Tick Tock

It’s been said that “time waits for no man” and in the words of my idol, Joss Stone, when faced with the same statement in her song “4 and 20” had this to say: “And neither does this woman”. Just some words I recently decided to live by. Yes, it looked like it was time for me to do the unthinkable: date. I was never one to wait for a man and that now included Father Time.  

            As a war veteran on the battlefield of love, I had seen it all: great boyfriends, not so great ones, creepy admirers, potential bachelors and the ones that got away, but I guess none of those really seemed to stick. I was beginning to feel like Teflon for men. I might have had a hand in it too, but for the most part there was just no zsa zsa zoo. When you live in an area where it’s heavy with either naïve teens fresh from the rainbow or the dreaded “down low” guys, sometimes you are lost somewhere in the middle. I was at a point in my life where I believed I was still young enough to be a viable commodity, but old enough to know that I can’t be out all night like I used to and still wake up like I had a full eight hours worth of sleep. What I needed was an adult relationship.

Where were the men like me? Was there a weekly group where they all met to empathize with each other that I wasn’t privy to? Or were they doing the same thing I was? Working day after a day with little to no energy afterwards to even work up the confidence it takes to approach another man? And even then, what does one say when he finds someone else that he’s attracted to? “Hey, what hair product do you use?” I can barely make small talk with some of my closest friends much less a complete stranger. In the past year the closest example I’ve come to meeting new men was when a guy I had waited on left his number on a napkin with the line “call me maybe?” written on the bottom. I recall not being able to make eye contact with him because of his leading man good looks and there might have been a moment when I blushed just by doing so, but 1. I didn’t even think he was gay and 2. I was a tired, shiny, poofy-haired mess when I waited on him that night. How was I supposed to know that was his type? What did I do with his number you ask? Well, thinking it was some joke I folded it up, put it in my pocket and never called him. Simple as that.

I might have overreacted on that one. He was a really nice guy, good looking and even drove a beat up old car which that didn’t start which made me think he wasn’t too full of himself. He could’ve been perfect. I think that old saying “Satan in a Sunday hat” got the best of me, that and a case of low self esteem.

But that was then and this was now, dammit! I have a lot more confidence than I did back then and even though I’m a little clumsy with it, it’s there; I just wish I knew how to use it. Yes, it would seem that the plan I had made for myself would bring forth great things.

I was sitting in my counselor’s waiting room (court mandated. Long story.) when I came across an article that explained that SINGLE men were at a higher risk for a heart attack or stroke than men in relationships. That didn’t shake me; I knew I was golden (and healthy enough). But then I read another article that explained that OPTIMIST were more likely to have health problems later down the road than that of any other people. That’s when I started to get nervous. Not only was I single but I also considered myself an optimist who believed in things like love. How else was I supposed to take that information? I was faced with the dilemma: was I going to die of a defected heart?  

 Was being a romantic and an optimist actually hurting me than helping me? Was it going be all that I left behind in this life? Had everything that I stood up for meant nothing but dust in the wind? I needed professional help. What I needed was a tarot card reading.

It was a Wednesday night at the Lady of Hutton’s household a.k.a. my friend’s Erin and Stacey’s house when the head of the household, Ms. Patty a.k.a. their mother wanted to read tarot cards. I had known Ms. Patty and her daughters for some time now and they had to be the most welcoming and warmest group of people I had ever met. Ms. Patty asked me to put my essence on the cards so I shuffled them and even waved them around my aura just for good measure. The first card would represent my recent past, the second would represent my current present and the third would foretell my upcoming future. Call me superstitious, but I had my fingers crossed in hopes that the fates would be kind. I ended up drawing The Sun, Courage and Strength, (hey, not too shabby for my first tarot card reading, huh?). Ms. Patty went on to tell me that my recent past had been a rough one but that there was a lot of positive energy coming my way that would flow into my current present and carry on into my future. She also mentioned that my charms would come in handy in the romance department. I could only hope that those charms would come with an instruction manual, too.

So maybe I had it all wrong. When we let silly things like health articles or save the date cards dictate how we should spend our lives we can get a little off balance. I had scared myself into believing that just because I wasn’t in a relationship that something was wrong with me, and more importantly, my heart. No matter how loud I think my biological clock is ticking I decided that it was time to take my heart off the shelf and put it back in its rightful place, on my sleeve. Maybe in times of crisis when we think that all hope is lost, the best thing to do is come back to the middle. After all, you only live once, right?