It's nearly 1 a.m. on a clear Sunday morning. I'm sitting out on my balcony, drinking alone and thinking about the events my life has produced for me this week. I'll be honest, with each new day this past work week, both the very good and the very bad have come into being.
Day 1...
Wednesday was the start of this streak of extremes. My morning consisted entirely of walking around Downtown Sioux Falls because our office was in the dark. Apparently a transformer on the block had blown, so everyone connected to it lost power for about four hours.
After work ended at 5 p.m., I drove to Madison to have dinner with Alison for the first time in six months. Al is one of my best friends, arguably my closest ally in the world of media, and she spent our last semester in India. The evening was wonderful--aside from the struggle to remember everything the other had missed, you wouldn't ever have known we had been in separate hemispheres for half a year.
My midnight arrival home shifted my mood an entire 180 degrees. All it took was a simple text from my 18-year-old sister announcing her engagement to her boyfriend. The two words, sent in such an impersonal fashion, had the ability to keep me up for hours, just thinking about how much harder her life would be than it should have been. Did I mention that they're moving to Idaho next month?
Day 2...
For the most part, Thursday was much better than Wednesday. Work was fun, and powered fully, and I made my amazing stir fry for dinner. Caiti and I had our weekly date night at a local Irish bar, but this relaxing evening also took a dramatic turn for the worse.
Our friend Sara's grandmother had to be airlifted to a hospital in town because of respiratory failure. We spent a couple hours with her and her family, just waiting in the ICU. Her grandmother died late in the night.
Day 3...
Friday ... finally. I wasn't sure what else could happen to me, but I couldn't shake the feeling that more was yet to come. I stayed at my desk most of the day editing photos, too scared that I would get into a car accident or take part in some other potentially fatal disaster.
Nothing really happened that day directly to me, but we did find out that the caterer Julie had hired for her wedding was very wrong in her quoted price for the wedding, and one of the ushers had gotten a job on the East Coast and couldn't be part of their celebration anymore.
That is, nothing bad happened to me until Friday evening. For some reason, I sort of asked out a friend, although I didn't realize what I was doing until it was too late. Then, when I did figure out what I had done, I freaked. My girlfriends know I've had a bit of a crush on this guy for a long time, but I really had no intentions of acting on my feelings, at least not consciously. Long story short, he said no, but it was a vague no, saying he hated the actor in the movie I suggested.
Day 4...
I thought the whole movie thing was the end of my string of bad luck, the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak. I really am getting tired of being wrong.
There are absolute good things to today, but they come attached to the bad. For example, I got a haircut for the first time since the end of March, but on the way home the oil pan in my Taurus blew, earning me a $500 car bill. It all started with my transmission; I am understandably nervous when my transmission does anything out of the ordinary, considering it's been rebuilt three times. On my way to the hair appointment, it slipped, out of drive into neutral. I jiggled the stick a bit, got it back into gear, and immediately called my dad to see if the warranty on the last rebuild had expired. It had, and he told me to go to a shop ASAP. If it weren't for my worry about that little problem, I would never have gotten the Tortoise to a shop before all the oil drained.
Just sure that my bad luck had reached a pinnacle, I suggested a different movie to this boy, knowing exactly what I was doing this time. I had been rejected once, and I needed to try and redeem myself. Apparently he had already a promised to see it with a mutual friend. All great excuses masking a deeper desire to not go with me. I do have to admit, he did well with sparing my feelings in a casual way. Whatever, I tried, and I still went to the movie anyway, with Caiti as a companion instead.
Making strides...
It is an understatement to say that my recent attempts to jump back into the dating world have been unsuccessful. However, the fact is that this week I made more of an effort to date than I have in the past year and a half. I am trying, no one can deny me that much. As much as it sucks to get shot down, I have to make myself keep trying. I have to remind myself that things in this world that are the most worth having require the most work. So, okay--I'm not supposed to date this boy or either of the firefighters I met. At some point, one of these boys I want will be the one I'm supposed to have. Until then, I just have to keep a positive attitude and know that eventually, my luck will improve--it has to.
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