240. oh no, not again

I would first of all like to apologize for my lack of entries. I try to post at least one entry per week. It's been more than two weeks since my last entry. In my (feeble) defense, the internet has been down for the past three days and I did have a blog entry just about ready to post (and I'll probably be posting that one in a few days) but I was too lazy to finish that entry when I knew I wouldn't be able to upload it.

I had planned on finishing that entry and posting it tonight (internet access came back on this afternoon) but there's something on my mind and I want to get it out before it slips away (as inspiration and ideas are wont to do).

See...hmm, how to begin, how much context to include...this has been an odd year for me. No, I don't mean because of the move to Seattle. I wrote about it back in February (see blog 126) and it basically has to do with the fact that for the first time in my life, I've been content as a single person.

For those who didn't know me back when, it's hard to understand what a big deal it is for me to write that because I've had more than one friend say to me, "would you just shut up about being single already?" I used to complain about it all the time. It was like this aching hole in my life that I desperately wanted to fill. The ache was so bad, it weighed heavily on everyday decisions.

For example, sometimes I would drive down to Borders and if someone were to ask me why I was going, I'd probably tell them that I wanted to browse the new fiction section or to look at magazines. And while that's what I'd do while I was there, the real reason was to see if I might meet some really cool girl reading some really cool book that I could make some really cool comment on which would be the beginning of a really cool relationship.

Fact is, even if I did meet such a girl reading just such a book and even if I thought of some witty remark to make about it, there's no way I'd have had the balls to deliver it. See, I have no game whatsoever - zero, zip, zeitgeist (yeah, I know zeitgeist doesn't fit there but I heard the word the other day and it sounded so hip and smart, I was dying to use it). The only pickup line I know is, "hello," and I have no followups. Of course some might say, just be yourself, but "myself" doesn't like to meet new people (I find it stressful and terribly awkward even if it's something as casual as talking to the person cutting my hair) and so being that wouldn't help at all.

Anyway, so that going-to-Borders example is one example of how sad and pathetic my life used to be. Think that's not so bad? How's this. Sometimes I'd see an ad for an art exhibit that looked really interesting but I wouldn't go because one of the reasons I wanted to have a girlfriend was so that I would have someone to discuss art and ideas with and the thought of seeing yet another art show alone was just too disappointing and so I just wouldn't go at all.

I was that lonely and that frustrated ever since I graduated from high school.

And then for some reason, once 2006 rolled around, all those feelings went away.

I can't explain it. It's not like I had some grand epiphany. Nothing dramatic occurred in my life. I didn't have some mountaintop experience with God. There were no big changes in my life at all, really. I was just driving around one day late January or early February when I realized that I didn't care that I was single anymore. And I don't remember the circumstances surrounding this realization because that's how much I didn't care about it. Despite the fact that my singleness was something that weighed heavily on me for years and years, it went away so cleanly and effortlessly that even when I realized it wasn't there anymore, I wasn't surprised. I wasn't even curious about why/how it went away. I wasn't even happy or sad to be rid of it - that's how completely it just went away.

Recently though (say, in the past two weeks), I've been casually praying a prayer that goes something like this, "Lord, please teach me about love." In praying that, I'm merely asking God to help me understand what it is to love, what it looks like and how I can better love those around me. And I suppose the subtext of that prayer is asking God, once again, to bring someone special into my life because to my mind, the easiest way to learn about love is to be in love.

Okay, so ALL that to say that tonight at church, there was this girl sitting at the end of my row and I felt something I hadn't felt in a long time. I thought she looked really amazing - short hair, a sharp, smart dresser (though not overly trendy), a friendly smile, and she was at church - and for the first time this year, I was sad that I was single.

I'm still too new to this church to know if she's one of the regulars or of this was her first visit. Maybe I'll never see her again and even if I do see her again, I'd have no idea how to approach her or what to say even if I did.

And I wonder if this is a kind of answer to my prayer. And I wonder if this means that my year-long respite from the angst of singleness is over. And I wonder if now, finally, in this new city, I'll find someone who finds me as well.

I don't know.

Who but God knows and what but time will tell?