Why the new rule? So glad you asked.

After attending a fun party with new friends, Rebekkah and I headed to a local bar. It’s a trendy, upscale bar and it was nice to be around age appropriate men in this part of town. We grabbed a glass of wine and started chatting when a guy in a Reddit shirt and hoodie walk in. Picture-fucking-perfect. His beard was hipster length, his pants were hipster tight, his attitude was hipster cool… but clearly he had a job. Win, win, win, win. I was probably the only girl in the bar who knew what Reddit was, or cared to know, so I thought this was a fool proof in to say “hello.” We made our way to where he was standing at the bar, waited until he looked disengaged enough from the conversation and I went over with my prepared remarks in mind.

Everything went as planned (first time ever). He was impressed, we chatted about all things “geek” for about half an hour, and then it was time to go. He looked at me, his phone in hand. The moment of truth arrived – interested or uninterested, would he get my number? “So, Jane. I’m in love with a girl back in Reno. But, ya know, if you are just looking for a good time…”

Was he serious?! “Are you serious?!”

No, I’m not looking for a good time I tell him. And I am sure the girl in Reno would be thrilled to know that he was biding his time by fucking other women. That usually endears a woman. But thank you, because most guys would just take my number and never call. (Yes, I told him as much.)

It was jarring. But I deserved it. Or it felt like I deserved it. I took another chance. I went out on that thin limb to give it a shot, even after promising I wouldn’t again. Not after the last time, whatever the last time was. Whenever it was. No matter the result.

It was my fault.

Hence the new rule.

What are some other rules of dating to follow?

Hey, Jane – Whatcha doing this Friday?

Oh, not much. Going to Trader Joes.

What, are you guys, like, dating?

Less a joke and more a fantasy, my Friday evening trips to Trader Joe’s made me deliriously happy. I would come home from work, throw on whateverthehelliwanted, toss my hair in a ratty bun, grab my reusable bags (you’re welcome Al!) and iPod and head for my happy place. Full of suburban moms and young, optimistic couples, I could wander the aisles feeling smug. About exactly nothing in particular.

Then I moved to Arlington, the land of pretty people in nice clothes all the time. The land of attractive (douchebag, over-educated, less-successful-than-they-claim-to-be) men in nice suits and their blonde (over-educated, highly successful and probably really nice)  flavor of the month. Even my business casual work-at-a-bank attire looks frumpy around these suited beauties. And it doesn’t seem to change on the weekends. How to they still look so polished at 10am on a Saturday? Their designer-matched yoga clothes, their blown out hair in pony tails, their seemingly tailored t-shirts and running pants. Do they EVER take a day off?

Trader Joe and I go way back. But now my competition has upped the ante and I have to meet them. Perhaps it’s time to unfrump. Can anyone get me on “What Not To Wear…In DC…At The Market”???  How about some fashion bloggers out there take me under their wing. I should make a sign, “Will Blog for Style!”

*Sigh* Philly was good for one thing: Not giving a fuck.

Then his face appeared in the lion suit. Childlike yet bearded. A kid in a costume on Halloween. What was he trying to say? A car crash victim, I thought “Jesus, resurrected.” Wasn’t that the whole Narnia thing? He survived. He over came. He may have a little ego. 

But then he disappeared without a trace, bring up so many of my fears and insecurities. Hours. Days. A week. With nothing. Raw with emotional distrust and disappointment, I couldn’t do anything but wait. 

His email said it all. I didn’t read it all, but I am sure it was all there. And when I reported the “most of it” I read to my sister in law who had seen the painting she said, “Who wants to date a cowardly lion?” 

Cowardly Lion. Coward. So clear. Literally on the wall. My eyes just weren’t open.

When he doesn’t call you back, you’re annoyed. I was, too. You check your phone more frequently than you should. I guarantee I checked mine more. You get mad. I get angry. You count the days. I count the hours, the minutes.

Not with friends. Only men. And recently it got pathological.

First he was away. Then it was the holiday. Next he was with family. Finally he lost interest.

These theories, my friends’ theories, were reasonable and logical, but to me less probable. In my gut, something was wrong.  ”Nothing is wrong. You know nothing’s wrong.” But I didn’t know. Nothing felt right. He last message was, “I miss you too babe.” And then silence.

My first boyfriend lived in England. We met there, I moved back here. In college we are whimsical, we are deluded. Our promise was to talk every night. His night, not mine. And then he didn’t call. And the next day he didn’t call. So I used my calling card to call and leave a message, I was so disappointed. Where are you? Why didn’t you call?

And then he did call. And he was in the hospital. He had been run off the road, hit by a car. He was fine. “Fine.” And the last message from me was not concern, it was selfish.

It didn’t dawn on me until now that he is the reason I obsess. He is the reason I can’t let go. In my mind, a missed connection means danger, he has been harmed. It is not logical. It is not reasonable. But I go back to that day, that call. The last call. He was hurt and I was annoyed. Until today I wasn’t about to let it happen again.

But logic can now prevail. If he’s ok or he’s not, it’s not my fault and no amount of checking will make him OK if he’s not, or call if he won’t.

I can put the phone down.

You know, you remind me of the man that lived by the river. He heard a radio report that the river was going to rush up and flood the town. And that all the residents should evacuate their homes. But the man said, “I’m religious. I pray. God loves me. God will save me.”The waters rose up. A guy in a row boat came along and he shouted, “Hey, hey you! You in there. The town is flooding. Let me take you to safety.” But the man shouted back, “I’m religious. I pray. God loves me. God will save me.”A helicopter was hovering overhead. And a guy with a megaphone shouted, “Hey you, you down there. The town is flooding. Let me drop this ladder and I’ll take you to safety.” But the man shouted back that he was religious, that he prayed, that God loved him and that God will take him to safety.Well… the man drowned. And standing at the gates of St. Peter, he demanded an audience with God. “Lord,” he said, “I’m a religious man, I pray. I thought you loved me. Why did this happen?” God said, “I sent you a radio report, a helicopter, and a guy in a rowboat. What the hell are you doing here?”

In the last 4 days, I’ve been visited by characters from my past. The characters have unearthed themselves at a time when I’ve been struggling through something in my life. It’s not an important thing, just heart ache. Someone who didn’t call. Someone who should have/would have called. Things were going so well, and I was flatly, silently rejected. I was torn up. To pieces.

But then I saw my first real boyfriend. In town for a wedding, he wanted to get together. He spent a few hours catching up, drinking coffee. It was comfortable and easy. He hasn’t changed. I have.

Then my grandmother came to me. Driving in the car, a song came on the radio and I heard the voice of my grandmother. “You’re beautiful. You’re so special. You’re my one and only.” I burst into tears. But she was right.

Then I ran into my next ex boyfriend in a coffee shop. “Ran into” is a bit of a strong statement, since it amounted to spotting him out of the corner of my eye, having a panic attack and running the other way. He was manipulative and controlling. He was mean and ungrateful. I knew he lived in the area, but not my part. He was with a girl who looked like me. I wasn’t about to deal with him. I took the high road right out of his life.

My Rabbi pocket called me. We haven’t talked in weeks. His voicemail was noise, but his familiar voice not heard often enough was a comfort.

And tonight I saw my last boyfriend in the car next to mine at a stop light. Something completely random, sure. Except not 2 days ago I emailed him for the first time in months saying how strange it was that I hadn’t seen him in the months I lived down the street. And that I had something to tell him. And since I wouldn’t run into him again since I’ve moved, I wanted to tell him right then. Two days later, we’re next to each other. In the dark. On the road. Where I wasn’t going to be. Where I had been a hundred times before.

God, or the universe, sent me all of my exes, my dead grandmother and my Rabbi. What the hell is going on? Am I supposed to say goodbye to my exes, feel what real love is from my grandmother, and start getting my spiritual house in order after being adrift for so long? Is closure from everyone else the closure I needed from the runaway suitor? What is the message?  Is there a message at all? I don’t want to stand at anyone’s gates or the gates of time and be asked why I was there when I could have read the signs. I’m trying so hard to figure it out. It has to add up to something.

On Christmas Eve, Rebekkah and I found ourselves at a local bar, decompressing after a traditional chinese food dinner with the family. It was pretty empty, which naturally meant that the one guy who had drunkenly wandered in sat right down next to us at the bar. I tried to look interested. I tried as hard as I’m known to try which is not hard at all. Then I made the grand recommendation that Rebekkah and I play Big Buck Hunter. Without our new friend.

Taking aim with my orange plastic hunting rifle, I took out an evening’s worth of aggression on poor, unsuspecting buck, and their does, and small woodland creatures just the same. Rebekkah was impressed (as I was with her innate skills), and so were two tall, frat boy looking, t-shirt glad, shuffleboard playing gentleman who made their way over to the game just as we were finishing up. As the banter went from awkward to easy, we got around to the “why are you at a bar on Christmas Eve” part of the conversation.

“Jewish.” It was a safe and truthful response.

The dark haired one jumped in: “You’re Jewish? You? Are you serious? You’re Jewish? You’re tall. Oh my God, you’d be perfect for my friend.”

The red haired one, the one who effortlessly used “pugilist” in a sentence just moments before, grabbed my hips and squared them to his. “Wow. You have a really good child bearing carriage.”

“Excuse me?!” I had no words. “Um..”

“You do. Your small, high waist and wide set hips.”

“Are you a gynecologist?!”

“No,” he responded. “It’s a compliment!”

“No, it’s not! And let’s just say in your brain it was a compliment, it’s not one you SHARE with someone!”

Shocked yet objectively humored at the ridiculous nature of the conversation, I did everything in my power to make my carriage look as dainty as possible, employing all the tricks I half listened to on America’s Next Top Model. “Look concave, twist your hips away from the camera.” He may have been trying to be nice. He also made me feel like a heifer.

With cooler heads prevailing, I found ways to take it as a compliment. Evolutionarily speaking, he remarked upon my reproductive advantage. That’s how to spin it, right? He was tall and virile. He was gainfully employed. He was aggressive and assured. He was the evolutionary advantageous “hunter” that would put my child bearing carriage to good use.

Except this is real life.

And I’m just not interested. Certainly it’s hard to hunt and gather with your foot in your mouth.

When your friends see you headed to the edge, they warn you. Be careful. Slow down. Or they push you. “Oh, go on. It’s about time you took a leap.” Leap…leap…leap…. echoes after you on the way down.

I know why they call it falling. Falling apart. Falling in love. It’s a gamble – which way you land. On your feet? On your own? Into a safety net of friends? Into the arms of the one you love? Into the depths of despair?

Jumping into love knowing the risks of falling is scary as hell. And some would question the risks and the rewards. I know I do. Every single time.

As a writer, I spend a lot of time thinking about how the little pieces of the day fit into a bigger story, or how the mundane vignettes that play out around me are a part of someone else’s story. I subscribe unwillingly to the “everything happens for a reason” magical thinking because “fate” is a better story than happenstance. I silently hope that good people have a sordid past, and that sordid people fell from grace. I think about the regret and frustration felt by the driver of a car donning a Gore/Lieberman bumper sticker.

I never realized how distracting it was. Distracting and destructive.

When I moved from DC to Philadelphia, it was another chapter in my growing story of job loss and loneliness and wanderlusting my way around the eastern seaboard. This book was getting to be a heavy load to carry. And two years later, in my car driving from Philly to DC for the last time, the book grew again. Every step, every decision felt like an addendum, proof of failure once again with no way to go back and erase, edit, rip out the chapters gone by. My resume, the table of contents, bore witness to the crimes of my past.

Then I turned 30, and it became open season for “Well, how do you feel, Jane?” It felt like a day, a day after a day. A day before another day. How did I feel? I felt like there was nothing I could do to change my story. That any regrets I had, any emptiness I felt was in the past. A chapter gone by.

And then I met someone. In a completely unremarkable way. For a moment, that bothered me in a staggering way. I was going to meet the man of my dreams in a way befitting my first novel. Over drinks last night, I mused that the toast at our wedding would be short — no funny stories, no consorting compatriots, no “we both reached into the popcorn at the same time.”

“So what?” a dear friend piped up? “So what? So you talk about everything that happens after that. You talk about everything else.”

Who cares about my resume or my litany of moves or my need to fit life into neat little package I can document using twenty six oppressively limiting letters? Standing down from telling a story is a big step. Or, is it stepping aside from writing about what could be/should be/would be and focusing on what is…

“Yoga is a microcosm of your world. But it’s safe to fail here.”

I couldn’t hear the instructor.

I feel demoted at work. I feel like I’m losing my place. I feel like I’ve lost touch.

I couldn’t tell him I was confused.

I don’t feel heard at home. I don’t feel listened to at work. I don’t feel understood.

My legs were weak. Sore. They couldn’t hold me up.

My self esteem is a memory most days. I feel so weak. I have lost my social sea legs.

It was hot. The air was thick. I wanted out.

It is not home, this new city, this new place. It is uncomfortable. Desperately so. I want out.

I began to cry…

I cry and cry…

I have no one to support me. I have no one to help restore me.

I drop to my knees, to the mat. I fall back into child’s pose. I begin to restore myself.

A microcosm of life to be sure.

The instructor came over. Asked if I was OK. I said I was frustrated. I said, “I can’t do it,” and began to fold my mat.

“Sit here for a moment and just take a break. Breathe. If you want to go I understand.”

“I don’t want to go.” And I didn’t. I stroked my arm like a mother would comfort a child, mouthing the words, “You’re safe, Jane. You’re safe. You’re not in danger. You’re just fine.”

I cried my last tear, pushed up out of child’s pose and into down dog refreshed, renewed and restored.

The gym I’m currently testing out has two courts. I’ve been eyeing them to find my potential partner, but to my chagrin they tend to go unused. When I saw the foursome of older gentlemen playing doubles the other night, I saw my “in.” I’m a young lady with an athletic build approaching a group of older, sweaty married guys. They were not impressed.

I asked how I could sign up to join them. The crickets were deafening.

“Do you swing like a girl?”

“Bet your ass I do.”

The 60-year olds were shocked. And apparently intrigued. One of them, the most affable, offered to hit around with me. It was clearly a test. I thought I was doing OK. I got to all the balls. I hit a few kill shots. We left the court and I was chuffed!

“So, could I jump into a game sometime?”

“Well,” the affable one replied, “It’s really a matter of if you can keep up, and stay out of the way. Playing doubles is different.”

I left, crestfallen, but showed up tonight ready to practice by myself so at some point soon I could join the old men, the only men, playing ball.

Well, they were there again and I was ready to play. The only one who wanted to take me on was a young guy (shocker!) who was waiting to play basketball. With full sleeve tattoos and biceps that looked like a loaf of challah (…?) I wasn’t sure what to expect. He was ok, but I won. By a lot. “You can beat me at basketball next time!” I jabbed as his friend arrived to get him for his game.

The grumpy old men were stunned. I don’t know why. I said I could play. “So, we’ll be here on Saturday. At 1. We play for blood, though.”

“Shame,” I replied, “I play for money.”

I was “in.” I knew I was in when they started to give me quasi-compliments when I stepped out to grab a swig of water. When I caught them peeking around the edge of the court to watch me play. And it wasn’t because I was a girl. It was because I didn’t suck.

But I really knew I was “in” when one of them tapped on the glass as he left for the night. “You still swing like a girl.”

Damn right I do.