As I grew older, and crushes–and the teasing that often went with them for me–grew more serious, my enthusiasm for all the Valentine’s Day splendor diminished. I would still dress in my most cupid-inspired pink and red, hoping to catch the eye of some last-minute admirer. Sitting in my last period class, I would listen to the P.A. as the secretary called a long list of girls (and a few guys) to the office to pick up flowers from their sweethearts. I would feign nonchalance, doodling on the back of my notebook as the list droned on and the classroom thinned to a few lonely hearts. I never held my breath, but grew a bit more melancholy each Valentine’s that passed with not so much as a candy-gram from a secret admirer.

Until I met Big. We dated the last two years of high school, and off-and-on through college. There were flowers, and teddy bears, and special evenings, perhaps even a bottle of wine or two. Those were years when I was so completely intoxicatedly infatuated that I didn’t even notice the poor lonely out-of-love folks (or anyone else) on Valentine’s Day. But, the higher you soar, the harder you fall, and when things fizzled between Big and me, I went a little, well, dark.

After a few bitter breakups, I went totally anti-cupid. I wore a lot of black, and some pretty severe makeup, and treated myself to some nice gifts and decadent girls-nights out with other single girlfriends.

My Valentine’s angst was still in effect two years ago, but was waning after a weekend in January with Big had given me new perspective (I can now see that it was closure). I was feeling a little less cursed by love, mostly stupid–and stupefied by it, so I dropped the all-black on Valentine’s Day routine and put on a simple taupe sweater dress that made me feel pretty (and showed off my legs). I straightened my hair; I curled my lashes; I sprayed the back of my neck with a spicy perfume; and I went out to celebrate Valentine’s Day–not drink to its demise–for the first time in years.

My day started off at a work conference, then dinner with colleagues, which morphed into an awkward dinner with an almost-lover, which ended in me needing to escape…and have a drink.  Luckily I’d just stumbled upon a great little bar with a sweet bartender who gave me major butterflies.  And he’d told me I should come back, so…I headed to Cheers.  The bar was packed, as Valentine’s fell on a Saturday that year, but a sweet couple (who would later become dear, dear friends) pointed me to a single empty stool at the end of the bar.  I took off my coat, adjusted my dress as I scooted onto the stool, and raised my eyes to that smile.  ”Well hello, Gorgeous!”

I’m sure my eyes got wide and my face suddenly flushed…had I really let that slip out?  It took me a minute to realize that it was the bartender who’d spoken, and that he was speaking to me.  ”Happy Valentine’s Day . . . but why are you here alone?”  More of the mischievous smile.  I wanted to close my eyes and bask in it for a minute.  Before I could answer he was preparing my drink–which he’d remembered from the one and only time I’d come in, over a week earlier–and sliding it in front of me.  ”This one’s on me:  Happy Valentine’s, Sweetie!”

I needed to fight off a giddy grin, so I told him about my good-day-gone-awkward, and he told me about his most recent dating snafus (which weren’t all that recent).  I learned about his family, his college days, his politics, his friendships.  It was a perfect first date . . . that wasn’t a date at all.  After all, there was a whole busy bar full of patrons competing with me, and yet he barely left my presence.

As the night wore on and the bar crowd slowly moved on to their other Valentine’s plans, the bartender kept finding reasons to keep me there.  First there was a goofed up drink that just happened to be what I was drinking, then an “accidental” order of chips and dip that needed to be consumed, and finally a bored bartender who wanted some company while he cleaned up and closed things down.  Late in the evening, which only a couple couples left in the whole place, the bartender and I looked like any other couple, hovering over our end of the bar, chatting over cups of coffee.  ”You can believe me or not on this but . . . you were the only person I gave a free Valentine’s drink to tonight.  I guess that makes you my valentine, huh?”

“I guess time will tell,” I replied, giving my best coy/ironic fish-hooked eyebrow, wishing to god I knew how to wink without looking like a spaz.

I’d like to say that I’ve taken advantage of the slowed pace this past year to do all the things I never had time to fit in my busy schedule before.  The truth is, although being back in Ohio has brought me physically closer to more of my friends and family than I was before, this has been one of the loneliest years of my life.  I don’t mean lonely in a sad, pitiful, woe-is-me way, but in the sense that I have spent a lot of time alone–getting to know myself, trying to know my true desires, and learning to love myself in a more deep, genuine way than ever before.  That’s not to say I spend my year doing yoga, sipping herbal tea, writing in a journal, and meditating on daily affirmations.  This year has definitely had its share of dark-and-twisty moments, and in these times I may have over-indulged my loner tendencies; when things got frustrating or looked bleak I was definitely too quick to pull into the fetal position when I should have been reaching out. I suppose that’s something else I’ve learned about myself–well, not so much learned as accepted:  that I’m horrible at asking for or accepting help when I need it.  I’m not sure this is something I can fix overnight, or even over the course of a year. But a year of relative solitude has illuminated how strong and independent I can be through many of life’s challenges, and how much easier other times are made by the help, encouragement (and yes, sometimes the mere presence) of others.

Now it’s time to reconnect with all those I’ve shut out for too long. There have been so many calls and messages left unanswered and relationships neglected, that re-integrating seems daunting until I realize that all the people I’ve missed the most (and I have missed them sorely all the time I was pushing them away) have been cheering me on from afar, whether I could hear them or not, whether I would acknowledge them or not. There is no such thing as too-little-too-late in their eyes.  And I can be a much better friend, daughter, sister, colleague, etc., to them now than a year ago.

In case you hadn’t guessed, this blog falls into the category of things I’ve pushed aside but missed achingly. I’m sure this past year would’ve been a little less dark-and-twisty if I’d been more faithful about laying fingers to keyboard instead of composing a million and one blog posts in my head where they collected dust or sat and festered. I know I’ve written similar posts making similar promises in the past, but here’s hoping something’s finally changed this time.

Later that week I chose to celebrate some work success by letting loose my new-found freedom with a girls’ night–solo.  While I could’ve had a fine time going out on a more traditional girls’ night (you know, with other girls–plural!), being surrounded by people who knew me as I was before my recent epiphany would only enable me to continue my old water-treading ways.  I needed to do something bolder, something out of my comfort zone and a little bit scary.  Plus, He’s Just Not That Into You had just come out in theaters, a tie-in/spin-off of one of my greatest guilty pleasures–Sex and the City.  So I headed out for a SATC-worthy pre-movie snack at one of my favorite chain bar-and-grill restaurants from college.

I walked into the restaurant and found a seat at the bar with the confidence of a woman who’s just solved one of life’s great mysteries. I’d dressed myself that morning in some of my favorite pieces–a shrunken silk knit cardigan in a deep blue shade that accented my eyes and a pair of designer skinny jeans I’d snagged half price to wear tucked into my knee-high black boots I’d purchased on a trip to New Zealand.  The look had been designed to be comfortable yet professional, with my hair tied up in a messy knot that skirted the line between runway chic and absent-minded professor.  That morning, with pages of notes and charts scattered around my laptop as I gave a powerpoint lecture, the look was spot-on absent-minded; that evening, with a dab of lip gloss and some mascara, I was feeling decidedly more chic.

While I’d come to this restaurant once or twice for a weekend lunch, I’d never come in the evening, nor sat by myself at the bar.  However, this chain had been a happy hour favorite of my roommates and I in college, so when I caught the eye of one of the two bartenders on duty, I ordered my old happy hour standard drink and appetizer (making a meal out of half-price happy hour fare turned out to be one of my more useful skills from my undergrad days).  When the bartender saw my out-of-state ID, it started a conversation  about what brought me so far from home, and before I knew it I was no longer having dinner by myself, I was having dinner with half the people sitting at the bar, and the two bartenders, as well.

When my appetizer came out of the kitchen, the server struggled through the crowded bar area and tried to decide where to deliver the food.  ”Buffalo wings?” he asked in loud, slightly accented English.  The bartender nearest me tried to shout over the noise to the server, but before either he or I could get his attention, another patron took a wing from the platter as he walked by and began chomping on it.  The bartender and I met each other with looks of disbelief, then turned to watch the woman take a second wing from the plate as the server was trying to get away.

“I am so sorry,” the bartender offered across the bar.  He was trying to be professional and serious, but as soon as we made eye contact we both started laughing.  But it wasn’t the awkward laughter that occurs between relative strangers to fill the silence until one of them can think of something to say.  Rather, it was the laughter of good friends–the kind that instantly fills your eyes with tears that want to stream down your face but can’t because your cheeks are so taut from grinning that they keep the tears welled up and stinging in the corners of your eyes–the kind of laugh that has everyone around you wondering what they missed, but finally deciding it must be an inside joke, a you-had-to-be-there kind of thing.  Just remembering that laughter makes my cheeks hurt.

The bartender insisted on sending to the kitchen for a fresh order for me, and on putting my whole bill on the house to make up for the incident.  I accepted the offer of fresh food (not only was my original plate two wings short, the remaining wings had all been touched by the wing-stealer!), but insisted on paying for my drinks at least…especially since I’d now stay for a second while my food was being reordered.  We agreed on the compromise, he ordered my wings, refreshed my drink, then stepped around the bar.  His shift was over.

He made a round of goodbyes, stopping at each patron at the bar (except the wing-stealer; she’d just been at the bar while waiting on a table).  He called each by name and talked to them like they were old friends, making plans with one to watch the game that weekend, offering to help another move on his day off.  The woman sitting next to me, also “alone” at the bar, put down her glass of wine and turned to me.  ”We’re all a bunch of regulars–just good people who like to come in and unwind with a good drink and good conversation.  Welcome to Cheers.”

It was then that the bartender made his way around to me.  I wasn’t a regular, but he called me by name as he apologized again for the…”incident” with my food.  He winked and gave me what may be the most infectious smile I’ve ever seen (a good trait for a bartender, I might add).  ”Seriously, you should come back again soon–if you want to meet some cool people who can help you get to know your way around town…well, just drop by again.  I’m here most evenings, and if I’m not, well, tell them you’re a friend of Jimmy’s.”

And that is how I met The Bartender, on my first night at Cheers.

Those afternoons cruising in a wide, distorted loop around the eight or ten blocks of town, represented some of the only typical teenage behavior I can remember.  Aside from the fact that we were all cheerleaders, I didn’t have much in common with my cruising pals.  I’d never really dated–in fact, never been kissed–while they were completely boy-crazy, hopping from one “relationship” to another.  At parties I preferred to get a nice sugar buzz from too much Pepsi so that I could remember all the sloppy, embarrassing antics my more inebriated friends might pull, though always playing the good sober baby sitter who stops them from doing anything truly regrettable.  I attended a fairly strict church, helped with Sunday School, and participated in the church’s bible quiz team on Sunday mornings while my friends slept in and slept off their Saturday night indiscretions.  They were still my friends–great friends–and we got on with only a tiny bit of teasing for my Sandra Dee persona.

That summer we couldn’t get enough of The Bloodhound Gang–probably because none of us had CD players in our cars, so we were at the mercy of the repetitive playlist of the one radio station we could get in that wasn’t exclusively country music or gospel.  The music of that summer always conjures up warm, happy memories, but this past winter on an unforgivably cold February morning, the droning repetition of The roof. The roof. The roof is on fire. had a cold, numbing effect as one of my old cheerleading friends and I sat in my living room watching her house across the street burn.

Jane was one of the wildest, most boy-crazy cheerleaders in the bunch.  But as I sat there, trying to make small talk with her in the far-too-early hours that Sunday morning, I realized how much she’d changed–how much we’d both changed–and it was a little difficult to reconcile the women on this sofa with the younger versions of ourselves cruising down this very street in my Beretta more than a decade earlier.  Jane is now married with three children.  She’s a stay-at-home mom while her husband commutes hundreds of miles for work and is only home a few times a month.  She’s an active member of a super conservative local church.  And me, well, I’m practically her polar opposite–single, never married, no kids, pursuing a graduate degree and a career in academia, liberal, agnostic.  Our paths have gone so far from the common ground we once shared as 16-year-olds that, during the last presidential election, I “unfriended” her on a social media site after some heated back-and-forth about politics and equality (her comments read like a proper Glenn Beck devotee).

But now, as we sat in my living room sipping coffee and watching the flames and smoke dance a light show across the pre-dawn sky, the ideological distance between us seems no greater than the physical distance between our two bodies parked shoulder-to-shoulder on the sofa.  After reassuring her that the fire had spared the only contents of the house that really mattered–Jane, her husband and girls–it was hard to know what to say.  We made mall talk about the girls, which sent us into a nostalgic spiral, trying to remember being their age.  We recounted sleepovers, dramatic arguments, triumphant cheerleading competitions, and the heartbreak of young love.  No matter how far Jane and I may have come from the girls we once were, that girlish spirit is still a part of us, and it was good to find it again.  It was the kind of trip down memory lane that normally induces contagious smiles and giggles, but for us it remained warm but stoic as neither Jane nor I could take our gaze away from the flame-lit windows.

The fire departments began to arrive about a half hour after the family called 911, and in those thirty minutes my mind raced.  It was far earlier than I was accustomed to being dragged from beneath my warm haven of my bed on a work day, much less a Sunday, and I had to keep brushing cobwebs from my mind as I tried to grasp the situation.  I wanted to do something; I needed to do something.  But what?  After making sure everyone had made it out of the house safely, giving them some warm clothes (they’d run out in their night clothes!) and coffee, I was left to watch the flames consume more and more of the home as we listened in vain for approaching sirens.

A bucket brigade!  We should start a bucket brigade! Images from some cartoon from my childhood flash through my mind before a loud crack from the burning building snaps me back to reality.  Even if we were to mobilize the full force of neighbors who are now standing huddled in the street in front of their houses to form some kind of bucket brigade, the buckets of water would simply sizzle and hiss as they were flung and the giant flames now extending like tongues from the windows, licking at the roof overhead.  The words helpless and futile don’t begin to describe the collective ache of the neighborhood that morning as our sighs froze visibly in the February air.  And the lyrics from The Bloodhound Gang rang cruel and true in my ears: We don’t need no water; let the motherf*cker burn.

Burn, motherf*cker.

Burn.

Futility, helplessness–whatever you want to call it–has to be one of my least favorite feelings.  It’s worse than heartbreak, worse than failure, because as long as your actions don’t feel futile you can fight your way past the negative feelings.  When things look helpless, you have little urge to do anything but just watch it burn.

Lately life has felt a bit stagnant, with the exception of huge outbursts of flames that threaten to destroy everything I’ve worked for.  And it feels like any efforts I make to regain control are merely individual buckets of water dropping one at a time onto a life fully engulfed in flames.  They dampen one small area of fire only to hiss and pop and reignite, taunting my efforts–my futile efforts.  Discouraged, I resign myself to stand and watch it burn.

It’s time for a change.  It’s time to ignore that awful helpless feeling, to stop being a victim of my own bad choices (or lack of choice/action altogether), and do something–anything–to move forward.  Today I’m putting down the bucket and picking up the phone.  I’m calling 911 and getting a truck with a fire hose to put out the fire, once and for all.  I’m vowing to quit being self-destructive and to start being proactive.  I’ll reclaim my life, my direction, my purpose, if I have to drive that fire truck and wield that hose myself.

Late May days of my childhood were always approached with anticipation of the beachy sunshine and balmy temps promised by the Memorial Day sale ads on TV, but were all-too-often realized with sharp, biting rain as I bravely marched with the scouts in the Memorial Day parade in my defiant shorts.  However this year, weeks before the long Memorial Day weekend we were greeted with July-like weather:  temperatures in the 80s and humidity well above.  In Northern California, summer weather often flirted with me as distant a month as February, and I naively took this Ohio early warming as a similar flirtation.  But this was no quick caress–this weather has become a clingy, sweaty lover whose cuddles and nuzzles have long overstayed their welcome, all the way into legitimate summer territory.  The steam is here to stay.

And so I find myself walking through the dense air in the two blocks from the grocery store to my home, fighting the urge to practice my breaststroke in order to propel my body forward.  The air is heavy with … something.  Water?  Perhaps, though it seems to have taken a form that is neither liquid nor gas nor solid, but something akin to an ionic charge.  It seems impossible that my body courses through this substance without evoking little static bolts as it shifts and alters the particles.  Butterflies flutter a little less fleetingly from bloom to bloom, and I wonder at their ability to move their wings at all through the soupy summer air.  It is the very portrait of (literal) oppression.

For better or for worse, the heat and humidity have inspired me return to my blog.  Maybe it’s the slow bopping Gershwin-esque melodies of tree frogs and crickets in chorus or the gentle lilting lightshow of the lightning bugs their song accompanies.  Whatever the source of the inspiration, here’s hoping the urge to write remains after the heat subsides.

Shocking, but true.  My blog in which I dump my internal monologue about being a 20-something single female trying to find my place in the world is narrated by a man.  Believe me, I was just as appalled.  So appalled that I broke my first new year’s  resolution–to blog more–because I was determined to get to the bottom of this appalling situation.  But it turns out there’s nothing to get to the bottom of; the voice in my head that narrates blog posts as I lay in bed trying to sleep is undeniably male.

I’m one of those saps at the party who actually yells “Happy New Year!” as the clock strikes midnight, while everyone else’s lips are otherwise occupied in a New Year’s kiss with the one they love.  Or I’m not at a party at all, opting to clear the collision course for the braver drivers on New Year’s Eve by staying home and watching old movies, baking cookie, cleaning house, or crocheting.  Or blogging.  Ok, when I say it out loud like that it sounds a little sad.  But really, I’m not sure what the fuss is all about.

According to the folks at Snopes, the superstition surrounding the kiss at midnight is to ensure a year of continued love, and to ward off a year of coldness.  Since I’ve never kissed anyone at midnight, does this mean every year I’m doomed to be cold and loveless?  And if so, how am I ever supposed to find someone, if only to have someone to kiss at midnight on New Year’s Eve?  Yes, I’m sober.  Far too sober for such a circular and fundamentally illogical myth.

Still, the part of my brain that controls my swoon-reflex can’t help but be swept up in the romantic notion of ringing in the new year locked in a juicy smooch with someone special.  My Mr. Big, shared my affection for the classic film love stories, and we had several screen-worthy kisses:  my head gracefully tilted as his hand brushed my hair away from my cheek, his thumb forming the perfect crook to guide our faces together, our lips pausing mere millimeters apart while our breaths met before finally collapsing against one another.  Mr. Grant and Ms. Hepburn had nothing on us.

Yet while our lips undoubtedly struck together as the clock struck midnight, out of mere coincidence, they never tolled in a new year together.  The two years we were an exclusive item, Big spent New Year’s with his family–all of 2 miles from me and mine.  Later, when things got complicated and we were…well, not an exclusive item, we spent New Year’s Even apart quite deliberately on either his part or mine depending on the year.  In years intermittent and since I’ve occasionally found myself in a relationship with (or at least dating) some eligible kisser, but have always been in a different city than them (if not a different time zone) for New Year’s.  So here I am, 25 (again) and never been kissed…at least not at New Year’s.

For now I’ll sit here and finish my cup-o-noodles, Carrie Bradshaw-style, think back on all the swoon-worthy moments of 2009, and go to bed to dream of all the swooning to come in 2010!

Happy New Year!

With the moving mess over–the boxes received and unpacked, the change of address notifications completed, the goodbyes and reunions said and felt–I hoped to get back to my routine, and back to my writing, by now.  But alas, I’ve kept my blog at arm’s length until now.  I’ve composed so many “posts” in my mind, but never found the time or the will to sit and write.  I’ve blamed it on jet lag.  I’ve blamed it on the new job.  I’ve blamed it on the winter malaise that’s finally set in.  Whatever the case may be, I’m tired of making excuses–to everyone, but mainly to myself.  It’s time to use my words.

So here I sit, the dry winter air making my eyes sting and the warmth billowing from the fireplace beside me seducing my eyelids.  And yet, I stare through my bleary stinging eyes, forcing the lids back to attention, as I come back to this stark white screen…

…to write.  It’s good to see the words squeak out, one keystroke at a time.

Who is your personal hero?
Write a personal essay about
your hero's accomplishments and
what makes that person a hero.

How many times did I write essays about my personal hero as I moved from big, clumsy letters scratched from an oversized pencil to smooth careful curves flowing from a ballpoint pen to awkwardly fumbling fingers on a computer keyboard?  When I was a child my heroes were important adults in my life; they were people who had accomplished great feats, faced great fears, and overcome great obstacles.  These were people whom I aspired to be like.  Some might have called them role models, but to me they were much more.  They were heroes.  They are heroes, still–those still with me, those far away, and those gone but not forgotten.

My heroes were not generic, faceless do-gooders, nor were they impersonal figures in a book or on a television screen.  They were real, tangible humans who made up my day-to-day experience.  They had faces, names, quirks, flaws, shortcomings, blood, tears, voices, laughter.  However familiar and close to me, they were at the same time years and years away because they were adults and I was a child.  Their actions and their hero status were out of my reach, if only by a few years (or a few inches).

Now I am an adult, and, as such, a member of that vast pool of potential heroes.  I’m casually aware of this when interacting with children and young adults, but became acutely aware of it yesterday listening to the President speak at the memorial for the soldiers tragically taken in the Fort Hood shooting last week.

“We need not look to the past for greatness, because it is before our very eyes.”
–President Barack Obama
November 10, 2009

While the heroes of my childhood remain heroes to me still, my peers have become men and women of greatness–heroes in their own right.  Those bratty kids who sat next to me in English class, scrawling their own essays about their own childhood heroes are now teachers, soldiers, volunteers, mothers, and fathers.  In the midst of a world that can be so trying–where terrorist attacks, genocide, war, violence, and illness make up the evening news–it’s sometimes hard to find the bright spots.  Then again, it’s good to know that they’re all around me, all the time–the “thousand points of light” President George H. W. Bush spoke of two decades ago.

Today on Veteran’s Day, I’ll light a candle for my heroes–those beside me, those far away, those gone but not forgotten, and those newly realized.  My thousand points of light will flicker in one symbolic candle as I pause to appreciate and give thanks for the brightness they bring to this world.

And I’ll make time for a visit and chat with one very special hero whom I miss most of all:  My Papaw.