My arms will keep me warm

Hello, dear readers, and I hope you had a fabulous weekend. Things are still going swimmingly in the post-trial world of S/F. It’s a bit strange since I’m not exactly sure what the catalyst was, but I feel, as my friend D. put it, that I am really coming into my own all of a sudden. I’m not sure why this is happening now, and part of me wishes that it happened a long time ago (I’m 28 and have been living all by myself — no roommates — for over a year and a half now), but for the first time I can remember, I really feel the full ownership I have over my life and I’m loving it. For so long, if I’m really honest with myself, my main focus (whether consciously or subconsciously) has been looking, waiting, wishing and hoping that the love of my life would come along. When I got sick of feeling heartbroken, I put up a self imposed wall and told myself I was on “man-cation” but I never actually broke out of the same old patterns. But I feel like I had an “a-ha” moment — what if I never get married? Is that going to be tragic, or is it going to be ok — better yet, is my life going to be great no matter what? And at any rate, why ruin the present worrying about the future?

I’m finally in a place where I feel like my life is fantastic just as it is. Being alone, to me, used to feel like some kind of punishment. Now, I relish it. I fill up my hours with things I want to do — because I have the luxury of being able to focus primarily on my own needs. And I decided to start making positive changes in my life – starting with exercising. I’ve been hiking 3 times in the past week (last Sat and this Sat and Sun) and I’m loving it. I must admit, dear readers, that right now I’m pretty embarrassingly out of shape and I huff and puff up the mountain, but it just makes me that much more motivated to keep at it until I am more fit. Case in point: yesterday my friend D. and I went hiking up in Runyon Canyon, which is where everyone within a 10 mile radius of Hollywood and their dogs goes hiking on the weekend. On our hike, while I was panting my way up the hill (I don’t think I’m very fun to hike with right now b/c I get too out-of-breath to be chatty!) we were passed by a woman who was–no exaggeration–probably 8 1/2 – 9 months pregnant. Like, she could have given birth on the hike. Not only was she hiking in her extremely pregnant state, while my daily exercise prior to this recent hiking spurt consisted of walking the 2 flights of stairs up from my office parking garage, but she was having no trouble whatsoever.

If that’s not motivating, I don’t know what is! I’ve been considering getting up and taking a hike before work some day this week, but we’ll see — when push comes to shove, it’s often difficult for me to rally out of my warm and cozy bed.

In other news, New Guy is apparently still alive. Our last date was over 3 weeks ago, after which he went to Europe for 2 weeks, and we hadn’t talked since. Our last date was somewhat awkward (whereas our prior dates had been pretty sparkling) so I assumed that he had just decided that things would fizzle out. I knew he had gotten back into town and I hadn’t heard anything from him. Honestly, while I thought it was a bit rude (I had sent him an email) I really hadn’t been thinking much about it. And then today I received the following voice mail: “Hi SF, it’s NG, sorry I’ve been so MIA, I got back into town last Sunday and I have been getting killed at work. Hope you’re doing well and that your case went well. Give me a call when you get a chance.”

Normally, if a guy would have called me after I’d given up on him, I would have had an extreme reaction: either really pissed off (“how dare he wait so long to call me?”) or really excited (“I guess he does kinda like me!”) Now, I had neither reaction – instead I though, “Huh.” At first I thought maybe I wouldn’t return the call, since I had already sort of assumed things were over and things were weird last time and he hadn’t contacted me sooner. Then I decided that I would call him and go with the flow. I’m not mad, I’m not thrilled, but I stll think he’s a nice guy and at one point we had some pretty awesome chemistry, so why not? If I weren’t in such a good mental place right now, I might feel like I was playing with fire, but as it is, I know that I’ll be fine no matter what happens.

On a final note, I bought the Juno soundtrack and I’ve been listening to it pretty compulsively. I love the song that Ellen Page and Michael Cera sing together at the end. Is there anything cuter or more romantic than the lyrics “I don’t see what anyone can see, in anyone else/but you”? Then there are all the quirky Kimya Dawson songs that I really appreciate for their upbeatness and strangeness. My favorite is “Tire Swing” and especially the part at the end, “if I’m a spinster for the rest of my life/ my arms will keep me warm on cold and lonely nights.”

Maybe that sounds depressing, but it really isn’t. What can be better than knowing that you’ll be able to keep yourself warm? And I finally know that’s true…