The New Physics: L = S D R

Some people are creatures of habit. I am not one of these. I'm more of a creature of phases. Cycles. I'll voraciously do something for a while, but eventually something happens and I suddenly stop. I, admittedly, get bored of things.

And people.

Alas.

I don't hang around a group of people; never have. I've blinked astonishingly at the concept of Friends, the series, because I cannot grasp how 6 people can just hang around each other all the time. Every single day. The same six people.

This is depressing to me.

We just hired a new busboy at work. Daniel. Awesome. What I like most about him is he works hard, he does his job, but he also genuinely likes people and likes talking to customers; not your run of the mill, distainful, "Who's having the steak?" variety. He's inquisitive and he talks about stuff. He admitted to me last night that as much as his job is menial and pays very little, he'll stand next to me as I'm ringing something into the computer, say, unaware that I'm saying [singing really], "Vagina, vagina, vagina", and he'll beamingly look at me and say, "I love my job." After introducing him to The Killers and making individual introductions to every single person down at my neighbourhood bar; discussing important matters such as who will be buying the next round and other hot topics, he confessed he'd been so bored with his life from just a week ago: hanging out with the same people, going to the same places, talking about the same stuff. After his fourth shift he gleefully announced:

I am his new best friend. Yay me!

I think that's what I like most about meeting new people: it's kind of like when you're a kid and every experience is a new one. Every game is made fresh with someone new that moved into the neighbourhood, from another neighbourhood that had slightly different rules for Hide 'n Seek, say. We, the established neighbourhood kids, would gather round this new "guru" awaiting new, exotic instructions on this game we felt we'd mastered. We learned very early no game is ever mastered.

I work with another fella named Matt who is a self-professed Human Fortress. Doesn't like change, inherently. He looks at new people as a threat. In the past he's put the old kibosh on me. Apparently I was über-threatening, and the sick efforts he took took such hold on me, as my shame mechanism is dangerously trigger-happy sometimes, that I quit my job back in the summer. When I returned in the fall, after a couple of weeks he finally started warming up to me. This had taken a year of careful, consistent actions on my part, and a great deal of forgiveness and understanding for when he finally, earnestly and shamefully apologised for his behaviour. For me, it was a great lesson in patience and understanding. We've surprisingly become very good friends of late and this has made me nearly jump up and down for pure joy. Hooray for that!
I've been thinking about this whole relationship thing. Being in one, that is. Not too long ago it was something I devoted many waking and, I'm sure, sleeping hours considering.

Who is he?
When will he appear?
What will he look like?
Smell like?
Where the hell is he?!

I'd just had an epiphany yesterday as I was responding to a blog.

To preface, I've historically been a serial monogamist. I've been married twice and inbetween I've had rather long relationships. I've been single for several months now, the longest period in all of my adult years. This is the first time I've felt totally responsible for only myself. I no longer have a curfew. I don't have to rush home to share a meal with someone else. The mess I make at home is only my mess, not a collective. All bathroom business is conducted with the door open. I play my music when I want and however loud I want to... and when I'm done playing, it's shut off. Strange, but I'm so happy knowing no one will put a key in my door and come in.

I haven't felt L-O-N-E-L-Y for months!

Back to the epiphany: Weeks ago I wanted desperately to fall in love again. This was the number one reason I left my mostly sound marriage. I thought it would happen right away. I'd never really had difficulty finding love. I guess mostly because I freely give it out, the love stuff bred of comradery and friendship. It's endless and plentiful, but the romantic stuff... well, this time it's different. I'm harnessing it now. And so are others.

I think the vascular explosion, though only 3.2 on the Richter scale of heartbreak, back in July, informed me of a few things.
1. I'm not ready.
2. I don't know if I'll ever be ready.

I wrote to a young man about the friends we make, say, our best friends. We may have had them since birth. I can actually make that claim. That is 36 years of knowing someone, outside of one's immediate family. Do we speak everyday? No. Do we speak every year? We try to, but some years we don't get around to it. We're still friends though.

36 years. There are couples that stay together that long. Forever and ever, just like the fairy tales say.

Forever and Ever.

Forever sharing the same bed.
Forever sharing the bathroom.
Forever making plans, not without first consulting the other.
Forever taking vacations... together.
Forever sharing the same friends.
Forever looking into the same pair of eyes every single day.
Forever having sex with only one person for the rest of your life.

This depressed me.

Just about every married couple I know is miserable.

We change jobs every two years, sometimes full careers every five years.

This makes me feel liberated.

I was out with Ack, the ex-husband/best friend, today for lunch. He was telling me a story about a physics professor at Harvard. One of his students asked to see which of Einstein's formulae was inscribed on the back of his watch. The inscription read: L= SDR. The student never heard of this formula, so he asked.

Life= Sex, Drugs and Rock 'n Roll.

See, now THIS makes sense to me.