Feast or Famine

It seems an unwritten, but predictable rule of single life that the dance card is always completely full or utterly, mortifyingly empty. The last two weeks have been an interesting mix of the two.

• I forewent the Burke’s Fourth of July barbecue and pool party to hang out in Boston with Buck. Full.
• The next day when Nancy texted me an invitation to come over in the afternoon, I felt obligated to go. No sooner had I arrived than Tzi Tzi called to ask me to a Spinner’s game for the same night. Full.
• I made plans with Criostoir to walk the Freedom Trail over the weekend, but he canceled on me, so I spent half of a beautiful weekend locked up reading, the other half driving across the state of New Hampshire on a desperate antique hunt, and the entire weekend alone. Empty.
• To make it up to me, Criostoir took me for a motorcycle ride one evening and the following night I attended an impromptu welcome home party for Nancy, who had spent a week in Canada. Because I don’t usually have a lot going on during the week, this was so full that I didn’t have time to watch the movies that were due back to the library on these same days.
• El Jefe invited me to go to a winery in Maine for Tzi Tzi’s birthday, but I was scheduled to work. What a bummer to be full!
• Looking into this weekend, the Burkes have asked me over for swimming, Amelia and Mark want me to meet up with them for dinner and a movie, and my next door neighbor has threatened to track me down to catch up on the newest crime drama. And to top it all off, my mother is begging me to visit. This is feeling depressingly overfull.

What’s a girl to do?

I remember all too well the feeling of being stranded in Lowell without anything to do or anyone to do it with after my long-distance relationship deteriorated last year and The Dude no longer wanted my company on the weekends. And that is why I am not complaining now. Over the years, I have been fortunate to have friends who have taken good care of me during my single patches, who have sustained me body and soul, and who have included me in their lives. Thanks to them, I have often enjoyed myself so fully that I don’t miss being part of a couple.

I sometimes wonder if it’s a conspiracy. Did these disparate people get together and decide to distract me from my melancholy by keeping me unusually busy? I know that’s unlikely. What it really means is that I have a lot of people in my life that care for me, and I suppose that is also a testament to the type of person that I am. Even now, being fairly new to the community, I have a network of friends who are willing to adopt me for an evening or for a holiday or for a weekend - my own safety net crew. Despite feeling overwhelmed (and occasionally underwhelmed) by the requests for my time, how can I not feel gratitude for having those people in my life?