The phone is ringing and I scream at it as I always do, "leave me alone!" Unfortunately, the four-year-old nymph that shares her days with me is quick with the pick-up, social dominatrix that she is. Luckily, she hangs up before any meaningful conversation can occur.
I don't make friends easily and that doesn't bother me. I figure there are not many people worth knowing and as Thomas Edison said, "just how often does someone say something interesting?" He spent a lot of evenings fishing off his dock after telling his wife he could not hear the conversation around the dinner table. I have a couple of friends and they are gems, unfortunately they've moved out of town. I wasn't the reason, the town was, at least I think. We stay in touch in the way out of town friends stay in touch, precariously.
Sandy and I have been swimming together for over two years. We just happened to be in the same pool at the same time and after awhile, a long while we started talking. Swimming is a logical method of learning to know someone. If a pregnant pause is looming you can submerge and blow bubbles until an interesting thought appears and you can pick up the conversation again.
She tells me she and husband will celebrate their 40th anniversary next month. They met when they were seven years old (husband remembers, Sandy does not) and they were sixteen on their first date. Wow, I tell her my story. Married for 8 1/2 years and most people were surprised I lasted that long, divorced for twenty years and with Big Dave for twenty years. "Oh wait, I tend to round things up." Those numbers would have made me a bride at age twelve. "Divorced for seventeen, in this relationship seventeen."
I have had several lives all packed into one. And I don't find this upsetting, just exhausting. I long for the status quo, days without change or surprises, predictability and normalcy. I'm through with adventures. I just want to sit in the sun under the oak tree and know the ringing phone will bring no crazy news.
I don't make friends easily and that doesn't bother me. I figure there are not many people worth knowing and as Thomas Edison said, "just how often does someone say something interesting?" He spent a lot of evenings fishing off his dock after telling his wife he could not hear the conversation around the dinner table. I have a couple of friends and they are gems, unfortunately they've moved out of town. I wasn't the reason, the town was, at least I think. We stay in touch in the way out of town friends stay in touch, precariously.
Sandy and I have been swimming together for over two years. We just happened to be in the same pool at the same time and after awhile, a long while we started talking. Swimming is a logical method of learning to know someone. If a pregnant pause is looming you can submerge and blow bubbles until an interesting thought appears and you can pick up the conversation again.
She tells me she and husband will celebrate their 40th anniversary next month. They met when they were seven years old (husband remembers, Sandy does not) and they were sixteen on their first date. Wow, I tell her my story. Married for 8 1/2 years and most people were surprised I lasted that long, divorced for twenty years and with Big Dave for twenty years. "Oh wait, I tend to round things up." Those numbers would have made me a bride at age twelve. "Divorced for seventeen, in this relationship seventeen."
I have had several lives all packed into one. And I don't find this upsetting, just exhausting. I long for the status quo, days without change or surprises, predictability and normalcy. I'm through with adventures. I just want to sit in the sun under the oak tree and know the ringing phone will bring no crazy news.
1 comment:
I am interested in your several lives. Which one do you miss? Which one do you regret? Which one would you do all over again?
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