i don’t have it in me to even throw together a few paragraphs of interesting original thought. (I’ve tried. twice.) so instead I’m just cutting and pasting a quick thing I threw together in response to a writing prompt from a class I took a while ago. i think the original prompt was to start a piece with the words “it began with…” and then we were to follow back up and try to add more “show, don’t tell.” I’m not sure I nailed it. but, whatever… here it is.
It began with a simple question: “What do you want?”
And almost before I was aware of it, I had begun to cry. This, I thought, isn’t how this is done. One doesn’t simply burst out in tears in front of someone one barely knows. This is only maybe appropriate once one has established some kind of connection, an understanding with another person. This is not second date, sipping on a cup of strong black coffee on a wobbly wrought iron chair on a south broadway sidewalk kind of behavior.
And yet here we were. And once the tears started, there was no stopping it. I quickly calculated that I might never see this man again, said to hell with it and made no attempt to stop.
K, the slightly older gentleman who had asked me out for a first date for the weekend before with the coy request that i promise that we wouldn’t have sex that first time we met, was now looking at me intently, seriously. I found his reaction interesting – he didn’t flinch or look away, but leaned in, touched my arm, a mildly concerned look in his eyes.
This type of kindness was one of the things that surprised me the most about my relatively late in life adventures in singledom. Dating in my late 40’s and now 50’s was something that I didn’t feel particularly ready for when I fell into it. I was enjoying myself, for the most part, feeling my way along, figuring things out as i went. Which is why I was slightly surprised to find myself in this tearful exchange with K.
But he was still there, waiting for me to respond. “I don’t know.” I said. “I think I haven’t yet given myself permission to dare to want a particular thing.”
***
I blame Al-Anon.
I’m willing to take part of the blame for my lack of a specific desire or relationship goals, but at least a part of why i wasn’t able to answer K’s simple question was tied to all those many hours i had spent over the last ten years or so in the basement of Trininty Church, huddled around in a circle of folding chairs with others whose lives had become unmanageable. There, hanging on the wall by one tiny nail, slightly askew, was the tapestry of the serenity prayer. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things i cannot change, the courage to change the things i can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
I had embraced the fuck out of the serenity prayer. As if my life depended on it. (And really, for a moment there, it felt like it had…) J, the man who i was surprised to find out wasn’t gay despite that distinctive lilt in his voice, the ponytail, and the frequent references to work in the dramatic arts, had once stopped me outside the building as we were leaving a lunchtime meeting. “You,” he had said, “have nailed the serenity prayer.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But, as with many things in my life, I may have overcorrected.”
I had told myself, taking control means having to want for a thing, and i don’t have it in me quite yet, to dare to want, or desire. I’m a take it as it comes person. This, i had told myself, means that I have oxymoronically embraced the idea of letting go. Aren’t i so evolved, i tell myself.
And yet… this may all be a bit of a cop out. Not wanting any particular thing means never being disappointed, but it also means giving up a sense of agency, of being able to steer this bag of flesh and bones in any kind of intentional way towards living a life of meaning, of risk taking, of both amazing accomplishments and failures.
eleven bee 