Friday, December 31, 2010

The End

As the leaves started falling this year, this blog took a turn toward the depressing.

When I started blogging, the purpose was largely to force myself to sit down and write.  As an inveterate procrastinator, having that goal of pushing the "Publish Post" button did wonders for my motivation.  It forced me to gather my thoughts, and it forced me to finish them for once.

Throughout the year, I kept a running tab of all the random things that happened to me that would make good writing material.  I still have a list of ideas for posts that remain unwritten, like the time a guy on the street randomly guessed that I was a lawyer; the fact that all the guys in my life have insanely generic monosyllabic names, like Dan, Dave, Doug, Greg, Jeff, Joe, John, Matt, Mike, Pete, Rob; the time that a guy asked me for my phone number after a softball game by throwing his BlackBerry at me and saying "The keypad's on the left"; the shape of my various first dates - dinners, drinks, baseball games, concerts, ferry rides; the time a 80-year old southern gentleman told me I was one of the most gorgeous women he had ever seen in his life.

But I soon found that while these stories were certainly entertaining, it wasn't what I wanted to think about when I sat down to write.  As the year progressed, my posts became less anecdotal and more introspective.  I concentrated instead on all of the negatives - my frustration with the dating cycle, my fear of ending up alone, my constant battle against being disappointed, my fear of never figuring out what it is I should be doing with my life.

I think introspection every now and then can be a great thing, but as I wallowed in my own self-pity and even started writing a post defending people who feel sorry for themselves, I realized that thinking about myself all the time was not making me a happier person.

As I said way back in January, the point of this blog was for me.  For me to remember.  For me to remember what it was like to be 26, living in New York in 2010.

So without realizing it at the time, I had set an expiration date for this blog.  The year twenty-ten is just a few hours away from being over, and with this post, so is this blog.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

An Explanation of Silence

I know you said you weren't particularly surprised to hear from me, but did you wonder why you hadn't heard from me in nearly two years?

I had planned to cut you out completely.  I found it perplexingly distressing to deal with the aftermath of your visits.  After your last visit, I decided that inviting you to pop in and out of my life like that just wasn't good for me.  I wasn't strong enough to handle it - to make myself emotionally snap out of it every time.  So I decided to cut you out.  I pushed you out of my mind.  I dated a ton.  I went on a lot of great dates.  And went on a lot of bad ones.  I broke up with a few boys.  And got broken up with by a few boys.  I forgot about you.  And wondered about you.  I resisted the urge to email you.  And eventually, in a typically me way, gave myself a target date.  If I could maintain silence for two full years, then I would allow myself to think about getting back into contact with you.  I changed my mind after a drunken one-night stand.

Dating in New York has been exhausting.   I think I dipped into every possible pool of available guys - work colleagues, former work colleagues, sports teammates, friends of friends, friends of friends of friends, randoms at bars, randoms on the internet, hell I even did speed dating.  There have been so many ups and downs in the last two years.  In the summer, I dated this lawyer.  He was a really nice, decent guy who will probably end up making partner.  I couldn't help but think that if all I wanted was to get married, move to the burbs, have kids and quit my job - well this was my chance.  But I couldn't do it.  I was on a date with him and couldn't wait for it to be over so I could text this awful douchebag of a guy I'd been sleeping with on and off for the previous five months.   Fucked up.

So I took a time out from boys altogether.  Apart from my friend's bachelorette weekend and another friend's birthday, I didn't go out.  It was nice to simply surround myself in the comfort of my friends.  Then in October, I went to a wedding, got totally drunk and hooked up with a guy there.  Oddly enough, it was probably the most fun I'd had all year.  The first time in a while I felt like I was just going with the flow and not getting wrapped up in what was going to happen next.  The first time in a while I remember actually smiling to myself on the street the day after.

That's when I wondered why the hell I was waiting to email you.  Once, you too had made me smile to myself the day after.

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Surreal

When I finally dragged myself out of bed on Saturday, my first thought was, did that really just happen?

'C' came to visit on Friday.  He caught me a little off guard.  I was expecting him to be here on Sunday; instead, I got an email from him on Friday at 3PM saying he was on his way to New York.  A few hours later, he was here.  And a few hours after that, he was gone again.  Apart from the faint trace of his cologne on a pillow, there was no sign that he had even been here.  And within a few hours, that was gone too.  Just like that.