Entry #77 - Difficult to Love

Dear Diary,
   
I don't even know where to begin. Perhaps with this:

Forgive me Blogger, for I have sinned.
It has been 348 days since my last blog entry.

The continued adventures of Miss Frizzle

Not long after my last entry I got a full-time position teaching grade two...which monopolized almost every waking moment of my life from September-June. It was a marathon. There was blood, sweat, tears, and more wiggly teeth than you can shake a stick at. Wiggly teeth totally give me the gags, by the by, and that's no lie. Empowered by this knowledge, the children would gleefully seek me out whenever they were in possession of a central or lateral incisor precariously hanging on by the root. Revolting.
God I loved those little sadists.

Though I was working crazy hours every week, I can say that I was truly content to go to work each day. My school was amazing, my colleagues were first class, my students were lovable little dreamboats, and I got to work everyday with my own personal Jesus. His name is Francisco. Now, before you get all excited you need to know that it was not like that. It's love alright, but the kind of love that is an immense respect tinged with awe. Reverence. He is a magical, mystical unicorn in the truest sense. Mimama humoured me on the phone in the Fall when I would call home and talk about how magical Francisco was, and how much fun we had everyday; but then she came to visit in December and at the first opportunity she was whisper yelling  "HE HAS AN AURA". It's a real thing. For once I am not exaggerating. I should get a button made that says "ask me about Francisco", for the few rare instances when I fail to pontificate about him unsolicited. Vanessa phoned me the other day to say she saw him on the street and had to stop herself from reaching out to greet him, forgetting momentarily that she only feels like she knows him...she pulled her hand back just in time, but assured me she could feel the magic.

The Statistical Improbability of The Stars Aligning 

In university I took an astronomy class with a professor named Russ Robb. Russ Robb was to astronomy what Richard Simmons is to Sweatin' to the Oldies; he absolutely and completely LOVED it. This class was once a week for three hours in the evening, and I looked forward to it every week because you cannot help but delight in that kind of unbridled enthusiasm. One day Russ got on a tangent about the ridiculously improbable chain of events and conditions that allowed Earth and humans to exist, the infinitesimal odds of another earth-like planet existing, and the vastness of the universe. I was fascinated, but somewhere around the virgo supercluster I started to get the cold sweats and began to feel a bit panicky.  I was overcome; by my own insignificance, by the brevity of the human experience, and by the sheer impossibility and unfathomableness of it all. Russ Robb had, quite literally, blown my mind with science.

I tell you this because this feeling of overwhelming improbability and uncontrollable dependence on star alignment (resulting in cold sweats and panic), is how I often feel about finding love; and much like the search for a planet that can support life, it's not looking good.

So you're saying all these things need to be in place...

"The infinite longing and inevitable weakness of the human heart"

In my experience, finding compatibility in love is like trying to crack a twenty digit numerical code in which I am always off by a digit or two (or twelve). The thing that always gets me, especially in relation to the unfathomable age of the universe and the shortness of a human life span, is what I like to call the "near-miss". This occurs when compatibility and chemistry are perfect but you were simply born at the wrong time (you are either too old or too young for that person) OR, conversely,  you were born at the right time (similar age to said person) but you meet that person at the WRONG time in life. Either way, the space-time continuum has screwed you over.

This 8-year-old may be my soul mate. 

When you consider that the universe is 13.8 billion years old, missing love by 5, 10 or 20 years is like missing the podium at the Olympic games because some attractive European was one one-hundredth of a second faster than you.  It feels like this:

 In my twenties I dated people who were wrong for me even though we had chemistry (near-dodge), but I also dated people who were right for me at the wrong time. I am not alone in this experience, and have several friends who experienced similar near-misses in their twenties. I think right-person-wrong-time type of near-miss is the most keenly felt relationship failure, as proven by Adele who wrote "Someone Like You" at age 21...and because, as Junot Diaz put it:

 "The half-life of love is forever"

"you can get over a person romantically and never fall out of love with them" and when you stand back, you begin to understand that "there are a few {relationships} that never seem to diminish, neither in {your} mind nor {your} heart. You just manage them".  

...you just...manage them. 

Take a moment to picture Ashley Husband-Finder, who just lost her mind after I read that aloud to her (the read-aloud is her preferred method of experiencing blog entries). 

Amen, Junot Diaz. Amen. 

Finding chemistry with men seemed so much easier in my twenties, easier to convince myself to like someone through sheer force of will alone; perhaps because I was still figuring out who I was and could be more flexible about accepting approximations in terms of common ground and connection.

Now that I am in my thirties, I seem to meet men who I have no chemistry with (hard pass) OR men who I DO have chemistry with...but it matters not, because they are already married/in relationships (near-miss, thirties style). There are even a few guy friends whom I refer to as "my husband in another universe", because sometimes you feel such an immediate connection and ease with a person that you are 100% sure that somewhere in a galaxy far, far away you have looked at paint chips together in the Home Depot and both agreed that "guilford green" is not only the colour of the season, but also the future colour of your master bathroom.

I have gone on dates this year with some perfectly nice, polite, respectful men. Men who made an effort to communicate and even one who even brought me flowers.
Men I should have been interested in.
Men I had... zero chemistry with.

This is where the near-misses of your twenties and the unicorns of your thirties come back to haunt you like Casper the Friend-Zone ghost. This is when knowing what chemistry with another human being CAN feel like becomes a handicap.
It must be so much easier to settle for a fizzle-of-a-spark when you are ignorant of what it is like to have lightning in your underpants.

So, long story short, I haven't given up on love entirely, but I have put some work into lining up a sperm donor for 2017. One should always be prepared. Sometimes with a turkey baster.

I've been practicing for 2017 by helping myself to other people's handy work...

Zut Alors!
Vanessa and I went to Paris for ten glorious days this summer. We ate everything.

We wandered the streets, visited museums, and in general simply delighted in life.  Proving that cosmic miracles do occur, Harry Potter: The Exhibition was in Paris while we were there, so we got our fill of horcruxes, quidditch, and Hogwarts - Oh my!

You know who else came to Paris? François the Surrogate Unicorn; because co-dependency issues, much like habits, die hard.

Well, I think that's all for now. I mostly wanted to say "hi" - and let you know that after 5 years and more than 100,000 page views I am still alive, single, and hesitant to mingle. Gus sends his best, he continues to be fluffy and adorable and LAYING ON THE CLEAN LAUNDRY.

Rude!