I Almost Met My Next Ex Girlfriend At The Grocery Store

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I almost met my next ex-girlfriend at the grocery store. I did let her squeeze my avocados. So, there’s that.

I don’t go around forcing my avocados on strange women, but she asked how to tell when they were ripe for eating.

So, I gave her an impromptu lesson.

We sorted through the bins together searching out the perfect avocados.

Ripe ones were scarce.

“Wait a minute! So, now we’re both searching for the same avocado?” she said breathily, rolling her eyes, stamping her foot, and sneering.

Clearly, the honeymoon was over.

“No,” I said. “Here’s a good one.”

I handed her the ripe avocado without making eye contact and went back to looking for one for myself.

She stood next to me for a long moment, holding the fruit, absorbing what had just happened.

“Thanks,” she said quietly, walking away.

I don’t know why she was in such a bad mood. Maybe she was worried that she’d never be able to compete with my superior avocado hunting skills.

Maybe she feared that my tutorial was leading up to me hitting on her.

It wasn’t.

It was leading up to me hoping that she’d hit on me. Either that or kidnap me and take me back to her island lair to keep me as her man slave. Yeah, like a sexy Bond villain.

I’m kidding, of course.

Sort of.

I mean, it’s possible to instantly have a comfortable rapport with someone and want to spend some more time with them. That would have been fine if that happened with the avocado woman.

It didn’t, and that’s fine too.

It did get me to thinking about how people often misinterpret basic human kindness for romantic interest. I blame the Internet. With so much time spent online, I think we’re losing the ability to interact in person.

For instance, I was having lunch in a restaurant by myself and my waitress kept hanging around talking to me. It’s not odd for me to eat alone. It is odd for a waitress to pay that much attention to me.

We had an interesting conversation that lasted well over an hour and I asked her if she’d like to get together sometime.

She said, “no.”

There may have also been talk about her not having a telephone, at all.

I’m guessing that she simply saw me eating alone and decided to talk to me so I wasn’t lonely.

So what’s the answer here? How will I know when someone is romantically interested in me or just being kind or cordial?

I won’t.

And that will suck sometimes.

But I won’t forget the true gift in all of this; I’ve found that the easiest way to get rid of a pestering waitress is to ask her on a date.

Women Are Like Elephants, Sort Of

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I know someone who's awesome.

She's exactly the person I'd date if I was awesome too.

We almost never talk anymore, but I look at her pictures on Facebook. She travels the world and gets great shots of herself immersed in the culture of foreign lands, sky diving, and hang gliding over beautiful locations.

She has cocktails at magical street festivals in foreign cities I've never heard of.

Orange sunsets are the backdrop of impossible bikini pics.

If we were in our twenties, she'd surely break my heart because I'd really go for her. And even if she did date me, it would never work because I could never keep up with her.

Also, I don't like to do stuff.

I think what I like most about her is that she lives with such passion. She enjoys a freedom that most people will never understand. It's bewitching.

People say that opposites attract, but I don't think they're usually the best match.

Yeah, opposites can be fascinating. They can be exciting and riveting and dump adrenaline and dopamine into my brain better than any drug.

They also leave me with a supercharged hangover, the kind where everything hurts, even my hair and finger nails.

I think it's perfectly okay to genuinely adore someone that I know I'll never date. It's fine to really appreciate them and admire them.

And I don't mean that in a stalky way. I'm not covertly driving passed anyone's house, killing the engine and headlights so they don't know I'm coming.

Well, not since high school.

I think of my Facebook friend the way I think of elephants. That might sound weird, but bear with me for a moment.

Elephants are amazing! They're friendly, and social, and do cool stuff like make trumpet sounds with their trunks. But I probably won't ever have an elephant. I'd have no where to keep it and my lifestyle just doesn't seem to mesh with an elephant's.

So, I'm going to hang out with elephants when the opportunity presents itself. Then at the end of our time together, I'll be on my way and the elephant will go do elephant things, like creating enormous piles of poop and trampling villages.

And maybe someday I'll get to have lunch with my Facebook friend and it will be a nice time because we're both interesting people. After lunch, she might be off on a safari.

I'll smile when I see pictures of her riding an elephant.

And I won't be shoveling poop and no one will be nursing a hangover.

*Special thanks to Andrea Adam for the pic

 

Practice Makes Peace

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My psychic powers are pretty much limited to knowing what I’m going to have for lunch, though sometimes I’m wrong about that.

I can’t fly. I can’t levitate. I can’t read minds.

I’m not even close to being enlightened.

When I started practicing meditation, I had all kinds of ideas of what it would be, and what would happen, and who I would become.

At the very least, sitting on my cushion everyday was going to make me happy. Because meditation makes you happy, right?

Most of what I imagined wasn’t true and I thought of myself as failure for a long time. I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t free of stress or anxiety.

I felt like a fake.

I was sitting on my cushion, Damnit! I was sitting on it every day.

I know how long I sat because I set a timer. It was a meditation timer, too, with chimes, and bells, and gongs, and stuff.

And I felt like my practice was strong and consistent. I felt like I was putting in the work. It wasn’t until I experienced a string of life’s normal disappointments and sadnesses that I learned what the practice is and what it’s not.

I found that living my life is the real practice, showing up for the day to day stuff. This is Buddha’s teaching in real time, in real life.

It’s not herbal tea, or incense, or prayer beads, or trinkets.

It’s not a studio filled with chicks in yoga pants.

It’s not a guru’s secret teaching. It’s not a deity with a name I can’t pronounce because I’m tragically suburban.

It’s loneliness. It’s hunger. It’s the cramp in my leg. It’s the sunshine on my face.

It’s the broken heart, the empty space, and the headache from grinding my teeth. It’s the full bladder while I’m stuck in traffic, again.

It’s the happy, fun memories that sprinkle in amidst the pain of loss.

It’s an ending. It’s a beginning.

It’s putting my dog to sleep.

It’s adopting a puppy and watching him explore the world, wagging his tale, wagging everything. It’s walking with him in the winter when it’s too damn cold and in the summer when it’s too damn hot.

It’s a breath of spring.

The practice is an ex that you wish well, even though that hurts sometimes.

It’s someone that you pine over, even though that someone doesn’t know.

It’s a bad habit that needs breaking.

It’s new way of looking at things.

It’s trading one cage for another and then another, only to realize I’ve been free all along.

It’s hurting and realizing I’m not the only one.

It’s happiness that circulates, and swirls, and fades.

It’s misery that passes.

It’s joy. It’s peace. It’s life and death.

It’s regret.

It’s making a commitment to myself, and some days breaking it, and feeling that.

It’s cheap-ass socks pinching my toe inside my shoe.

It’s the sound of a mountain stream and the sound of the ice in my glass.

It’s being surprised by basic human kindness from the most unexpected of people.

It’s presence, and noticing, and getting distracted, and noticing that.

It’s starting again.

Cheap-ass socks

 

How To Make It Through Transitions

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I watched The Walking Dead last night for medicinal purposes.

It had been one of those days when I just couldn’t get my head together and needed distraction from some painful, obsessive thoughts.

I streamed the very first episode on Netflix. I feel like the first few episodes were the creepiest. Three seasons in, the show can still be an adrenaline rush and I’m totally invested in the characters, but I don’t think it’s truly creeped me out in a while.

I’ve gotten used to dead people shuffling around trying to eat the living. This doesn’t make me jump anymore. Time and exposure have made it easier to tolerate.

Lately, this is a theme that keeps repeating for me.

I once knew someone who moved from the United States to a foreign country and it was the worst thing ever. She didn’t understand the local customs or the complex bureaucracy. She didn’t even really have a good grip on the language.

The first several months were almost constant stress and suffering. She hated that place and she spent most nights on the phone or on Skype with friends back home, making plans for what she would do with them when her one year contract was over.

Then, ever so slowly, things began to shift. She got much better at the language through practice and immersion. She started mentioning things that she liked about her life.

It wasn’t long before she actually began to enjoy being in that country that she had hated so much. In fact, she enjoyed it enough to extend her contract.

Part of her change of heart came when she stopped resisting her situation and realized that the work she could do there, she could never do in the United States. It simply doesn’t hold the same monetary value.

But also, the scary newness had worn off, the anxiety of getting to know new coworkers faded, and her attachment to her former home and former life lessened.

Before she even knew it, she’d moved on.

Now, that’s a monumental life shift. Most of us will never experience a move like that, but we all have changes that we need to get used to.

Maybe we are getting acclimated to new jobs or to a life without a special relationship that meant so much. Maybe we are starting to travel more, or are going away to school. Maybe we are starting marriages or ending them.

I find it helpful to have things around that are comforting or familiar during a transition. I’ll drink my favorite tea, read a favorite book, or watch Netflix.

I mentioned The Walking Dead before, but some days a few episodes of Buck Rogers helps me pull myself together. It seems to affect my Parasympathetic Nervous System, reminding me of a simpler time, when all I needed was a starship and a bowl full of popcorn, a time long before I was old enough to realize how smoking hot Erin Gray was.

 

How NOT To Manage Uncomfortable Feelings

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There's a tiny little gnome inside my head who's trying to bust his way out with a sledgehammer. I wish he'd stop, move on, and find something else to do. But he won't and it's my fault that he's here.

I drank too much vodka last night.

I don't often over medicate with alcohol, but when I do, I do it up right. I have to go and drum today, and I have to take the gnome and his pointy hat and his sledgehammer with me.

He will no doubt pound along with the rhythms that I play. He'll probably hang out all day long and laugh at the Tylenol I've taken. And he'll remind me over and over again that I did this to myself by trying to escape my feelings.

I'm not perfect. I am, however, the guy who wrote a well received essay on how to manage the pain of a breakup. That article helped me and a lot of other people. Sometimes though, I'm not so good at taking my own advice.

So, I have to carry the gnome with me today. Had I skipped the vodka, I would have just carried some anxiety and maybe some depression. Now, I carry anxiety, some depression, the gnome, and regret.

I remember in The Empire Strikes Back when Yoda was training Luke on Dagobah and Luke asked what was in that dark, ominous cave that Yoda was telling him to enter.

“Only what you take with you,” said Yoda. Of course, Luke took his weapons even after Yoda told him he wouldn't need them. Luke was sometimes a crappy student.

I think most of life is like that. We only really have to deal with what we carry with us. I could've carried my anxiety with me. I could've carried it like a cold or a virus, some joint pain, or a heavy bag of books and made it through my day. Maybe I would have carried some loneliness or depression or the missing of someone gone from my life and living so far away. Maybe not.

Maybe the feelings of last night would've passed and I'd be distracted by something else today or even feeling just fine. But, I don't know. I have to carry the headache and whatever else is the result of making a poor choice when dealing with some very uncomfortable feelings.

I could've have just been present and accepted the way I felt, knowing that those feelings would eventually morph and change, or even move on leaving room for other experiences.

Someone once said to me, “There's no could've or should've or would've–only what is. Move on from here.”

That's good advice. Me and the gnome are going to pack the drums now. And we're going to leave the vodka in the freezer.

 

You Never Know When It’s The Last Time

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When I was a kid, I liked coming up with adventures for my Star Wars figures. I do regret creating so many passionate trysts for Luke and Leia since they turned out to be brother and sister and all. That’s sort of creepy.

But any adventure seemed to need some sexual tension to balance it out. I wonder if Carrie Fisher ever thought about how many times her action figure was defiled, and if she did, what sassy thing would she say about  it?

Looking back, I didn’t know which time would be the last time that I’d play with my Star Wars toys. One day, I just didn’t do it anymore. It took a while for me to even notice that I had stopped.

Change can be sneaky like that.

Maybe if I had known the last time was the last time, I’d have enjoyed it more, savored it.

Relationships can be tricky. I didn’t catch the exact moment when my girlfriend’s eyes surrendered to that sad, vacant look. But it did happen.

And she and I couldn’t go back.

If I’d have known which were the last moments of happiness, I’d have burned them deeper into my memory. That’s what I work on now. I try to only remember the really fun times.

Because I don’t need to focus on the negative. It isn’t helpful.

I’ve also made a promise to myself to cherish the simple, lovely times before they’re gone. I’ll cherish them in my next relationship, and I’ll cherish them when the puppy keeps going in the god damned trash can and taunting me to chase him as he runs around the room with a mouthful of coffee grounds and used paper towels.

Someday I’ll watch him breathe for the last time, like I did the dog that loved me before him.

And I’ll cry again.

And I’ll wish he was still here.

But maybe I’ll start locking up the trash can.

I like the trash can.