Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Does Opportunity ever just come through the revolving door?

I talked to my bestie the other night-- the one and only Sokphal. She's a busy woman and we hardly get time for a chat anymore, but she did say something that got me thinking.... I'd mentioned I was going to spend some time with this guy I used to hang out with quite a bit. Mostly in passing. But she said, "Rachel, your love life is like a revolving door." Not in judgment, just an observation (I think).
I guess that's true for a lot of reasons. Mostly because, generally speaking, I date my friends-- that is to say that if I'm going to bother going out with someone, it's going to be someone I already know I like on the friend level. And just because things don't work out does not mean that I'm going to kick them to the curb and throw the baby out with the bathwater, and any other number of applicable cliches. I'm just saying that once you're in my life, you tend to stick there for better or worse.
So in some ways it's comforting-- knowing you've got someone to go back to for support. And sometimes it's scary and dangerous. It was very recently that I found myself boldly putting the same man in and out of rotation, trying to figure out if I could file him away in one friend category or the other, angry that he doesn't fit into one of my typical molds. What do you do with someone who says they love you but they are just simply incapable of acting like it? Call them a liar and kick them in the face? Feel sorry for them? Forget about them? Take their phone number out of your cell? Pretend it didn't happen? I'll tell you one thing-- I'm learning it's a lot riskier actually confronting those issues (especially when the outcome is completely unsatisfactory) than making some grand gesture to an oblivious would-be love. It's harder to talk to someone two blocks away than it is to move 650 miles to get someone to notice you.
But still, that door keeps moving. I've recently seen some new faces walk through and they've made life better, fun, and interesting, even if they (and I to them) only served the purpose of a timely, necessary distraction. And those old faces still bring me comfort and joy. It's not that euphoric running-through-a-meadow-filled-with-lilacs, spring-time, everything-smells-like-Hello-Kitty-and-childhood high, and it's specifically not the stomach-flipping excitement of realizing that you smell like the one you love just because spending time in his apartment makes everything smell like rain and Disneyland either. But it feels like warm sheets out of the dryer and eating great pineapple even though you don't live anywhere close to Hawaii. It's comforting and surprising and luxurious, and those blessings and feelings save my sanity and preserve my hope.

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