Who Knew?

You know that moment when you actually say something out loud to another person and realize you’ve been thinking it for a while but never really knew? That totally happened last week. And I was shocked at what I was revealing about myself.

I’ve been spending some serious quality time at the dermatologist lately. My pale Irish skin alabaster complexion is starting to show its weaknesses, as is the stupidity of my youth and its ensuing effect on my use of sunscreen. New moles, new sunspots and a few dicey weeks earlier this year when I thought I had skin cancer and so did my doctor. Insert public service announcement here: put on the god damn sunscreen. DAILY.

So, in the wee hours of the morning, I found myself once again, naked, sitting in the office as Dr. Derm checked every single inch of my body for any new development, taking photos of every abnormality, so she can compare it to the next time I show up. Every woman’s dream: blatant nudity in hospital lighting paired with a camera. No, this is not a bad porn, this is my life.

Remarking on my skin, she asked if I took birth control (as it helps with breakouts). “No, I went off of it about a year ago” I said to her. “Oh, really?” she inquired, “are you thinking about starting a family?”… Yes, of course, with my imaginary boyfriend. He’s very supportive.

“Uh, no…” I said, “it was just screwing with my hormones a little too much” noting how at one point I felt like I was going to switch off between screaming and crying in meetings and I didn’t think that was a smart career move. She chuckled a bit as she continued to examine me and then before I even knew what I was saying, I said to her “I mean, at this point, I’m 33 years old. If I get knocked up, I get knocked up”.

We both laughed and then I realized… I was serious. I am 33 years old. I have a job. I have a two-bedroom apartment. I have a respectable income. And if I got pregnant, I’d have a baby. I wouldn’t have drinks on Tuesday nights anymore or shop to the ridiculous extent I do now (or at all, probably) but I’d make it work.

And in that moment I realized that I had known that for a while. I had known that if one day one of those very relied upon methods of keeping stuff from happening failed and I ended up with a double line on a stick, I’d just deal.

And I’d be a-okay.

I think I’m really a grown-up now. It’s not as terrifying as I’d imagined.

10 Reasons It Ain’t So Bad Being Single

1. No diapers.  Anything with a diaper doesn’t live here.

2. No pre-8am wakeup calls on Saturdays and Sundays. I slept till 12:30 last weekend. No one cared or was any the wiser.

3. When my new-mom-friend-from-forever-ago calls and says “I have two hours to be a grown up. Wine date?” I can say yes or no instantly without consulting anyone.

4. My disposable income is not going to personalized Jordan almonds or a DJ. Its going to Louis Vuitton.

5. I always get the remote. ALWAYS.

6. Sometimes on a random Tuesday, I leave work, walk to a swanky place downtown where no one knows me, order a bottle of wine and a cheese plate and read my book. And no one is looking for me or wondering when I’ll be home (except my mother when she inadvertently calls and then wants me to text her when I get home… and then asks me the next day if I was secretly on a date. Keep dreaming, Mama NSD).

7. Monday Night Football? Don’t care. More like “Catch up on Hart of Dixie”.

8. When I wake up in a bad mood, I have to explain it to NO ONE. I just woke up in a bad mood. The only person who may notice is the girl who gets me my coffee and muffin (because if I’m in a bad mood, I’m getting a muffin… a full fat one) but I’m usually really nice to her, she’s the longest relationship I’ve had without a fight. Never a disagreement in six years. She’s the best.

9.  I can stay up until midnight cleaning, doing laundry or practicing my lunges in my living room any night of the week. No explanation necessary.

10. I can decide at any moment to re-decorate a room and jump in the car to IKEA and come home with an entirely new decor. Without need to accomodate a Tom Brady fathead or a kegerator.

You Seem Like The Kind Of Girl…

I sit at a desk all day with much time to spare from May to September and thanks to the minds at Google, I have the ability to distract myself with a wonderful invention called G-Chat (aka the 2013 version of AIM).

My G-Chat friend list (I guess now it supposed to be called a Google Hangout, but who’s going to add all those unnecessary syllables?) consists of my co-workers (so much easier to make lunch plans without clogging up the inbox), my best friends, some old flames, some current prospects and some people who I think Google added all on their own because I’m pretty sure I’d never sit there and talk to them on a daily basis.

One person whom I do talk to pretty regularly is a guy I had a little more than a friendship with, but not quite a relationship with (you are going to start to recognize this as a theme, by the way… a strong theme). Jonah used to work for the company I currently work for, he is 100% in my wheelhouse and we struck up a friendship based mostly on the fact that we both live in the city, he’s very attractive (to me at least), we both like gin (a LOT) and I think I challenge him a bit. He’s not exactly an open book and for some reason I just get that skinny little “I-play-on-three-different-intramural-basketball-teams” wanna-be stock broker to just tell me his life story. Pretty regularly.

It’s fun, its a welcome distraction a few days a week and it has turned out to be a pretty solid friendship (nothing I’d call in a crisis, but funny texts and YouTube videos galore). We talk about dating, about work issues, family stuff and to my surprise when a largely catastrophic event happened in my life not too long ago, he checked on me. More than once. So, he’s earned his stripes.

But, back to Jonah and I G-Chatting… Jonah is aware of my dating woes (much like you, I assume). He attempts to be supportive but mostly just wants information which I am pretty sure is in an attempt to better understand women and their thought process, as opposed to actually wanting to use this information to date me. Because he doesn’t. Join the club, Jonah.

He has been somewhat helpful in my recent foray into online dating, has provided some helpful profile tips and photo options (although the “you need to show more boob” comment went without response or photo change).

So, we get into a conversation the other day about what I am actually looking for and he straight out asks for a list.  This was my answer:

1. an actual grownup: man over 30 with a real life job who supports himself and makes responsible decisions most of the time. not looking for someone who’s no fun, just someone who is acting like an adult

2. they are not sleeping with anyone else: no longer making myself an option. be a man and be monogamous.

3. a nice person: you’d be shocked how many not nice people there are out there. and I for some reason think I can fix them and make them nicer, NOT TRUE.

This list provoked Jonah to ask me how old of a man I was looking for… Well, I’m not sure, I guess. Probably at least 30, but probably more like 32. And a few years old than me is okay, five or six years, which brings us to 38. So, 32-38.

Bring on a monogamous, 32-38 year old man with a job and a personality. Not too much to ask for, right?

Which garnered the following response from Jonah: “I don’t know why but I could see you dating a significantly older man, not necessarily for the long term, but just at some point”

Como say what? “Significantly older”? All that flashed through my mind was Hugh Hefner. And no offense to the Heff, but I am ALL SET. “Significantly older” like 50? 60? What kind of vibes am I putting out, here?

I told Jonah I felt like my max was 40, or early forties. I’d still like to have kids and a man any older than late 40’s is thinking about how he’s going to be paying for college in his 60’s. And, I’ve still got some living to do, so I’d like to have someone to do it with for more than 15 or 20 years before they… well, you know.

But Jonah was pretty insistent that he saw a “significantly older” man in my future. Which begs the question…

Am I that type of girl? Am I just completely unaware of what I’m looking for? Or more specifically, am I completely unaware of who’s looking for me?

Cab Drivers Say The Darndest Things…

I’m a pretty talkative person. And after a few glasses of wine, I’m very talkative. So, there have been many an occasion where I have hopped in a cab or a car service (thank God for Uber… how did we survive before??) for a quick ride home after a glass or two four.

Some of the drivers just sit there, quietly taking you to your destination, others ask about your day. But most of the time, if you give them real answers and ask real questions, they respond. And I am intrigued by these conversations more often than not.

Usually its a man in his 30’s or 40’s, who is doing his best to provide for his family, save for a trip, buy a home. Many talk of sending money back to family in some country I have never heard of it (but probably should know) and to be honest, I often marvel at their knowledge of current events, political situations, the stock market, a myriad of other things.

Fast forward to last night: I get into a car after a networking event, somewhat tired and overdone, longing for my bed and my driver commented after my fifth yawn “Did you have a long day, miss?”. First, major points for calling me miss and not ma’am. I like him already.

We got into a discussion about long days, social obligations, and eventually our chat led to the recent happenings in the world, some not so good and down-right scary (like bombs and planes crashing and people having no sense of obligation to one another) and somehow we landed on the topic of children (I know, you’re probably thinking this was like a 40-minute car ride, more like 12. We got comfortable real quick, Rahim and I).

We talked comfortably and casually and I found myself saying to him, not even knowing I was thinking it, “I just don’t even know if I could bring kids into this world. How do you explain to them all these awful things? How do you protect them from that?”

He said that you create relationships with your family and your neighbors and you all look out for one another, for one another’s kids, for one another’s well being. That you create a group of people you trust and you all raise your children together. With values you all live by and teach them to live by.

Our conversation continued and eventually we pulled up at my house. I reached up and shook his hand, said goodbye. And as he was shaking my hand, he held on to it for a moment and said to me:

“Don’t be afraid to have kids, they’ll be good people when they’re your kids”.

Not too shabby for a guy I met twelve minutes ago.