Conversations

Sometimes we can’t say the things we really want to say. Or conversations stop and switch before we get to make the point we really wanted to make. Or we have a delicate or difficult question we really want to ask but miss the opportunity or lack the courage to ask it. What happens when we hold onto these unspoken pieces of ourselves?

Do you forget about them or do you play them over and over in your head? Do you have 1,000 conversations rolling around inside of you…Or is it just me?

Every time I drive these conversations begin to surface. I tell an obnoxious friend that I love them but I don’t like them right now. I ask my closest male friend if I’m pretty or beautiful or plain. I yell at the boys(s) that broke my heart. I share my deepest dreams and fears with the man I love…In my head…as I drive.

I wonder if any of it will come true. I wonder if I should tell my friend that they are being obnoxious. Or if I’m pretty or plain. Or if the man I love would run were I to show him the raw version of me.

In the end, 990 of those 1,000 conversations stay in my head. Of the 10 I say out-loud, maybe one goes well; the rest should have been left unspoken. But how do you know if you keep it all inside? How do you know anything if you don’t take the risk and try?

There are so many things

I’ve had a phrase rolling around and around in my head. Every time I go to put pen to paper the phrase fills my brain and pushes all the good thoughts out.

There are so many things…

That’s it, nothing more. So what are these “things” and why won’t they leave me alone? I have no idea. I think that these days I have so very many ideas, thoughts and concerns on my mind that I can’t quite focus on any one. It is like cleaning a closet. You have to first pull everything out of it. From a small space comes a great, big, overwhelming, insurmountable mess and you just don’t know where to start – So you go to the kitchen for a sandwich and leave the mess. To avoid. To adjust.

Saturday morning I sat at my work-table with a cup of tea, a pen and a pad. I was going to write but the phrase came instead. So I wrote “There are so many things” at the top of the page and then I pulled from my emotional closet. There are so many things…That scare me. That I excel at. That I want to try. That I want to leave behind. That I want to be better at.

There were so many things – that I filled two pages. And, just like cleaning, I’m a little overwhelmed. Bit by bit I’ll reorganize, readjust, toss or keep. I’ll put the important bits back, I’ll get rid of the bits that don’t work anymore and I’ll make room for new things too – experiences, people and successes.

The pillar

I have a pillar upon which I base a great deal. The pillar is this: you can be a woman at 23 and a girl at 36. Age does not determine maturity, confidence, independence or wisdom – all things I think women have. I have known far too many 36 year old girls – they determine their abilities, worth and understanding of the world upon the reflection of themselves that they see in the people around them. What a man thinks of these girls is what they think of themselves.

My question is, can you be a man at 23 and a boy at 36? Or are the male of the species always boys?

I ask this because I have had a rather unusual few weeks. I met a man. Now, I recognize that I have repeated again and again on this page the following two things with near glee:

1. Boys are a drug and I’ve gone cold turkey, and
2. No boys for one year

But did you notice that I used the word man? This individual has had more confidence, persistence and guts than any boy I’ve come across in the last few years and to me, those three things are part of what should define a man. There’s a catch though, a reason for my inquiry…he’s only 24. And I am reminded of my pillar when I think about the age difference between us.

Time will only tell. He is sweet and tall and cute. He is a gentleman and he is keen on me with an eagerness that is a little uncomfortable because let’s face it, the boys in my life have the nasty habit of dropping me like a toy six days after Christmas.

The quiet, patient and consistent attention has made me wonder somethings about myself too. I came up with the pillar when I was 23 as a self-defense mechanism. It was a way to help me move forward with my head held high after a bad break-up. The pillar has been repeated in the following years after every failed romantic interlude and angst ridden “what if.” The knowledge that I was the better choice, I was a woman and whomever my Romeo had chosen instead of me was both a girl and a decision, that he would regret.

But I think, now, maybe I was wrong. I think that the pillar was missing a foundation piece…guts. The guts to not only stand in the spotlight a man puts on you when he is overcome by all that you are and sees the beauty so many others have passed by, but also the guts to confront the unease that attention creates and address it head on. Personally, I’ve always tended to run, I’d fly instead of fight.

So yesterday, knowing I was about to fly from this man, from the terror I felt and the instinct to drop him like a hot potato, I chose to stand up and put my fears out there. I chose to fight. I’ve finally gotten the guts to be a woman and it took a 24 year old man to bring it out of me.