Sizing jars ...

So have I finally found the secret? Have I finally reached some monumental threshold that I had originally anticipated would happen at the stroke of midnight on my eighteenth birthday? (I recall how disappointed I was the next morning when I didn’t feel much different than I had upon turning 15 or 16 or 17 … I’d spent so many years of my life up to that point absolutely convinced that wisdom would be bestowed upon me in my sleep on that milestone birthday … ) … has it finally happened close to 30 years later??
Have I discovered acceptance … a second innocence … the secret recipe of making lemonade from lemons? (Should I even be asking these questions … and acknowledging this new found state of mind? Superstitious seeds planted by my grandmother rear their seedling heads and whisper … don’t tempt fate) …
Or god forbid … is this the calm before the storm?
Last night, Dave had a fundraising event at Dirty Martini’s … firemen draw crowds … the place was packed.
I did my part … manned (or should I say wo-manned?) the guest list at the front door with Joey-Joe … did my bit of people watching … kissed the cheeks of friends and acquaintances … shook the required hands. Never did take off my red raincoat (how I love that red raincoat … with a skirt that twirls when I spin) …
Jus found out that Joey Joe visits New Hampshire every year … Laconia of all places … knows Alton well … isn’t the world a strange and wondrous place?
Good deed done … I headed home through the pouring rain … sharing my umbrella with Joey-Joe (he snuck out as well). I’m passed pretending to enjoy myself in a too loud, crowded bar with Britney breathlessly asking “Gimme More. Even when I was younger I was never really into the bar scene … and after all the years of running events … even less. I don’t get it … a sea of black-clad people, overly perfumed, preening and parading , lonely and trying to look interesting ……
Dave and his friends make me smile … a handful of 50 plus year olds … drinks in hand, trading the same war stories, oblivious to everything around them … caught up in the latest wrinkle on the job, or Darryl’s hole-in-one on Thursday, the latest funeral, divorce, wedding, graduation …
On a different night, I may have stayed and listened to the stories … and added my laughter to theirs … but there were too many wives around tonight. I just don’t relate … don’t understand why they still need to find approval elsewhere … plucked, tucked in, trying to erase ten years with skillfully applied make-up …
Don’t get me wrong … I comb my hair, spray the perfume and apply minimal war paint … but 20 I am not … nor do I want to be. I’ve never been one for small talk … so details of where ‘Oil of Olay” is on sale just doesn’t get my heart-rate elevated … and women are so bitchy and so competitive … and it gets worse until they accept that the clock won’t be turning back for them …
Anti-social maybe … smart – for sure … didn’t need to put anybody through the misery of my mono-syllabic conversation.
Give me a glass of wine or an ice-cold glass of water … a friend or two or three on the back deck … or comfortably seated in the living room … some good music playing in the background … some intelligent or humourous conversation … a card game … Trivial Pursuit … anyday …
Simple pleasures … guess I’m a simple gal at heart. Thank god I can stop pretending to be some kind of sophisticate … never was really good at that (a fact that can be attested to by all those who have watched me land my two feet in my mouth or better yet teeter off my high heels!)
So what is this newfound calm … this newfound ability to say “I like this” … “I don’t like that” … without the fear of insulting someone or saying the wrong thing? Is this … dare I say it … security? Have I finally found myself? Was it really no harder than simply acknowledging the first impulse / answer / question? Why then did this take me so long? Why did I allow thoughts, feelings, tastes to be filtered through this never-ending series of sizing jars, for the lack of a better term? If I’m really a good mom – I’ll say that I like afternoon tea … If I’m a really good daughter – I’ll say that I love raisin pie … if I’m a really good Canadian – I should say “eh” …
There’s been a hole, a void for so long … I’ve lived with this sense of impending doom as well as fear of failing the judgment call … and come to find out, the world doesn’t end when you’re different or yourself …
Go figure …