Wanna see?

So, today, I'm a bit confused. I'd gone to a party to see if I could get out of the doldrums I had been feeling lately. I was talking to a young woman in her early twenties. She had just gotten the surprise of her life when her boy friend, a marine, had come back home prior to being deployed to Afghanistan.

I won't share most of the conversation, but at some point, we came across the topic of losing weight. She proudly proclaimed she had dropped forty pounds to a weight under 110lbs. I made some comment about my surprise that she had lost that much weight.

Her next comment was, "Wanna see?" She then lifted up her shirt and flashed me. Her boyfriend was twenty feet away talking to one of my friends. I had just met her for the first time about an hour ago. And she was sober.

I congratulated her and let myself get called away by my friend. About half an hour later, I had to leave, and to be honest, I felt a great amount of relief that her boyfriend missed her little show.

Now, I'm trying to figure out what I did or said right for future reference. Or discover if some aspect of my demeanor causes women that I'm not interested in to feel so comfortable with me. And, of course, how not to get killed by gun toting marines.

No playlist for my mood

Feeling a bit low right now. Listening to music and the happy and upbeat songs are grating on my nerves. I've been skipping past them when I hear the first few bars on my stereo.

I had tried to, I don't know, apply for this opportunity to assist on several weddings across the country, all expenses paid, spanning several weeks starting the beginning of next month. Granted I would have made no money from it, but the experience, it would have been a welcome change in my life. Plus, at the end of it, I'd get a few days on the west coast to relax.

I was passed over for someone with less experience, with the explanation that they didn't want to teach an old dog new tricks. Really? I didn't want to sound like a sore loser, but I was stung by the rejection. What are they afraid of? That I can't adapt? How little they know of me. Ironically, I would sound like I am boasting to state my case now that someone else has been selected.

So, now I'm sitting here trying to cheer myself up by listening to music, and it simply isn't working. I know that tomorrow is another day and after sleeping on it, I'll be removed enough from the emotions I feel right now to look at it with some distance and perspective. That's tomorrow. Right now, that offers me no consolation. And I can't find any songs on my playlist that matches the mood I'm in. I've got to have some death metal in here somewhere.

Will that ache go away?

It's Fathers day. Sorry, the morning of Father's Day. I am trying to relax my aching jaw from clenching them so tightly from anger. Anger at my own family. My mother has said so many insensitive things to me in the span of ten minutes that have made me so angry that I am contemplating walking out.

When I say that I am contemplating walking out, I don't mean stepping out the door, getting in my car and driving off as I did when I was a teenager. I don't mean slinking back into my house after the heat of my anger has worn off. I mean walking away from my family and never contacting them again.

I am trying not to make a decision in the heat of my anger, but the scab on my heart is thickening, and soon, I know I won't be unhappy with leaving and losing them forever. I know on that day, I won't have unshed tears in my eyes. I am certain, as the day when I was laid off from that most unhappy job I had five years ago, my steps will be joyfully light.

The ache in my jaw will go away. The one in my heart won't. That is all.

Do you feel lucky?

This past week, I have heard from four different couples I know, an assortment of family, friends and acquaintances, who are getting divorced. Obviously, I don't know all the details. But I do know that for them, the honeymoon is well and truly over. It's sad. And it leaves me with a cold feeling inside.

That cold feeling is the hand of fear gripping at my soul that I may some day find the person of my dreams and find it all disappear in a court proceeding. It's disheartening to think that I may spend much of my life pining for a relationship with a special person and when I finally find them, see a few dozen little irksome things split us apart. It's not the way I've been told it should be, but I know it happens. And I am not sure that I want to take that risk after this week.

I know, I know. To have never risk is to have never gained. But I wonder if the joy is worth the bitterness I am seeing right now in other people's lives. To reach so high and only have it come crashing down in strife and discord.

I suppose the only way to answer that question is to take the step off the cliff. Even if you see sharp rocks below. As I tell people who ask me questions on photography, the only way to learn is to experience it. I'm not afraid of going down. I'm afraid of the abrupt stop at the end on those rocks.

I just hope I'm one of the lucky ones, you know?