Single in Saint Louis

The dreams of last night were active dreams as my brain processed a huge chunk of the reality of my broken engagement and the emotions that came with it.  Giant loads of information must have been stored.  It was restless sleep all night long.  I woke up at one point after the voice of the woman who was to be my future mother in law told me I could come back.  I could be engaged again.   In my dream I was unsure that being unengaged was the right decision.  In my wakeful state, I knew it was the right decision by my pure deep down inner bliss.   I also knew that I was processing a doubt from several months ago.  I remember the doubt.  I remember when it arose.  It was just now hitting my mind.  It is only now, months later, when the water is calmed that my brain is cool enough on the subject to store the information, the insecurities, and the precious moments from the heat of the situation leading to my decision to end my engagement.  That is why each of the dreams was so vivid, so oddly arranged, and so made of emotions and situations that had actually occurred in the past. 

I found a meditative place with monotony at work.  I found a soothing pattern of point and click at my computer screen that soothed me.  I usually despise the monotony.  Today I reveled in it.  I found an inner peace with the point and click that kept me focused for longer than I have been able to focus in months.  I felt quiet inside.  I am usually outgoing and talkative, friendly and receptive.  Today, save a few conversations with my closest colleagues, I was quiet, and completely in my head.  So, much so, I decided to double check my work tomorrow before sending it to the powers that be.

On my way home I had several moments, again, more processing past events.  A fleeting reality of everything I gave up for my relationship to work overtook me, pangs of heartache wrenched as I thought about my nephew's first birthday, a day I had missed.  I thought about the ones I loved that I removed from my life.  I felt anger with myself.   How long had I failed to listen to the things that were most important to me?  Where have I been? I pulled up to my apartment with trickling tears running down my cheeks.  Not sad tears or angry tears, but tears of release.  There were less than I thought there would be, and each tear did more than I thought it would toward forgiving and healing. 

I walked in my door to my frigid apartment.  The room was cold and a stark contrast to the ridiculous outdoor heat.   I went directly to my room where I changed into my yoga wear and headed across town for class, making one stop on my way at the dancewear store to buy some tights.  I walked in the dancewear store and saw the little pink tutus.  I remembered being the little girl that dreamed of wearing one.  It made me smile.  I walked directly to the tights, picked up the ones I wanted.  I knew exactly which ones, the same black capri tights I always wore in dance.  I paid and left.  Smiling again at the tutus as I left the store.  I changed into my tights in my car.  A trick learned from years of dance training.  It reminded me of watching my mother squiggle into pantyhose after hers had torn before church on Sundays.  I could do it now myself.  I could change my own tights in the car.  A marked sign of womanhood.  It is on the same level as running in heels.

As I drove to yoga my brain felt mushed.  I called Mom to try to see if I could carry on a conversation.  Mom tried to talk about everything, about the weather, about her anniversary gift, about my nephews upcoming birthday party, and I was unable to verbalize much of anything.  I had too much in my head, so I gave her a to do list.  "I need to do some work.  I need to type a pleading.  I need to send this email."  Mom understood I was struggling for words and with love and compassion said, "It is a good thing you are still doing yoga.  I know you really like it.  It chills you out." 

I pulled up to the yoga studio knowing the need for this workout was greater than it had been in months.  I could feel my back tense as I sat on the mat before class.  I lay down to start class and realize I am in physical pain.  Tons of it.  My entire body feels as if it was hit by a truck.  Each muscle is it's own little version of whiplash.  I focus on my breath because my body is aching.  Occasionally, a sharp pain will shoot down what is definitely a nerve in my leg, then my shoulder.  I know these pains well.  I used to feel them in dance.  They are from muscles that need to stretch.  It is the undoing of poor posture.  "Om Namah Shivaya."  I chanted it internally through my entire class in an effort to keep my focus inward. 

Then came Savasana.  Savasana is always an out of body experience for me.  After years of practice in meditation, I find I can fall into a deep deep meditative state, a dreaming/waking place.  It is the perfect place to pray.  I am not in the world, but in it.  I am watching while participating.  It is a very interesting place to be indeed.  Today, Savasana was much needed, and there I was, I was here, and I was there.  My mind fell quiet as I lay perfectly still and relaxed to the bone.  I felt a fly land on my forehead, I didn't move to brush it off.  It just flew away.  As if I was receiving a message from myself, I thought, "Welcome back." It was an odd thought, but I just let it be.  When I sat up I felt different.  I felt relaxed.   I went to pay.  "What 's the date?"  I asked my regular and favorite yoga instructor as I filled out my check.  "August 4." 

"Oh my gosh! Where have I been!  Is it really August 4?" She laughed.  "You've been in your head for three months!"  I laughed, but I knew it was true.  I knew as I walked to my car that for all the turbulence of the last couple months I was in my head.  Now, I have processed those months and I can come out.  I stepped from yoga and breathed in the fresh air, smelling summer for the first time this year, feeling the heat on my skin, soaking in a little sun.  Resigning myself to life and all that comes with it.  I feel at peace and ease. 

I could have come home to work more.  I suppose yesterday that is what I would have done, but today I can feel the remnants of the stress of the last few months in my body.  I decide to take some time for myself.   I need it.  There is nothing too urgent on my list of to dos.  There is nothing that cannot wait until tomorrow morning.  I concoct a bedtime routine complete with a healthy dinner, a bubble bath to soothe those aching muscles, and a cup of hot tea to help me sleep tonight.   I turn off the ringer on my blackberry, so I can have some quiet.  I turn off the television.  I sit in the peace and quiet of my home, and start to listen to myself to what I really want, what I really feel, what I really need.  Again, relief. 

Written and lived by Michael the Aloe, the coolest Aloe plant ever.

I am here, alone, in Single's apartment.  Her cell phone went dead, she left her charger at the office, and she is making a rather slow and deliberate rush to Salsa girl one's for a charger, breakfast, and a little bit of bookstore perusing.  Since she has little time to read these days, she will inevitably come home with a pile of books on cd to play as she works.  I like the books too.  I wonder which she will pick this week.  The neighbor here has a garden.  Pretty flirty flowers.  They are young and annuals.  I am much older than them now.  Wow!  I remember being able to hang with the flowers.  I am in a whole different league now.  They are fun to watch though, squiggling their way through life.  Coming and going flippantly with the seasons.  I fondly remember that part of my life. 

I reflect.  I have come a long way since my meager seedling beginnings to a full grown aloe.  I have been so many places.  Seen so many things.  Met so many plants.  It is quite amazing.  I feel like if I grow big enough, I might just reach out with each of my long leaves and feel the entire world!  It is a fantastic feeling.  I am far away from where I started.  I am over 1000 miles from where I was planted.  I have traveled by car and truck and SUV.  I have been carried by hand, and strapped in by a seat belt.  I have love and been loved.  I have grown and been grown.  My only constant, and she is not so constant, Single.  What would happen to me if she were gone?  Where would I go then?  Maybe it is morbid, but you know, a plant thinks about these things.  Surely, Fish, that fussbudget in the living room, would die.  But us plants, we would probably be taken to new homes.  I wonder what those new homes would be like.  I wonder what it would be like to live in the garden next door.  Am I the only one who ever thinks about this?  Mischa says I should just be happy where I am.  We have it good.  We really do, but I feel like there is so much more in life to be experienced. 

I can tell you one place I wouldn't want to live is in Fish's bowl.  He has to be the fussiest fish ever.  If Single is a day late in cleaning his bowl he will float at the bottom of the tank and play dead.  He is the ultimate drama fish, and feisty, oh so incredibly feisty.  He will flare his fins at you if you get to close to the side of the tank.  Maybe even a little narcissistic.  He plumes constantly, watching his every pose, as if the whole world is watching him in his fishbowl.  I would love to be the first to tell him that the only person watching is Single, and occasionally a friend, but I don't have a mouth, and I can't stand to break his poor little heart. 

Enough of my ramblings.  Single's key is in the front door.  I must strike my own Aloe pose.  Lean toward the light...no a little more...there.  Out!

 I realize my blog entries have gotten a little long lately.  I will try to make them shorter, but if it is something like my entry I just wrote about football, I  can't make that shorter.  Football is just far to important to write one paragraph about.  I am sure you understand.

The sunlight is trickling through my window and casting that precious early morning glow on my room.  This is one of my favorite times of day.  As much as I hate waking up, I am somehow, a morning person.   I roll over to my first thoughts of the morning.  The early morning glow this morning reminds me of something very happy.  Football Season. (Not soccer, but American Football for my international readers.) 

I have always loved football season!  I love football!  I remember cheering for football games in high school.  It was one of my favorite things to do.  The late Friday nights bouncing around with organized precision, eleven other girls surrounding me,  Pom Pons flying, bands playing, and pep clubs cheering.   My team were something like ten time state champs or something.  They very well may still be.  There is nothing like a good hometown southern high school football game.  Nothing.  If you haven't experienced it, you just don't know.  And that is where my love began.  Way back then.  In a land where football is life.  Before I ever learned what a first down was.  When I just wanted to jump around, do some kicks, dance around, and shake my Pom Pons.  Could that really have been over ten years ago I was sporting my red and silver every Friday night? 

Then came college.  There are no fans like Oklahoma College Football fans.  None.  With no pro sports teams, those college teams were who we had.  You were a Sooner or a Cowboy, and life, friendships, and even some religion is decided by which team you align yourself with.  (Everyone knows God loves a Cowboys fan most!)  A very powerful influence indeed.  I am a Cowboy.  I wear orange, still, even sitting on my couch watching the college game from home.   I can't help but remember  walking down to the stadium  and  tailgating with my friends.   The  "Cowboy first down in ten" being screamed over the loudspeaker as a crowd of thousands in orange scream with the announcer.  The crisp fall Saturday mornings crawling from the student section to the alumni section to sit with my grandparents at the fifty yard line.  The Cowboys didn't always win.  In fact, Cowboy fans are true fans, we cheer for our team even when they lose.  In my opinion, some of the best college football fans in the world.  I see my diploma  in my office.   What happy times from five years ago.

I think of my first year in Saint Louis getting up early to play flag football with the people I worked with.  People who would somehow end up weaving their way through my life in the oddest circumstances.  I loved those mornings.  The sunshine would gleam through my window just like it is doing this morning.  A friend would pick me up and that crisp fall breeze I remember so dearly from college would hit my face.  I would run and play and sometimes tackle.  Our team had so much fun!  Then I would come home, sit on the couch, and watch football for hours.  Sometimes alone while doing laundry.  Sometimes with friends.  It is still one of my fondest memories of Saint Louis.  The absolute blissful peace of football day.

It has always been the only sport I can watch on television.  In fact, Super Bowl Sunday in my world is like a holiday.  It might as well be.  I try to make it a point to do something with friends.  To have some sort of a party or go to one.   But it seems every Sunday in my world during football season is a little mini Super Bowl, and for that matter every Saturday college game too.  I can't imagine dating a guy who doesn't like football, or who isn't, at least, loyal to the sport.  But honestly, I need someone who isn't going to judge as I scream at the television about stuff I really know nothing about. 

Even with this incredible love of football, I don't have a favorite pro team.  I love the sport, not a particular team.  I love what it stands for, what it reminds me of, and what new memories come from it every year.  I had a friend from my high school play for the Chicago Bears, and I cheered for them, but it was more for him.  This year I am going to find a pro team to love.  A real true pro football team type of love.  A team I get behind like my college team and who I can cheer for like my high school team.   And then I realize I have never been to a pro football game.  Never.  In my life.  I make it a point.  I am ready, willing, and able to fall in love with a pro team.  I have learned what I need to learn from my life to take on this endeavor of the one pro team I can spend my life cheering for.  In goodtimes and in bad.  Sickness and in health.  Maybe, I should just love the one I am with, maybe the Rams will be my team, but we need to spend some time together first.  I need to go to a few games.  See if we have chemistry, and see how the relationship grows. 

Picking a pro team is not a little choice.  It's a big deal.  I'm even going to have to support them when their season sucks, which means I need a team who I respect, who keeps me excited, and who I can keep coming back to year after year.   The nachos and popcorn at the stadium will be of he utmost importance, just as important as the other fans and if they are positive supportive fans or fair weathered jerks.  This is the real deal.  If I am spending my life with this team, it needs to be for real.   In the words of Audrey Hepburn, "No longer will I play the field."  It is time to find a real pro love.