What a Difference a Year Makes

It’s been a year sine I started posting here. What a difference a year makes. A year full of First Afters and struggles and joys and tears and then some.

I am not sure what I thought would happen. I think I hoped my Prince Charming would come bounding across Sharon Amity and rescue me. Alas, not so, fair maiden. I’ve had a couple of misfires, lost a little money and dignity, but I’ve grown too. I’ve definitely come out of this year with some amazingly awesome friendships I would never have had if it wasn’t for the breakup.

I’m reminded again of what I really want – not just a lover, not a sugar daddy, but a true best friend.

“Women say that a lot,” Rocker said the other night. “What do women mean, a best friend?”

His question made me pause. I’d never had a guy ask me that. But it’s true, I hear a lot of my girl friends say that. It never occurred to me that guys might not get what that means.

“I guess,” I started, “well, I guess, it means that I want someone that I can connect with on multiple levels. I want someone that wants to experience life with me, that knows why certain things are funny to me, who gets to know me well enough that we can shorthand the back stories and go straight to the heart of the matter. Someone that not just wants to share my bed, but that wants to share my day.”

Rocker nodded, but I wasn’t sure if I had really cleared it up that much.

It reminded me a little of another November day in my life, the day that I picked up my husband from the airport and drove him to a restaurant to tell him I wanted a divorce. (I had the tilapia with wild rice and mango salsa, it’s weird the details you remember).

“I don’t understand what’s wrong with our marriage,” Grumpy stated. “I think it’s great just the way it is.”

Of course he did. He was unemployed, collecting severance while dividing his time with sitting on the couch watching football and porn, or going to the gym to flirt with married women and take them for coffee. I was working a temp job, trying to work as. Many hours as I could and then coming home to unpack more boxes and being asked, “what’s for dinner?” While listening to him y’all at the cats and the piles of paper that somehow didn’t organize themselves.

“We are glorified roommates,” I tried to explain, “we aren’t friends, we are not lovers, we are two people living in the same house and occasionally doing things together. I want more than that. I want someone I want to be with, that wants to be with me.”

He sat there, staring at me. He didn’t get it. I still don’t think he does. (His older sister suggested later that maybe I needed medication. If I need drugs to stay married to you? Houston, we have a problem.)

But I know that love like that can exist. I’ve known couples that have had it and I want it too. And even though it means that my knight on the white horse might be gray-haired and slightly battle-worn, that’s okay. I’ll venture along with my band of awesome friends, or when needed, by myself, until the right one finds me or I find him.

Until then, Happy Anniversary!