The Missing Link

When I was three or four, my grandparents took me to the local fair. While there, we had our photograph taken in one of those old time photo booths, dressed like a prairie farming family. I had an ankle-length, long sleeved pink calico dress and a straw hat with a full brim. I remember loving the outfit so much that I refused to take it off. Finally, the photographer convinced me to doff it by promising that he would mail it to me. I was very excited to think that not only would I get the dress and hat, but that I would get it as a package in the mail and I talked about it all the way home. I don’t remember how long I waited for the package to come before I realized that the photographer had lied.



The much-adored prairie outfit



Sometimes I get this same feeling when I think about love – the feeling that I am waiting for something that will never come.

In the movie Bass Ackwards, the main character, Linas, a sad sack who has overstayed his welcome on the floor of his friends’ computer room and whose main squeeze is shacked up with another man, drives across country in a Volkswagen bus and discovers himself along the way. In a poignant scene before making his trip, Linas is working on a llama farm, trying to feed the animals. He tells one of the llamas that he will give it the food if the llama shows him love. Linas even begs the llama to show him that it loves him. The llama just walks away.

This sentiment is an old friend.

A couple of months ago, I made plans with Buck, only to have him cancel on me by text message just a couple of hours after finalizing our date. We hadn’t seen each other in two years and I was looking forward not only to catching up with him, but to having someplace to be, something to do, and someone to spend time with. When he canceled, I was devastated. I hadn’t felt outright rejected in a long time. And of course it was Buck that was the only one who could reduce my self esteem to nothing.

The next morning as I walked, I pondered the situation and I realized how utterly alone I often feel under the surface. I think I put on a good show for people; I keep myself busy with work or projects, and even if I don’t have plans, I find something unusual to do so that friends looking in from the outside will focus on the interesting stuff I get up to and they won’t see how isolated I actually feel most of the time. I put on this show because I don’t want to appear pathetic or desperate, and I don’t want to be anyone’s charity case.

Being an only child, I am accustomed to being alone. But being alone is different than being lonely. Every so often, I feel solitary and empty to my core. I have the sensation of loneliness being so painful that it uncontrollably bubbles out of me, turning me into the living embodiment of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.” In these times, what I really want to feel is that I have someone to love me, need me, and soothe me. Like Linas and the llamas, I always hope that my cat Athena will sense my need and offer some feline affection to fill the void, but she has never been very perceptive of my emotions.

What I long for is a sure thing, something – someone- constant in my life. I imagine that my married friends wake up feeling confident in their place in the world, assured that even if they don’t have plans with other people, they have each other to fall back on. What a lot less work it must be, to know that you intrinsically have someone else around without having to contrive things to do so you aren’t alone. 

My friends always say something to the effect of, “awww, Cat, there’s someone out there for you” or “I’m sure you’ll find the right guy soon enough.” But are they just saying it so I won’t wallow in my loneliness, or is it something they truly believe?

For my part, I liken the search for a partner to looking at a lovely country lane, twisting through the trees and rising up into the afternoon sun. Viewing it, I am flooded with images from Country Time Lemonade commercials. It seems as though when I reach the summit of the hill, I will descend directly into a world populated with tire swings and barefoot boys climbing apple trees and bicycle baskets filled with wildflowers. The possibility of being able to sink effortlessly into that world is both exciting and comforting at the same time. But when I actually reach the hilltop and I’m able to see the other side, I’m faced with a high noon parking lot that’s shared by a strip mall and an airport. The marketing is great, but the reality is more than disappointing.

And this is why I say I feel like I’m waiting for something that will never get here. The image in my head of what love should be always has a dream-like quality, like a picnic next to a Maxfield Parrish-hued lake. I’ve found that reality is too frequently an overcooked hamburger eaten in front of the television with the slight odor of dirty socks in the background. When that wistful anticipation of Mr. Right or Mr. Good Enough starts to materialize in my thoughts, I feel compelled to rationalize him away.

What I need to remember is that nothing good lasts as long as a Country Time commercial would suggest. Even on the best of days, there’s a lot of mediocrity. Our memories string together the good moments, the seconds of optimism, and those instants that are truly extraordinary. I figure love works the same way. Most of the time, being in love is probably quite mundane, but we romanticize the moments that are a little more than average so that we remember them as something phenomenal, an instant that lasted for what seemed like hours, something that transcended this mortal plane. I suppose this bliss is out there for everyone, as long as they find the right llama and offer it the right treat.