Category Archives: Step 5

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He’s Out There

While you’re sitting here reading this blog, sipping on your coffee and trying to get into the swing of a new week. While you’re going through your emails that always seem to pile up over the weekend and asking your co-workers how their Saturday brunch was. This morning, when you finished that loop around Riverside Park at 7:30 a.m. and you watched the Manhattan skies melt into shades of pink and tones of orange over the rising sun. Last night, when you finally fell asleep after watching too many things on Netflix and having one too many popsicles to soothe your newly root-canaled tooth.

In every moment of each part of your day, of your week – of your entire life – there has been a man living his life, too.

He’s been catching the train uptown and down, going to the gym on the other side of town. He’s been thumbing through his Blackberry at the crack of dawn, checking on the status of a project and replying when it’s urgent (and when it’s not). He’s been having some beers with his group of friends – from college and beyond – watching the Olympics and laughing at the same joke he’s heard for years. He’s been worried and excited for the future, he’s overslept and he’s not been able to fall away. He’s experienced countless things you’ve yet to hear about and has wrinkles around his eyes that you’ve yet to see.

But he’s been somewhere in this city, or somewhere in this world – thinking of you from time to time.

Like when that pretty girl he fell so despairingly in love with broke up with him suddenly. Or when someone he used to bar hop with, picking up ladies and enjoying the single life, proposed to his girlfriend. Maybe it was when he saw his dad lean over to his mom and plant a kiss on her cheek and she returned the gesture with a smile that tells the tale of the decades they’ve spent together. He thought of you when he became an uncle for the first time and held this new life, this tiny little human in his hands and realized it wasn’t just another baby in a stroller, but it was a new person related to him. And then again when the temperature dropped well below freezing and he laid alone in his bed, in his apartment, on that street he paid a broker to live on, and wistfully longed for someone to hold. For someone to really, truly, completely love him.

It’s the same place where he’s wondered, just as you have in scattered moments that are more frequent than you’d care to admit, if that special someone really exists for him.

Is there a beautiful woman who is successful and independent, but loving and thoughtful? Does she have those long, glorious legs that always get him going? Will her smile stand out among the rest? Will he really know that she’s the girl when he’s dated so many in the past and never had a clue? What will they share in common? Will she run? Will she cook? Will she be able to hold a conversation just as easily as she can sit peacefully on a Sunday afternoon, watching something mindless and sharing a beer? Will he be able to see that future he wants, that family he craves – with her? Will she be what he imagined or will she be something more? Or maybe just something different?

What if she’s already crossed his path and he didn’t realize it? Could he have missed his chance – or is it still there? Where is she?

Where is he?

Is he twenty blocks away or across the park? Has he even moved to New York at all – or will he ever? Was he a little off or did something to turn my tastes away and I overlooked this man? Does he turn left in the mornings and I turn right? Is he in the next train or the next building – in the local elevator and not the express I always take? Is he away on business or busy starting one of his own? Has he seen me and not be able to work up the courage talk to me? Have I noticed him and thought I’d never have a chance to be his? Has he made me laugh in passing or is he a face I know, but never considered more?

Is he reading this very post right now?

On any given day, every single day of the week – I couldn’t begin to count the people I pass. Or the strangers I talk to briefly or make eye contact with. How many handsome strangers I share a smile with or a fleeting second that instantly escapes from my memory. In a city that’s full of mostly people you don’t know, but hundreds you see constantly – how do you ever know if any of them will end up being something more? If you did happen to meet someone or see someone who would ultimately become your someone, would you even remember your brief encounters?

In many ways, the anonymity of the city can be overwhelming – and frankly, pretty lonely. But in some sort of magically odd way, it’s that same disguise that can inspire you. Because while you may not know their names or take note of the spark that flew as the train took off or the light turned green – you know that in just another minute, you can feel it again. The energy, the electricity of the streets makes you realize that opportunity exists everywhere. Possibilities are actually quite endless and enduring – if you’re open enough to let them happen.

And if you believe one simple thing – he’s out there. Somewhere. Right now. He may be breathing the same air, looking at the same spot in that big blue August sky, wondering where you are, too. He could be half-way around the world or literally next door. He could be a block away or someplace really far away. Regardless of where he is or where he’s going – the comforting truth is that yes, yes, yes — he is out there. And one day, out of nowhere…he’ll find his way next to you.

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A Tale of Two Psychics

Once upon a time after a boozy brunch with J, I had the bright idea to see a $10 psychic in Soho. J is oddly into metaphysical ideas, just as I am, so he happily obliged — even if it was the mimosas motivating him to go. Her name was Nicole and her eyes were so blue they were almost transparent, and as soon as I sat down she asked:

Who is Mr. Possibility who broke your heart last year? (Though, she said his name, not his blog alias).

Stunned – I answered her question as briefly as I could, since my mom advised never to give much information to a psychic if I wanted an accurate reading. She continued to shock me with her revelations: I was a writer, I moved to NYC from the South, I recently traveled to a tropical place, I generally was pretty happy and things would only get better for me. She also noted that I would meet the man for me within three months, marry in three years and have three children.

I left her tiny studio, unable to piece together words and scared that if I said such incredible things out loud, they would surely not come true. A week later, I enticed my group of friends to see her, promising we’d get frozen yogurt afterwards if they’d reveal all she outlined. When they came out with wild eyes, crazily sharing what this now infamous woman said about their lives, I started to think that maybe, just maybe she had some merit about her.

Ironically enough, the very next day, I was invited to see a more well-known medium and psychic, Thomas John, for my job at iVillage. (Read my post about it here!). Scarily, his words almost matched hers – even to the letter. They both predicted that the guy I’d end up with would begin with a certain letter in his name (not necessarily his first name, but maybe his middle, last or a nickname). (I’m a little too superstitious to share what it is – but you better believe I’m looking out for it these days and should I end up with a dude with that name, I’ll spill it.)

Following his reading – where he named specific family members and detailed events from my past, along with some pretty amazing predictions for my future – I could barely think about anything else at dinner with E. And because she’s lovely, she put up with my ramblings through an entire pitcher of sangria. Now that almost a month has passed since the week of the psychics, I’m still almost as excited as I was then. I can’t say that I believe each and every single thing they said or promised will actually come-to-be, but I will give them props for one, huge turnaround in my dating life: I’ve got my mojo back.

Maybe it never quite left exactly, but I’m noticing my head a bit higher, my eyes mighty wider, my thoughts more romantic and my spirits brighter. It may be the shimmer of the July sun, the way my heart seems to be expanding or just the way I’m growing beyond things that used to haunt me – but the past month, I’ve felt so different, so new…

…so me.

I hope the psychics are right about most of the things they predicted for my life – but I also realistically know that they won’t be entirely accurate. And for that, I’m thankful – and so looking forward to whatever happens tomorrow, next week and ten years from now. It’s the element of intrigue paired with the notion that so many things are out of your control and out of sight, that gives you hope. Because, if you would have asked me a year ago where I’d be today — I couldn’t have illustrated the beautiful state I’m in now. I wouldn’t have been able to predict everything – the good, the bad, the stressful, the incredible – that happened since last summer. I do believe psychics have gifts and that some things are predestined by something greater than us all, but most of our future and nearly all of our happiness is dependent on us. And if you exude goodness, if you have faith in the things that mean the most to you, those things happen in some oddly perfect way that will catch you by surprise (even if you are looking out for one single part of the alphabet daily).

I will say – to their astonishing credit – I did meet someone in July. But it’s only time’s sweet rhythm that will tell if he’s just another guy or if he is indeed, this Mr. July that the tale of the two psychics predicted.

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Oh, Pretty Lady

Pretty lady, you’re so lovely tonight. You’re twirling and whirling around in my head, and though I can’t reach out to feel your effortless magic, I bask in your beautiful shine. Pretty lady, you encompass all of my wild dreams and you are so much more and so different from who I pictured you’d be. Pretty lady, I tried to envision your stare so many times, I swore I tasted your kiss on the rims of wine glasses I toasted with cheap substations of you. They never measured up, they could never compare. Pretty lady, I’ve been wondering when you would show up in those tall heels with those long legs and that look. With your look — the most enticing one I’ve ever known. I’m so glad I had the courage to talk to you.

Pretty lady, you were worth the chance.

Pretty lady I love the way you dance. In my mind, on that floor, in these streets. I love your words and the way you use them, both as daggers and as dreams, sharing and inspiring with each careful, calculated, caring phrase. Pretty lady, I long to caress that simple curve on your hip that leads to places I constantly crave. To places I need to explore, places I need to savor, places I aim to know as well as my own. What’s behind those eyes of yours? Those intense depths of matter — piercing right through me, tearing into all the pieces I thought were shattered. Turns out they were never quite broken after all. Pretty lady, your games aren’t games but tantalizing, exciting, alluring puzzles that make you into the imperfect masterpiece you were created to be. Created for me to
cherish. Pretty lady, you challenge me with one glance, with a single sentence, with the way you hold your fork, with how you show what you feel without saying a word.  Pretty lady, where did you come from and why did you decide to lay here with me, right now on this lazy afternoon watching the planes take off over the skyline? Have you been in this city all along?

Pretty lady, you were worth the wait.

Pretty lady, I hope you will say yes. I hope I get out everything I need to say, everything I feel and all that I want for you. For me. For us. For those babies I can’t wait to meet. I hope I can tell you how you’ve changed my life since that day we met at that dark bar on that summer evening, when you were wearing the dress. That dress I couldn’t wait to get off of you. Pretty lady, don’t start crying until I ask you, don’t touch my face how you do  — in that way you do — or I will not be able to resist you. Pretty lady, let me be the man to give you those things you thought were impossible, let me prove to you that yes, there are men. There are men like me who love women like you.

Pretty lady, you were so worth the highest price.

Pretty lady, you wear white so right. You were made for that dress and if I don’t stop sweating, your hands are going to fall right out of my grasp. Pretty lady, just keep looking at me, just take one step in front of the other. Just keep moving. Breathe my darling girl. Don’t you know I love the way you walk? I can’t believe there are only moments before I can call you my wife. Pretty lady, you have never looked more stunning — even if the cake is all wrong and the colors are a little off, and your uncle showed up embarrassingly intoxicated. I don’t see anyone but you on this day, at this time, when you say those two words I want to hear. My baby, you’re so lovely. You’re so full of life.

Pretty lady, I’m so in love with you.

Pretty lady, dream this little dream with me — the one where we make it after all. It’s the one you wrote on ruled paper with pencil, just in case it could never be true. Pretty lady, let’s go to places we’ve never been and meet people who live differently than us. I want to watch you experience something, some land, some life for the first time — I want to see the surprise and the encouraging intrigue light your eyes. Pretty lady, let’s make memories we will tell our kids and take photos their kids will show their friends about their crazy grandparents who dared to change the world. Who loved each other against all statistics and figures. Who chose love when it was easy, and more importantly, when it was not.

Oh, pretty lady, you will be worth whatever I have to do to find you. So don’t give up on me, my love, and I won’t give up on you.

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Just Look Up

After a Friday night date with a guy that went from HowAboutWe to How About Not, I could not have been more excited to go out with a man who rarely disappoints me: my handsome British gay husband, J. He’s charming in a way that’s modest and when in doubt, he challenges me to be bolder than I really am. And he always reassures me that I really need to show off my, um, assets.

Freshly primped from frozen yogurts, mimosas and cheap pedicures with a gal friend, I headed downtown to try a Tibetan restaurant with J. We sat by candlelight with nervous chatter circling us as we caught up on the basics: work, love and play. His boyfriend was traveling, I am (happily) boyfriend-less; he just started a new job that’s rewarding, yet overwhelming, I’m almost to my one-year anniversary at the best place to work (like, ever); and we decided we’re both up for an adventure – as long as it doesn’t cost anything. After all, calories and savings shouldn’t matter from April to August, right?

We bargained down a pitcher of red sangria that while it showed up hot, was actually decent and refreshing. In between sips and conversation, J got that mischievous look on his face. It’s the one I instantly recognize, letting me know he’s brewing trouble in his flirty mind, prepared to pounce on an idea he’ll talk me into, eventually. I grinned at the curve of his lip, as he quietly teased: It’s July tomorrow. 

Oh, July, I smiled in return. The magical month that my mother and J predicted something big would happen. Something that would change my life and my attitude, something that comes in the form of tall and sturdy, handsome and loving. For whatever reason – as predicted by the stars and the Brits – apparently, this is the month when I’m going to meet someone. Maybe the someone, or maybe just a man to push me away from being a cynic and toward being the romantic optimist I’ve always been. Obviously, I’m not opposed to such a chance encounter, as most single girls in every city aren’t – but I’m also not actively – or desperately – searching for it.

Oh J! Maybe something will happen, but I’m putting no pressure on myself, I replied as I took another bite out of a dish that I still, have no idea consisted of. There may be cute straight boys at the bar we’re going to next, he kindly reminded me. I rolled my eyes in return, careful to miss his stare, knowing he’d see right through my nonchalant attitude and notice the doe-eyed dreamer that is careful not to play in the New York streets. At least not while anyone I know is watching, anyway.

After opting for a traditional dessert even though I was heading for the beach the next day, J and I caught a cab to the Lower East Side for martinis and mayhem with his old roommates. The bar was dark and disheartening, full of ladies decked out for a night of intrigue, but finding the well was dry once they arrived. J kept me company, and I casually flirted with the bartender, enjoying an ounce of attention before calling it a night for my early ocean wakeup call.

I waited for J to finish the cigarette I don’t approve of before finding a yellow chariot to whisk me away to the Upper West Side. Sometimes, even if it’s not too late to take the subway, it’s simply too hot and muggy to stand idly anywhere on pavement that only attracts more heat. As I watched J strike up conversation with a friend from years ago, I casually glanced at my phone, in my purse (to make sure I wasn’t leaving anything), at my wedges… until something inside of me said: Look up.

And so I did – only to find the biggest, brightest full moon I’ve seen since living in North Carolina. I quickly interrupted J and motioned to the sky. His mouth dropped too, his speech fell silent and we tried to capture the beauty of it — but our iPhones only produced a blurry, colorful image, that if you squint in the right way, kind of looks like a separated rainbow.

J lost interest and headed inside, as I slowly raised my hand, still gawking at the beautiful sphere resting in the sky. A cabbie arrived, friendly and missing a few teeth, and asked Where to tonight, Ms? I gave him my Amsterdam cross streets and settled in for the fifteen-minute ride uptown, expecting him to cut to the West Side highway where he would avoid traffic and drunken pedistrians attempting to cross the street, often unsuccessfully and not during the allotted 10-second time frame.

But he didn’t. He took the East Side: giving me a view of the moon, the whole ride home.

I sat backwards (sorry, mom!) in the car, watching the moon disappear and reappear in between buildings as we sped toward my Manhattan home. I tried to keep my eye on it, even when we went through brief tunnels and when the towers were so tall that it had to climb the sky to reach the top. I  left my Blackberry and my iPhone in my bag, I didn’t go through a mental checklist of everything I had coming up, I didn’t dwell on the past or think too heavily about what’s coming up next.

Instead, I just looked up.

The next day, my dear friend M and I fought the waves as the tide rolled in late afternoon, enjoying the simple reminders of being a kid during the hottest days of summer. Just as the lifeguard forced everyone out of the ocean because the water was getting angry, M said, Wow, look up, Linds! Look how pretty that is. I followed her direction to see a pink and blue patterned sunset starting to roll into view, so warm and so inviting, that I longed to reach up to feel it engulf me. Only wearing an itty-bitty bikini, I couldn’t capture the memory anywhere I could save (or Instgram) it, but I closed my eyes to remember that moment. To remember looking up.

And tonight, waiting for the downtown 1 train at sunset following a much-needed run at the gym, I peered above the track across from me and saw my pal the moon, again. Along with it’s soft, alluring friend, the multi-colored sky, and I smiled, thinking that in the first two days of July – the month I’ve been hearing about — I’ve been attracted and compelled to look up. More so than I have in months.

So, I decided that just for a month, I’ll try to make it a habit.

Instead of caressing my phone or paging a book on the morning commute, I’ll look up at the faces I often ignore. Instead of popping in headphones as soon as I have a moment to myself outside of the office, or calling up my family, I’ll look up to feel the energy of the city and it’s inhabitants around me. Instead of being enticed to spend a night in by myself, catching up on the Netflix I don’t really need to watch, I’ll look to my friends, the ones who are wildly taking opportunities as spontaneously as they come. Instead of glancing away from the man who sometimes notices me in Starbucks on the corner of 15th and 9th, I’ll meet his eyes. Instead of focusing on the hurdles and troubles of dating in the city that doesn’t sleep unless you sleep with it, I’ll look to see the good in every experience, even the dates that don’t turn into mates. Instead of trying to examine the past for much more than it was ever worth, I’ll look at all the things that are surely before me.

Because I’ll never know what’s right in front of me until I… just look up.

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You’re Not Alone

Why do you write? She asked me – her eyes wide and youthful, full of that uncertain certainty only possible fresh out of college. It’s the time before you’ve had to handle the worst kind of rejection and just before you dip your thoughts into the world of paying bills and deciding on your 401K. I may be just a handful of years older than being legal to order the sangria I was sipping, but those years have a way of putting adulthood into perspective.

I smiled and wrinkled my nose, as I always have when I’m trying to think of something thoughtful and profound, something that’ll inspire and provoke. I spat out the things I could think of: because I’m passionate about it, because it relaxes me, because it’s how I express myself, because I’ve just always known that’s what I wanted to do. Because her career goals are similar to what mine were at her age, I knew she was taking in every word, trying desperately to find something to make her feel more at ease in the awful waiting period between where you left and where you want to be. I reassured her that everything works out for a reason, and that finding the right path professionally is a lot like finding your way romantically: you just have to put your whole heart in and hope you’re loved back in return.

The happy hour came and it passed, I shook hands and I gave out a business card or two before heading northwest to my cozy, yet nearly unbearably sticky apartment. Instead of taking the shuttle from Grand Central to Times Square, I decided to walk and inhale the June air. In just a week – or maybe as little as a day – it’d be too hot to be outside anywhere in Manhattan, so I should cherish it for what it was worth now.

I looked straight ahead, pretending my toes weren’t pinched in my brand new wedges that look great but aren’t exactly ideal for strolling avenues. While the lights blazed me forward, my thoughts held me backward – thinking of all I’ve had, what I’ve learned and mostly, what I’ve absorbed. I came to this city full of rose-colored dreams and earnest intentions, hanging onto the belief that if I set my mind to it, I could do it. Whatever it was, no matter the risk, regardless of the outcome.

And somehow, just as I advised, it’s all worked itself out. Not only worked out – but surprised me on how amazing it really can be. I sighed in thanksgiving, remembering the days I thought nothing would ever be what I wanted it to be and I silently said a prayer to the city I love (and the heavens that rest above it) to always keep my spirits high and my brow humble.

But even that remarkable feeling couldn’t get that question out of my head: why do you write?

Why do I write?

I can’t remember far back enough to a time when I didn’t have a pen in my head or something brewing in my mind. I love seeing words stringed together almost as much as I enjoy reading them out loud, listening to the way they flow and they rest in the air. I indulge in the challenge of coming up with a new way to think about something we’ve all thought carelessly about hundreds of times. As any writer will tell you – part of the thrill is seeing you name in print and knowing someone else is affected by something you wrote.

But this blog – which I’ve obviously neglected frequently lately – was just a place to vent. A free, blank space to express what I had held inside for so long. Feelings of insecurity, convictions that I was crazy, worries that I was the only one who ever thoroughly struggled with being single. I never knew it would grow as it has, that it would lead to me things I never imagined would be mine or that I’d reach people from South Africa to Nairobi.

And what it’s taught me about myself as a woman, as a partner, as a friend – and as a writer – has been the best part of all. It’s shown me in black-and-white, in emails, in the faces of strangers who I didn’t know were reading these posts, that…I’m not the only one.

I’m not the first woman who has stayed in a dead-end relationship and swallowed her pride and dignity, with not reward at the end. I’m not the first girl in New York to walk past a gloating couple on the Upper West Side with a newborn wrapped in baby Ralph Lauren and wondered if that’d ever be me. I’m not the first woman to linger by the phone aimlessly waiting for a guy who will never be what I want him to be, even if I love him as hard as my heart will allow. I’m not the first woman to wonder if, really, there are men out there who will desire me even a fraction of what I deserve. I’m not the first – and I won’t be the last – to take a chance on something: a city, a lover, a dream….I’ve yet to feel, taste or see.

And while being single can sometimes seem intolerably lonely and like there will never been a light out of the smoky bars and empty promises – the best part of being solo is knowing that…you’re really not.

You’re not the last single woman standing, and no matter how ridiculous you seem, how scared you may feel, how insignificant fears or people can make you feel – you’re not alone.

And because of all of you, the loyal readers I’ll probably never actually meet, I know that I’m not alone, either.