Guest Blog: Eating Crow

Hey! You’ns remember last week when I had writer’s block? And remember guest blogger amy a, who has stepped in twice before during dry times for the Avid Bruxist? (Her first post was called Dating in One’s 30s: A Guide for Those Who Don’t Fucking Have to Do It; the second, The Relationship I’m in Already.) Well, my own word faucet seems to have opened back up, but she sent me this and told me, “it’s kinda me eating crow from my last blog,” and I read it, and as always with her stuff, I started having lots of feelings, plus who doesn’t love it when somebody eats crow? Also, who doesn’t love my run-on sentences?

Anyway, I feel like this piece is important for me—I’ve read it three times, and I’ve gotten progressively more teary each time—so I’m posting it. Tomorrow, maybe the fashion post, or the teaching one, or another shitty movie recap, but tonight—tonight I’m going to read this ten more times and take a hard look at myself.

So about a year ago, I made a decision about curbing some bad dating behavior on my part.  Oh, it’s not like I was going on a string of bad dates at the time, in fact, I was on hiatus. I just decided to take it seriously. Or take myself seriously in relation to it, that is.

If, as Ghandi says, you gotta be the change you wanna see on this planet, then I had to take some really hard, embarrassing looks into my dating world. Sure, I had fun with it. I got to date a lot of guys on occasion, who for the most part weren’t looking at anything past that, which was fine, because I wasn’t really either.  Kinda like how I never wanted to own a home because the thought of some permanent place of dwelling made me claustrophobic, even though I’ve lived at the same place in NC since moving back here 4 years ago. And I lived at the same place in LA for the last seven years I was there. Huh. Go figure. Yeah. Was it possible I was kidding myself?

Yes, yes it was. I’ve done some pretty ballsy things in my life. I moved to LA to pursue my acting career. I drove across country in the days before cell phones (gasp) and lived to tell the tale. I walked into offices of big wigs and somehow didn’t get kicked out but instead booked parts. I lived with and broke up with addicts and found my dignity tarnished but intact. I moved back across the country a month after shooting my last gig in LA because I decided over that last year that I no longer wanted the life I had there. I soul searched and found my passions again, and lost them, and rediscovered them.  And even though I thought I never wanted something simple or stable—I certainly protested it long and hard enough that over the past year—I started to listen to exactly how loudly I was doing so.  

So I stopped.  And I took a hard look. And what I wanted was not what I thought I did. And it certainly didn’t reflect what I was going after. And then I went out on a date or two, and even though they didn’t work out, I could respect myself for how I handled things. I calmed down. I opened up. And then I fell in love with someone who had been there all along, in the periphery.

Timing is everything, it really is. In my efforts to always be in control of my life and heart, I’d forgotten the joy of love is not being so wary of it all the time. That letting someone who really would have my best interests at heart into my life can be the most liberating thing ever. I was so tired of holding on so tight my whole life. If I stopped fighting it, and just relaxed, it really could be easier than I ever thought.

They say when you know, you know. And I did. Years ago. I knew so much that even after he bought me a plane ticket to see him, I decided last minute not to go because I knew it’d get serious. And then even after we started talking again a while after that, I still knew. But I didn’t listen. That was too easy.  I was too busy trying to be in control of things and date men who didn’t take me as seriously and had at least one Monumental Tattoo or Monumental Problem because that meant I could keep them at some sort of arm’s length. And then almost certainly not get what I really wanted. And then continue the cycle.

So, when I did slowly just start staring right at what I always wanted but was too afraid to admit to, it was quite stunning that I started getting it back a hundred fold.  And it really was like breathing. And of course I kicked myself a thousand times for not doing it sooner. But it’s highly likely I wouldn’t have known how to deal with it then.

We met at a camp in high school for gifted kids. We ran in similar circles in college. We reconnected over Facebook a few years ago. And when I saw him in person for the first time in years, it was right out of a movie. Seriously. Like, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in “Sleepless in Seattle” type fireworks. And everything made sense. We got engaged shortly thereafter.  And the 20 years of dating and relationships of all shapes and sizes? Well, they just let me know that when I finally was ready, I’d have years of experience cementing the fact that when you know when it’s right, it is.

As always, I’ll let you readers comment first. Thank you, amy a!