The Project - Day 4

Yesterday I was thinking about what led to the major shift in my life, going from the life of a quasi-itinerant occasional musician living la vie Boheme to an ostensibly responsible married gal with a child, and just how did I get there. The truth is, right before I met my husband, I was stuck. Physically, mentally, spiritually I was trapped in an enormous sinkhole and couldn’t see any way to get out. I had walked away from a stagnant relationship, I was not happy with my work, etc. I’m sure it was a fairly textbook late-30’s single woman with no defined career pre-midlife crisis, but it felt original to me.

I decided to do a number of things to change up what I was doing and one of those things was to sign up for online dating. It had been at least a year since I had done this and honestly I thought I was finished with it. But, I was single, I wanted a reason to get out of the house and I wanted to have a little fun. I purposely signed up on a website that was not exactly known for expanded compatibility testing or meaningful relationships. It wasn’t www.bootycall.com, but it might have been close. There would be no expectations, just an experiment in short-term social bonding.

This went pretty well for a while, I had a couple of interesting dates, then I traded profiles with this guy who had two pictures of himself, one with two poodles, the other in front of an airplane. I thought, either he’s interesting, or he’s got a friend who really knows how to stage online dating photos. We connected, he turned out to be a big fan of Sondheim which made me immediately think “GAY”, but hey, I do not discriminate and he was willing to buy, so off we went. I was ridiculously late to our first date but for some reason he stayed and we had a lovely evening. Two weeks later he told me he was serious and would I come with him to a wedding and then to meet his family.

My first instinct was to run screaming out the door for a number of reasons that most people would find legitimate. But then I stopped, and I spent a long weekend thinking about my previous relationships. The truth was, I had been following my gut for nearly 36 years and what had it gotten me? Nothing. It seemed the only word I knew was “no” and the only direction I knew was backward. Was it my gut directing me or my fear? So I made a very conscious decision at the end of February 2005. Wherever I had said “no” before, I was now going to say “yes” and see where it took me. Instead of judging a situation and heading for the exit before it got messy, I was going to stick around, see what happened and try to put in some honest work on a relationship for a change. I had no idea that this choice would lead where it did, but it turned out to be one of the most important points in my life. My choices thus far had gotten me stuck, it would take new choices to get me unstuck.

Now it is five years later, and I’m finding myself stuck again. Circumstances are dictating that I close the door on some long-cherished dreams and strike out in new directions. While my gut tells me not to waste years of training, education and energy, I realize my gut is occasionally a stupid bitch and needs to be ignored. After all, if I’d paid attention to it five years ago, I wouldn’t be here, next to a guy who snores loud enough to wake the dead, down the hall from a little guy who is fast becoming a champion snorer in his own right. I can’t imagine life without either of them and it all started with turning “no” into “yes” and “why?” into “why not?” 

So life, career, home, I say to you YES and WHY NOT?