The Future

As a little girl, I grew up thinking about the Knight In Shining Armor that would come rescue me from the life I was dealt. I wanted someone that would swoop me away from my abusive dad, and be sympathetic when I acted like he did. I wanted someone to bring me roses, and tell me that I'll never be like my mother. No matter how much I looked like her, I just wouldn't be. 

As my life developed into adulthood, I began to quickly realize I wasn't finding my Knight in Shining Armor as easily as I had hoped. I looked and looked and looked, sampling many of the different options, but alas, didn't find my Knight. I mistakenly took my Knight for a Joker in a Knight outfit once. That was seven years of life lesson after life lesson. Maybe he missed a flight so I didn't see him at the airport. Maybe he fell out of a hot air balloon and was stuck in a tree.

About seven months ago, I had a real long talk with my bff @ work. He sat me down and made a few things real clear. I, at the time, was 33, and wasn't getting any younger. My life had taken a turn when JK and I broke up a few months earlier, and bff @ work was here to tell me it was time to stop searching for that silly Knight. He told me that it was okay to be alone. He told me that it was okay to establish myself. He told me that eating alone in restaurants, isn't a bad thing. It doesn't mean you're lonely. It doesn't mean you have no friends. And he promised, that people didn't judge me for it. 

A few days later, bff @ work lost his wife. That was huge for me. When I sat in his living room and watched him fall to his knees in tears in front of a house full of people, I was even more confused. I felt as if I never wanted to be close to anyone again for fear that THIS VERY SITUATION would happen to me. So, for the next week or so, I pushed people away. I alienated myself from the world. And my walls went up with padlocks. 

I remember the day I looked in the mirror and told myself that things were about to change. I remember that day very clearly. Two days later, my roomies and I moved into this great big house, and I left the stuff behind that troubled me. I brought none of it with me. And with that, I allowed the one person (Jeffy) back into my life that kept knocking on my walls and trying to break those padlocks with a crowbar.

From time to time, I sit and reflect on where my life will go from here. I'm 34 and still living with roommates, unable to afford housing on my own. The desires I once had as a growing girl, seem to be so far out of reach, it's almost discouraging. A husband. A house with a picket fence. A dog chasing a little kid. All things I so desperately want, falling farther and farther away from me. 

I guess I'll need to start looking in trees.....