PERSONAL: HARDLY EVER WAKE UP TO NEXT TO ANYONE ANYMORE

For a while, I thought I might be in a love story, but I hardly ever wake up next to anyone anymore. It still happens once in a while. When it does, the first thing I do, doesn't matter where I am, in the ocean, on the moon of some minor distant planet, doesn't matter where, doesn't matter if she knows who I am of if I know who she is or how strong gravity is or if I feel terrible or if the world is logically impossible, the first thing I do if she's there, is I tell her how nice it is to see her.It’s hard to have a relationship in this world. Other people are not the same from day to day. I might wake up next to a woman three days in a row, or three hundred, but I never know if she’ll be there the next morning, or the next hour, or if the world will change completely while I’m not looking. She might even change into another person altogether. I might recognize something in her eyes, or she might not be a woman at all. She might turn into a man. Or a mailbox. Or a region of empty space. Or a feeling. Or a song. I might only recognize her as one recognizes someone in a dream, as in the way something is actually someone, and that someone is actually someone else.

I hope you read this, whoever you are, and imagine that there is a hypothetical person out there who needs your love, has been waiting silently, patiently for it all his life, is flawed and downright ugly at times and yet would have just eaten up any tiny bit of affection you had been willing to give, had you ever stopped your own happy life to notice. And then imagine that this hypothetical person is real, because he probably is.... Wish I’d met you.


Sometimes I feel like relationships consist of telling your same life stories to different people until someone finally appreciates them. I thought about the cast of The Wizard of Oz on the yellow brick road and wondered which character I was. Perhaps the Tin Man, in search of a red, pulsating heart. Or at least someone to give it to. That chain of relationships made me think of how connections are made--you read a book, you meet a person, you have a single experience, and your life is changed in some way. No act, therefore, however small, should be dismissed or ignored.

The dating world makes me feel incredibly vulnerable. You put yourself out there earnestly as available only to encounter some of the most disingenuous people. There seems to be no formula. Just a boat load of anxiety. Did I do this right? Will he call? If I just say I like him, will it backfire because he will know he doesn't have to earn my time and attention anymore? How do people do this......Seriously.....how?