and other amusement park rides

After reading yesterday's post, the Kayaker asked if I paid more for my ticket than he, as he was riding the same roller coaster as I. (His current relationship is about two weeks younger than mine, if I remember correctly.) So I guess he answered my question about roller coaster rides (and ceding control to the other party) being a uniquely female trait.

That made me start thinking about other amusement park rides to which I could make an analogy.

There's the merry-go-round. When I'm not in a relationship and trying, trying to find the right man, I circle back to considering all the men in the past that I have dated and gotten to know and then moved on from. Should I have ridden those carousel horses longer? I told you about the man on the Chesapeake with the insanely messy house. For seven years, I'd receive occasional e-mails from him signed "luM" (love you mostest). Well, I'll take non-passive-aggressive communication over random professed love any ol' time. (And here I must interject: "get a life!" You tell me I'm the standard by which you will judge all women in the future, that I spoiled you for all other women. Get real! We spent six months of our lives getting to know each other. It was seven years ago! You need to head em' up and move em' out and get over it!!!)

See, I can make wise choices, given enough time.

Oh yeah, I hooked up again with Emotionally-Unavailable-Emil two years ago, before my last European chorus tour. In the end, he was as unavailable in 2004 as he had been in 1991. And treated me just as badly. I've said it before: everything old is not new again, it's just older.

<Personal note on>
To the Kayaker:
You're wrong. I do NOT have poor taste in men. [sound of stamping foot] Really, I don't. I'm just a masochist!
<Personal note off>

I had a long phone conversation yesterday with my UCF piano duet partner, whose daughter left for college (in Florida!) yesterday. We grew up near each other in Orlando and had similar early lives. Now we have a shared love of New England and all the history and "settledness" of that geographic area (which is totally nonexistent in Florida). Her Westchester County neighbor suggested she had lived in New England in an earlier life, that that's why it was so comfortable to her. That made me think about the people who say our spirits choose the life we're going to live, the objectives we need to accomplish, before we come into this world to inhabit human bodies. I'm sorry, no sane spirit would choose to endure what my friend and I have endured. And our lives, as challenging as they are, are a piece o' cake compared to many other people. I think I'm going to have to reject that theory.

All I ever wanted was one husband, one nuclear family, one happy life to last my whole life. Oh, sorry, that was Ozzie & Harriet. (After reading this paragraph a couple of times I must amend it. All I wanted was to not have the non-communicative, cold, detached relationship my parents had. In my entire life I never saw my parents kiss. That's not my idea of life.)

All I want now is one man, husband or not, with whom to have a peaceful shared existence, an "old shoe" relationship, a respect-filled, laughter-filled, love-filled life to last the rest of my life. Am I merely a dreamer? Is it impossible? I hope not.