Cliches on Pedestrian Love

“Hello baby welcome to the world.  I’ll me be your hideaway girl. Come on baby let your light shine down.  You’re the best I ever found.”  ~Jimmy LaFave

Clichés on taking a risk.

If you don’t take a chance, you don’t stand a chance.

The road less travelled has made all the difference.

All you need is love.

Everything happens for a reason.

If it’s meant to be, it will be.

The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn and feel and change and grow and love and live.

* * *

And all clichés aside.  Here I am.  Alone.  Finishing off a six-pack of Bud and a bottle of red and a tin of Cope.  So fuck that.

And here’s my own cliché on love and life.

Life is fucking hard.  Love is even harder.  You can’t control who enters your life or who you love.  But you can control whether or not you run away.  And all I’ve ever done, or wanted to do, it run.  Run far, and run fast.  And for the first time in my life the tables are turned.  And I decided to stay and fight the proverbial good fight.  And he decided to throw in the proverbial towel.  And I realized that I can throw in the towel and run.  But that it won’t make a damn bit of difference in how I feel.  Or in how I hurt. 

And fear is a fundamental and unavoidable roadblock in life.  We have so much fear as a human race that we forget what living is.  And what love really is.  And what the truth is.  And we succumb to those fears.  And we eat healthy.  And work hard.  And stay busy.  And eat good food.  And drink heavy.  And we forget.  At least for a moment.  Those great fears.  And those great loves.  But fuckin’-a at least we don’t hurt so bad it feels like our heart is being run through a shop vac. 

So yeah, I get it.  I know what it’s like to feel scared.  Scared that you won’t measure up.  To what others want for you.  To what you want for yourself.  Scared that you might have found someone worth the good fight.  And to be scared that you don’t have the good fight in you.  And to be scared you’ll get hurt.  And to be scared that you don’t know where it’s going.  And to be scared you’ll lose a part of yourself if you give into what your heart and soul are telling you.  And the piss-poor judgment of a knee-jerk reaction is to call it quits.  And say it’s been real.  So, in the nicest possible way, fuck off.  Because I’m too scared to deal with the reality of the situation.  And here’s where somehow each and every two-cent cliché makes sense.

But here’s where the unfortunate truth comes knocking on the door to crash the party.  And where those clichés come into play.  And as an expensively-educated, philosophically-minded Kantian-wanna-be I resent my submission to, hell my slavery to, pedestrian clichés.  But here I am.  Stuck.  Drinkin’ cheap beer. And chewin’ cheap tobacco.  By myself.   Wondering if it is more important to love or to live.  And wondering if, by some miracle of the simple-minded and eternally-hopeful, it’s possible to have both.  To love and to simultaneously live the life I’ve always dreamed of.  And I’m fucking, beyond-my-mind, crazy, out-of-control, terrified.  I’m terrified of what it might mean to admit to myself that I have feelings for something, for someone, outside of myself. 

And I choose to ignore it.  Or at least to rationalize it.  To not throw in the towel until I’d decided, by my incredible and expensively-acquired powers of deductive (or inductive) reasoning, that it was rational to pursue.  But the unfortunate part of this situation is that I can’t control what the other variables enter into my calculus of love.  And I suppose that’s where philosophers of the great, dead, white, Western tradition have failed time and time again.  Because there is no rational or reasonable explanation for putting yourself in a situation of certain and eminent peril and heartbreak.  No other animal willingly enters into a situation in which it is certain to fail.  To hurt. Hell, to die and painful and unreasonable death. 

Fuck yeah humans.

So I’ll toast once again to you.  To what might have been. And come on and pick me up because I just came to say goodbye love.  Good luck out there.  Hopefully I’ll see you again.  If not here, then on the other side.

Meditations With A Malbec

What do you do when you find the thing, at least a part of the thing; you’ve been looking for all your life?  If you’re me, you run.  You run far and you run fast.  You come to two proverbial roads diverging in a yellow wood and you take the one more traveled. It’s well worn and safe.  And you’ll never know if the other one, the one tangled with twisted branches and menacing shadows, would have made all the difference.

And me of the golden reputation.  The one who’s never home and never lonely.  The one for whom men supposedly fall so fast and so hard for that I’ve got nothing to worry about.  Ever.  Me of the golden reputation.  Me the breaker of hearts.  Me the taker of numbers.  Me.  The one who is alone.  And lonely.  Again.  With a fancy wine glass and bottle of Argentinean Malbec for company.  I toast to that.  The loneliness.  And drinking alone.  And nobody knowing all of theses emotions are dripping from each and every pore of my body.  It’s a good glass of wine.  Rich and complex.  Or so they say.

But I toast to the loneliness because the loneliness sneaks away, tail between its legs, with the first brush of morning.  The hurt does not.  And so I choose the well-travelled road.  The one most of us choose.  The one void of risk and thus, void of pain.  I could elect that road less travelled.  I could tell him how I feel.  For that matter I could tell my entire world how I feel.  But I digress.  I could tell him what I want and what I think about and what I dream about.  I could have the courage to show him this.  And they tell me that road less travelled would make all the difference.  And I raise my glass to that bullshit and say fuck that.  I’ll take the high road and avoid the hurt and pain that tears a body into so many confetti bits that a fraud artist couldn’t glue them together again to make a cohesive whole.  That kind of hurt means that one is never whole again.  And once again, I say fuck that.

And the one thing I want more than anything in the world is a connection.  To someone.  To something outside myself.  To something bigger than this.  And I have no one to call.  They’ve either told me they won’t speak to me.  They’ve cut me out completely.  Or they’re too busy.  Or they don’t understand.  Or they just don’t care to talk at this hour.  And why.  Because I’ve systematically eliminated everyone from my bubble of personal space in order to replace said bubble with an armored car of nothingness. 

But at least it’s safe. 

I’ll drink to that.

It’s a good bottle of Malbe.  Or so they say.

Life Lessons Learned In The Valley of the Sun

So here I am.  Sitting on my roof.  At midnight.  Watching a full moon set over the mountain.  Drinking a PBR.  And chewing Copenhagen.  Wearing $130 yoga pants.  Tying on a MacBook Pro.  The eternal walking contradiction.

And I’m thinking that I’ve learned a few things in the Valley of the Sun.  And that I’m going to miss this place. 

I’ve learned what I want in a place.  And a person.  And life.  I went on a hike today (go figure) and sitting in a glaciated valley, on the shore of a Forest Service Jeep turquoise alpine lake, with pristine pines and grumpy rock outcroppings surrounding me, I felt home.  Finally.  I never thought I’d be able to get out of small-town Ohio and do this.  I didn’t think I had it in me to say fuck you to the path that had been preordained for me from birth.  But I did.  And here I am.  I have learned, this summer in particular, that I want authenticity, and honesty, and happiness, and love.  And that I no idea what those words mean.  Nor do I put much trust in words.  As one who deals in words, I know how shifty they can be.  But At least I know that I want a clear blue sky, and a cold beer, and someone to hold me at night, and a friend’s shoulder to cry on, and a buddy to laugh with.  And to make a difference to someone. 

I learned that no one can be trusted.  But that everyone should be loved.  My mom raised me to believe in the good within everyone.  And I took that to heart.  I have this pernicious tendency to fall madly in love with everyone I meet.  A lot like Maverick.  Maybe that’s why he and I get along so well.  But I digress.  And through several dead ends.  And a couple of ugly situations.  And one new chance.  I’ve learned that while everyone should be loved, not everyone should be immediately and inextricably fallen in love with.  Jumping head first off a cliff is a lot of fun.  Jumping head first off the cliff of in-love is also a lot of fun.  And really dangerous.  I’ve learned to take it slow.  Give it a chance.  And ride the ride for all its worth.

I learned who the good people are.  They are the one who rescue you in the middle of the street, in the middle of the night, in the middle of a fight.  They are the one who listen to you sob about issues that have nothing to do with them but that you just needed to tell to someone.  And keep it a secret.  They are the ones who don’t judge you through each new “I-swear-this-is-the-One” guy you meet.  They are the ones who teach you to fish while drinking red wine.  They are the ones who drink beer on the roof with you.  They are the ones who cry with you in 101.  They are the ones who jump naked into an alpine lake with you just because.  They are the ones who don’t take bullshit.  And give you lots of bullshit.  And call you out on your bullshit.  And love you anyway.  They are the ones turn out not to be snakes. 

I learned that I can’t settle down.  And there’s always the naysayers who say that you have to.  Or that you will someday.  Or that you’ll grow out of it.  Or that it’s just a phase. Or that back when they were my age (whether that was two years ago or fifty years ago) they did the same thing.  And I’d like to know when this magical time is that I’m expected to settle down with a husband, 2.5 children, a Golden Retriever and a respectable house.  When I settle down it’s going to be on my terms, like everything else I do.  It’ll be with a man who has the wanderlust as much as me.  And wants rippin’ skier, mountain babies.  And with a cabin in the mountains, a house on the beach and an apartment in Johannesburg.  And somehow I’ll get there.  By taking the roundabout, crazy-winding, tangential, long-way-around path that I always take.  Sorry Dad, I know that kills you.  But I promise I’ll be alright.

But as usual in my life, it’s time to get going.  And time to move on.  Because there’s a too vast world out there.  Vaulting us on to the next great venture beneath the skies.  And that’s why my car is always stuffed full of shit in the trunk.  I’ve always got hiking shoes.  And a yoga mat.  A wine key.  And high heels.  A sleeping bag and a backpack.  Sweat pants.  And shorts.  And a map.  And I’m always ready to pick up a leave when things get too heavy, or too boring, or too dull.  Or when the wanderlust bites me and tells me it’s time to go and see what’s over the next rise and around the next bend.  And I’ll miss the old places and the old people like hell.  And they’ll always have a place in my heart.  But what I’ve really learned is that I will find those people and those places everywhere.  Because everyone has a little bit of everything in them.  And everyone is worth knowing.  And worth loving.  And I’ve got lots of places to see.  And beers to drink.  And strange foods to eat.  And people to love.  And leave.  And meet again at the end of this crazy journey we call life.

I love you all.  Good luck out there.

Knights In Shining Xterras

What’s it all about?

We keep trying to answer that question.  And amidst angry screams, and bruises, and mean words I figured it out.  I wasn’t focused on the asshole who wouldn’t leave me alone.  Instead I was focused on the fact that they came.  My friends really came and saved me.

Cue the superhero music and the galloping horses.  I found my own knights in shining armor.  Apparently, they really do exist. 

Or at least knights in shining, silver Xterras do exist.  But in the future, I’d be much happier if they showed up with great fanfare, shining swords, galloping white horses and maybe a tight, Spandex superhero cape or two.  But I guess I’ll settle for a dirty SUV.

And that’s why it’s here in this petit hamlet of mountain-towness, that I learned that they (whoever the ambiguous, ubiquitous “they” might be) are right when they say that you always find out who your friends are.  Friends are not so self-involved that they can’t even pick you up from the hospital.  Friends are not so cruel that they think nothing of sharing personal tidbits with an entire city.  Friends don’t tell you that you’re beautiful and wonderful, while following with the fine print that this is true only insofar as you play their game by their rules.

Real friends play your game even when they don’t want to.  They are civil to the assholes you choose to date.  They roll their eyes patiently at each harebrained scheme you cook up. Even better, they come along with you when you execute it.  They walk, or rather carry, you home when you’ve had too much to drink and are a crying hot mess blubbering about past loves and future lovers.  They tell you when you’re being a bitch, they tell you when your clothes make you look like a five-dollar whore.  They tell you when the most recent love of your life is actually a lying asshole.  And they stand by you when you stubbornly ignore their advice.  And no matter what, they ride in and sweep you off your feet when you least expect it.  When you’re most lost.  And when you desperately need a knight in shining armor.  And that’s what it’s all about.

Single In Sun Valley

I have been single in Sun Valley (See also: Single In Sun Valley) for thirty-six hours and have already had a complete stranger kiss (or rather lick) my face, been wordlessly hit on by a recently single man on the bounce-back who spoke a cumulative total of fifteen words to me and scored a date with a tall, dark and handsome man whose name I don’t know, who will be in town for one whole week and who may or may not have a girlfriend.  The latter being an apt microcosm of mountain town life at it’s debaucherous finest.  Welcome to single life in Sun Valley.  Or any mountain at that. 

Contrary to what Jim Carey might have said, Aspen, and its mountain town brethren, are not places where the women flock like the salmon of Capistrano.  And while the beer does flow like wine, the women are few and far between.  Sausage fest is the name of the game.  And, as I was so aptly informed today, if a woman is looking to “get fucked” (direct quote) she should cruise on into a mountain town where, the reality is, the men flock like the salmon of Capistrano.  Or bucks in rut.  Or like bugs to a light at night.  And this is how I ended up with two guys, who may or may not have girlfriends and only one definitive name that I know.

I guess this is what being single in Sun Valley means (Sun Valley serving as a convenient microcosm for any mountain hamlet populated by rich, upper middle class white kids with too much money, lots of time to kill and an overabundance of whiskey).  I’ve been here for forty-eight hours and I already know who’s sleeping with whom, who was sleeping with whom, who wants to be sleeping with whom, who I can’t sleep with because they were sleeping with whom, who will be pissed at me if I sleep with whom and who I want to sleep with.  This is a recipe for chaos if I’ve ever heard one.  As a Whiskey Jacques bartender so appropriately put it, “This town’s a boiling pot.”

He also pontificated the two rules of Sun Valley, “Don’t get jealous and don’t talk.”  In other words, whomever you are sleeping with has probably slept with your best friend.  Or will. As my best friend's boyfriend delicately informed me upon my arrival, "You don't lose your girlfriend, you lose your turn."   So don’t get your panties in a bunch about it.  And unless you want to become the town whore and simultaneously piss of said best friend whom your current lover was (or will be) sleeping with, keep your fucking mouth shut for God’s sake.  Again we see Exhibit A of mountain town singledome, everyone ultimately sleeps with everyone, and everyone knows everyone’s business.  Because, when you put a bunch of never-say-no adrenaline junkies in a small town and give them a limited amount of time to eat, drink and be merry before entering the real world, chaos is sure to ensue.  Plato himself, bastion of Western masculinity that he is, once noted that no town can live peacefully, no matter what its laws, when its inhabitants do nothing but feast, drink and tire themselves out in the pursuit of love. Or sex.  

And so we return to me at the bar.  With one man attempting seduction sans words because he is too afraid to grow a pair and actually engage in a conversation with me, and another growing too big of a pair and asking me on a date to the burger joint even though I don’t know his name.  And here we learn what it means to be single in Sun Valley.  From a girl’s perspective.  It means that a plethora of men will engage you in semi-meaningless conversation in an attempt to meet you at The Cellar, buy you a shot of Crown and, if all goes according to plan, take you home.  And because I believe in the brevity of human existence, and the subsequent need to take life by the balls, I find this alright.  Why not give it a shot.  Who knows.  Maybe that moment will make all the difference. This is not necessarily the escapist hedonism that it seems.  For many it is a necessary, even lifesaving, escape from their harsh reality.  It is a means of holding onto the only thing that feel real when everything else is flaking into rhetoric or falling down in shambles around you.  So let’s do this – welcome to being single in Sun Valley.

Who Killed Prince Charming? I Liked Him

Prince Charming, the Knight in Shining Armor, Cinderella’s Prince, Barbie’s Ken, hell, even Jerry McGuire really screwed it up.  They were our childhood heroes, around whom we crafted our brittle and often misguided hopes and dreams.  They played with us through thick and thin, until, one day, they didn’t.  And there we were, cold and alone, probably standing in the rain in the middle of a street lit dimly by one hanging streetlamp as the “Grey’s Anatomy sad breakup music” swelled in the background and we listened as the love of our life told us he didn’t love us.  And it feels like the time we got the wind knocked out of us in third grade gym class because we couldn’t catch the kickball – equal parts pain, embarrassment and a panicky inability to breathe.  And we have reached it.  The death of hope.  That poignant coming-of-age moment in which we realize that happily ever after doesn’t exist, fairy tales aren’t real and life is sometimes hard.  Actually, it’s usually hard.

Happily Never After.  The End.

Or so you think.

But if you are among the enlightened few that have the presence of heart and mind to move beyond this really crappy moment, then you come to realize that the death of hope isn’t so bad.  The sooner you stop waiting for Prince Charming to whisk you away to Happily Ever After Land, the sooner you are able to realize that real relationships take work, not fairy dust magic.  

I knew a man once who couldn’t stay content in a relationship for longer than two weeks, a month, maybe three if he was lucky.  His demons grew restless when that first-two-week honeymoon faded into the reality of the everyday.  So he’d leave woman after woman in search of an eternity of just-met-you giddiness.  His own Happily Ever After, if you will.  The problem is that the just-met-a-new girl jitters is not love, or even being in love, it’s being in lust.  And it’s very real, but not at all realistic.  Unfortunately, people are mean, people are annoying and people let you down.  It’s what you do after those letdowns that make love.  Hopefully, he finds it someday.

I also know my parents.  And I know that sometimes they want to scratch each other’s eyes out, or rip each other’s throats out, and then tear each other limb from limb and feed those body parts to a pit of flesh eating vipers (do flesh eating vipers actually exist?).  Or all of the above.  And I also know that they are still together after 27 (ish) years of marriage and that for some unknown reason my parental-type figures appear to love each other. 

And that’s what love’s really all about.  It’s the desire to tear someone limb from limb, but the ability to love and respect them at the end of the day for who they are, not who you wish they would be.  Perhaps if people stopped believing in this fairy tale propaganda, stopped watching so much Grey’s Anatomy and stopped waiting for a Happily Ever After that never comes, they would find Happily Ever After where they least expected it.  Or at least some form of it.  Maybe if people waited for their soul mate in the form of shared intellect, mutual trust and big belly laughs they would stop following the ghost of passionate romance down an endless road.  Maybe then families wouldn’t break, dreams wouldn’t shatter and hearts wouldn’t rupture.

So ride in on your own white horse and be your own knight in shining armor.  Fairy tales aren’t real.  Love isn’t that tingle in the pit of your stomach when you meet a pretty girl for the first time.  Love is what is still there after the fires of passion have cooled.  After you’ve succeeded in really hurting, annoying, despising and destroying someone, and then the dust settles, and they’re still there.  Just like you wished your childhood fairy heroes would have been.  And that’s when you find out that Happily Ever After is real.  Just not at all in the way we thought it was.  And in the end all we’ve got is hope in love.

Author’s Note:  Inspired by a wonderful aunt who I’ve always thought rocked the free world because of her ability to do her own thing and find a tremendous amount of joy and happiness in doing so.  Big ups.

My own death of hope moment.  Doesn't look so bad, huh?