Hello Again

My head hurts. It’s this fragrance that’s somehow taken up residence on my person. It’s not my perfume. Because after I wear a scent for a while, I stop smelling it, savoring only the praise it elicits from others. OK, that was cheesy, but cut me some slack. I’m rusty at blogging. I was looking over the last few posts and having difficulty understanding why they had any entertainment value.

HPG sent me an email recently saying he missed the blog. Funny, I don’t. When I think of the blog in its hey day I’m reminded of DSG and how mean he was and how bad I felt about myself whenever he would berate me or my daily diatribes. And beyond him there were the other train wrecks, ahem relationships, along the way. I stopped writing around the time I met the man who has been in my life since last August.

We see each other, and then we don’t. Then we have a falling out, then we end up talking or rather me talking. Him into. Seeing me. But the thing about him is he gets me and that’s not even the deal breaker. The deal breaker is the fact that he’s younger and not ready. My friend Beth once said, “When a guy tells you he’s not ready for a relationship, BELIEVE him.” And I do but I also hope. I hope a lot. I hope his feelings for me will outweigh his fear of intimacy, commitment, permanency. And even as I write this, I know that it’s those same fears that have me spinning my wheels with someone I know I can’t have. In other words, the commitment phobe in me is pursuing the man I can’t have so I don’t have to put myself out there for someone who really does want all those things I claim to want. How’s that for self-analysis?

Last night, I was leaving work. I work at a network now as a producer. Anyway, on my way out, I heard the security guard say something to no one in particular about inner peace being the key to happiness. I stopped in my tracks. It was 1:30 in the morning and I was tired but I was also intrigued. “Show me how,” I said moving towards him. He opened the door for me and we stepped into the chilly night air. The street was quiet.

“Humans have five basic needs,” he began in a deep, soothing voice. “Food, clothing, shelter, love and…” he stopped trying to remember the fifth. “Good health?” I offered. He shook his head. “No, but anyway, once a person’s basic needs are met, the key to happiness comes only from within. You have to find inner peace, find the joy in the world. You must seek it, it cannot find you.” He went on to quote Gandhi and how we all as civilized humans had an obligation of “non-cooperation with evil.” I forgot that my coat was too thin for how low the temperature had dropped. I forgot that I wanted to watch “Dancing with the Stars” on tivo. I just stood and listened to this accidental soothsayer who had crossed my path.

Today when I woke up, I felt refreshed and alive. I reminded myself of earlier epiphanies that had urged me to start living my life instead of waiting for it to start. And now, as I sit here, wondering if and when I’ll get asked out by anyone again, I’m forcing myself to revisit that moment on the sidewalk, where I met an immigrant from Guyana who worked the nightshift as a security guard and couldn’t stop smiling about how glorious life is.