Make A Wish!

This weekend marked my 31st birthday.  I had the usual few preceding days of anxiety that comes with my birthdays.  What will I do?  What have I done with my life?  Where am I going?  Whose going to do what with me?  And of course, the strongest feeling of anxiety came from this initial unshakable feeling of what I will call 'romantic loneliness'.  In my head I kept singing to myself, 'one is the loneliest number, that you've ever seen'.  I literally had to ask God to remove that feeling of uneasiness.  So that I could function and enjoy my last week of being 30.

I had planned a beautiful weekend for myself, spa services at the Peninsula and a hotel in the Gold Coast, but all I kept thinking about was who would take me to dinner and hopefully spend some quality time with me afterwards.  Side note:  you are free to mentally add quotation marks around 'quality time'.  Now when I first booked these services and the room, I was so excited.  I had planned to do something special for myself, by myself.  The dinner reservations were made for two, with the expectation and assumption I could get at least one person to join me.  However, with that said, I found myself becoming more and more anxious about the potential 'male escort' part.  Who was going to sit with me over a romantic steak dinner?

I had two options, Mr. Friend and the Serbian.  They both increasingly became bad options.  This is where I believe my anxiety rested.  Although I spent countless hours trying to figure out how I would juggle both of them, if they did decide to spend some time, as my special day approached, it occurred to me that neither would come through.  I admit to being a bit salty.  It was my birthday.  Any man interested in me would want to make sure he did something for 'my day', right?  I was wrong.

Mr. Friend essentially stalked me at my boot camp class (I hope he doesn't make that a habit).  I invited him to dinner to which he started stumbling on his words about he has to see what his aunt was doing.  Hunh??  Yesterday I got a 'Happy Birthday' text message (you know how I feel about that).  The Serbian hasn't been spoken to since Thursday (I think he was annoyed that I went to the Bulls game without him.  It seems silly, but I really believe that by his attitude when I spoke to him that night at the game).

But the story isn't about them, the story is about everyone else.  In particular, my friends, to be more specific, my girls.  While I was sulking about my romantic life, my girl K. Hubb was planning a fun girls' night out for me.  She did this in less than a week.  We started the night at Roadhouse Rita's.  Two words:  Mechanical Bull.  Then ended the night cuttin' up at t's Bar Restaurant.  All in all, I had a marvelous time.  It was a beautiful surprise and absolutely fun!

On my actual birthday, yesterday, I enjoyed an hour aromatherapy massage and a holistic foot treatment at The Peninsula. I felt pampered and even slept in the pedicure chair while receiving a hot stone massage on my legs and feet.  It was heavenly.  My girlfriend Lorraine later met me at my hotel (The Sutton Place) and we went to McCormick & Schmicks for happy hour cocktails and appetizers, then Gibson's for dinner and finally The Whiskey for after-dinner drinks.  All in all I had a absolute wonderful birthday!  My girls really came through.

I received messages from  some of everybody via text, Facebook and direct phone calls.  At least 2 exes sent texts and I even received birthday wishes from my old best friend who I haven't spoken to in almost a year due to our equal stubbornness.  His text literally brought tears to my eyes.  All this is to say, I felt incredibly loved this weekend.  It may sound funny, but I felt safe and secure.  Like all IS well with the world.  Even the downpour of rain yesterday, didn't dampen my spirits.  It cleared up by the time I left the spa.  Everything went so well, for a second, I thought about dying.  I know it sounds morbid. But when really good things happen to me in bulk, I always wonder, what is the backlash.  I felt so euphorically good, that the antithesis would be a freak car accident, or I would twist my ankle on my too-high platform shoes.  Call me a pessimist, but everything was so good.

My friends came through.  That's all I keep repeating in my head.  They came through.  They took care of me.  And they loved me.  I cannot say how good it feels.  God's message undoubtedly was/is, you ARE loved.  You ARE appreciated, look around.  As I fell asleep last night in this hotel room I had hoped would be shared with a gentleman friend, I realized, I did not miss a thing.  Nothing more was needed for this weekend to be perfect.  I originally planned everything with the intention of spending time with/by myself.  How I turned that into drama about boys, I cannot even begin to tell you.  What I can tell you is, on my 31st birthday this year, I was not alone.  Even when I was alone, I was never alone.

An Ode to My Mama

Today is Mother's Day and my mom is in Tampa where she has retired, but although we have not seen each other since last March, I feel just as close to her.  This post is to the woman who can love, shame, encourage, annoy and make me laugh all at the same time!  To the person who holds the distinguished honor of posting the most comments on my blog, thank you.  To the woman who after many pleas to keep her comments objective so people don't realize she is my most faithful reader, totally disregards me.  To the woman who deleted my well crafted iPod music list and replaced it all with sacred music, on accident, thank you.  To the woman who has shared a little more than I care to know about her sex life, past and present, you are the best.  To the woman who never took my side as a child, and refused to give me money when I mismanaged mine, to teach me a tough love message.  To the mother who passed on her love of eclectic style and good music.  To this day I cannot clean my house without blasting music and using heavy bleach products.  To the mom who considers me prissy and the ultimate wearer of 'bootylicious' pants.  All while telling me my size is fine and I look good.  To the woman who gets indignant when she finds out some jerk mistreated me, "I didn't raise you like that" or "you ain't nobody's booty-call!".  To the woman who signs e-mails, Momma, Mom or Shirley.  I love you and thank you for my sense of everything.  When I look in the mirror, I see you.  My mannerisms mimic yours more and more as I grow older.  I thank you again and again and again.  I can't think of a better traveling buddy, or a more worthy person of absolute un-adulterated love and compassion.  Thank you for you.  I am glad God chose you as my vessel to this world.  I would not want it any other way.

We Can't Be Friends

My girlfriend went out of town today. We are neighbors and she asked if I would drive her car back to her house so she would not have to drive it to the airport. I agreed and on the way home, I listened to the radio. In my own car I rarely listen to the radio as it bores me. I usually play a CD. While flipping through channels I come across the Trey Songz song, "Can't Be Friends". I have heard it before, liked his voice, but never listened to the lyrics closely. Well I did today, and I really felt the song. The song is about two people who crossed the friendship line and now they cannot go back. So essentially, they must leave each other alone. I may not have felt this song so much if I did not just encounter a similar situation.

Late last summer, I met a man who I overtime grew to like, a lot. When we met, he had a girlfriend whom he lived with and I had a boyfriend, who was soon to be out the door. In our very first conversation, 'Mr. Friend' explained how he was most definitely leaving his girl 'this year'. It's now 2011; summer is quickly approaching and this has yet to happen. This would have been okay if we had stayed, just friends. Platonic buddies, who hung out. But on our first outing, I was confronted with a kiss. I don't mean a friendly, goodnight, see you later kiss. I mean a KISS. The kind that makes you feel tingly inside. The kind of kiss that makes you feel warm AND fuzzy. That kiss that you think about weeks, hell, months later. The one that makes you a little uncomfortable and shy when it happens.

After that, we would kiss to close all of our outings/dates, whether it be a smooch or something more. Mind you, the girlfriend is still at home. But we did not think of her too tough. We discussed her and I even encouraged him to try to make it work, but the kissing, the hand holding, the soulful hugs and late night hanging out did not stop. As a matter of fact, it just grew and settled into something more real, or so I believed and/or felt. Our 'friendship' evolved into something that could not be defined by a proper title. He became 'Mr. Friend'. His name alone, if you knew the situation, stated it all, whatever 'it all' meant. At some point we had been sentenced, and decided to stay in a purgatory, that we ourselves created, for ourselves. It was our own private playground. The in-between was comfortable, cushy and hard to explain or understand.

This weekend, under the fire storm of my own stress regarding some poor relationship choices made, I finally asked God for the courage to leave. The courage to confront the situation for what it is/was and the strength and most importantly the energy to move on. You see, recently his girlfriend became more present so to speak. Apparently she could tell there was a major shift in their relationship and she had resolved to do her part by making an effort to make it work. Her new attitude and renewed spirit in the relationship caused his conscious to kick into overdrive and now he was torn and more hesitant about 'us'. I asked him what was going on and explained that I recognized a change in his usual 'get up and go' mentality. He acknowledged it and apologized. We had a heart-to-heart that ended in me saying we need to pull away. I asked him what he wanted from me, to which he responded, he didn't know. I in turn stated I wanted more. He agreed we had crossed the friendship boundary a while back and stated that he was 'obviously attracted' to me. He expressed he never meant to hurt me, and didn't think and was hoping things would not turn out this way. He said he would call in about two weeks, but I did not think that was a good idea.

When it was all said and done, I felt relieved, but a bit heartbroken. Although I was not in love with him, I enjoyed his companionship, however limited it might have been. I genuinely liked him. I was never secure on the potential of a relationship, but was happy in our moments. This song, brought all that up. I had not really talked about it before now. I was not fully able to grasp what I felt. The friendship was wrong from the start. It was gift-wrapped for disaster. We just held on hoping that at some point the pieces to the puzzle would fall into place. Where everyone (us two) ended up happy whether separate or together. Where there were clear bad guys and good guys. What typically happens in situations like this, however, is there are no 'bad guys'. Everyone is searching for the same thing. Love, appreciation, comfort, security. Unfortunately, none of those pieces ended up in my puzzle.