Earlier this evening I was looking through one of my old journals, and happened upon an entry from almost exactly 15 years ago -- July 20, 1995 -- when I was a much different person... single and searching, having just purchased my first home in Somerset, New Jersey, and done some renovations including a deck and a hot tub.
Continued:
So tonight I am out on my deck, hot tub burbling in the background, a single candle burning on my table while I write. Drank an Anchor Steam beer in memory of another time, another love, the Spud Stud. Wonder how he's doing, moved to Fresno now. We've tried to keep in touch, but he doesn't have much use for the telephone.
If I could have anything, what would it be? Love. A soulmate. But wuold i be willing to give up what I have? My career? My home? My intelligence? Not that one is always required to give up one thing to have another, but determining what I'd do for love is one way to place a value on it.
Everything else I have or truly seems within my reach.
When I wonder where people find love, I can only seem to come up with where I won't find it. Not at a bar. Not in a personal ad. Not through my current set of friends, but perhaps through the people I work with. Maybe at the beach. But that TV writer I met on the beach in Pt. Pleasant Beach last Saturday never called.
The bugs are making a lot of noise flying into the floodlights on my deck. At least they seem to be leaving me alone for the most part.
Of course, so do my friends. It often occurs to me that if I stop calling most of my friends, it is entirely possible that I would never hear from them again.
Ellyn, for example. Not that I want to talk to her now that I know how freely she talks behind my back. But I hold onto these high school friendships that I have outgrown... because sometimes they feel like the only ones I have. The ones I must turn to when I need someone to go out with on a weekend, or talk to in any depth about girl stuff. For the most part, they're willing to let me drone on with my mini-dramas. One time Melissa said, correctly I think, that I need to turn every situation into a drama.
Amazing what a new notebook can do for the writer in me. Four pages have been covered in words. "Is there a wordsmith in the house?" That line goes back to my days of wondering about the Slaughtered Lamb, caring about him and drawing intricate parallels between our lives and careers (Eddie Murphy in Trading Places, anyone?) Now he doesn't even bother to return my calls. That would hurt if I let it.
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