"
"So when is it your turn?"
What I am thinking: "I wasn't aware that there was a line. Maybe I just forgot to hop in the 'please marry me' line"
What I say: "Oh I don't know (insert awkward smile trying to make that question less painful)."
"Are you just not into dating right now?"
What I am thinking: "No, I have not been 'into dating' for 23 years'. Of course I am into dating, but it just hasn't been that easy and how the hell do you expect me to answer that question without being inappropriately vulnerable"
What I say: "Well, I am open to it, its just not the most important thing to me"
This all feels like a complicated dance to not be too vulnerable, too sad, or appear to have desperate written across all of my face.
I was talking to my therapist about this awkward line to walk. I don't want to appear like I need to be married for my life to be whole but I also don't want to pretend like I don't want to be with someone right now. My therapist asked me why I can't be somewhere in the middle? I feel like I am in the middle, but I don't know how to express that and I don't think I have had a lot of examples of how to comfortably be in between both of those places.
So, here I am, trying to live in the middle. I have a job that feels important, I am working on figuring out what it means for me to be a Christian, on most days I feel pretty whole and I think these are things I would like to share with someone in the near future.
These two boys waited as a long line of adults greeted Senator Obama before a rally on Martin Luther King Day in Columbia, S.C. They never took their eyes off of him. Their grandmother told me, "Our young men have waited a long time to have someone to look up to, to make them believe Dr. King's words can be true for them." Jan. 21, 2008.
