Lucy Loves (a 31st birthday cliche')

Sometimes life is a bummer; I only see what is not, what is missing, and what would be better if it was different.  This was the theme of my 31st birthday.  I could only hold tight to the feeling that I had failed myself in some way, I was alone, not alone alone, just single alone.  So cliché, so SATC, so not how it really was (as my mother pointed out at dinner).

Leaving the year of 30 would bring more enthusiasm from others than it did from me.  I could have let this birthday go by silently.  To the outside, I had made it through my year of 30 with abundant success and happiness.  I traveled with my best to NM, CO and FL, with my Mommacita and Bean to San Diego, with my last ex bf to San Francisco.  I saw Sean Penn open for the Dali Llama.  I snuck my way onto the field at Wrigley Field to watch the Boss rock. I had a handful of decent lovers and went on plenty of mediocre dates with extraordinary men.  Made up and broke up for the third and final time with the second love of my life, setting us both free. My professions took it upon themselves to weave into the heartbeat of my life, which happily filled the hole where the ex bf had been.

None of it mattered, I was single.  I pouted like a 3 yr old.  I want my partner. I want to make partner decisions before I get set in singleton choices. 

Being an aging singleton means 2 things(well to me right at this moment); one-bedroom skills have been improved so, even if he is subpar in bed, the time together doesn't have to be and two-the patterns in which we live are being poured out like concrete from the back of a spinning truck.  Smoothed, shaped and set to dry.  Hard, immovable and sturdy.  Good luck getting initials and a little heart etched cutely into dry concrete. 

At the end of dinner, just my mom and me, she said "What a wonderful year you had.  You must remember it's what you have that counts, not what you don't."  To which I silently thought, if something is missing, if there is something absent, if there is a hole in my life, how will it get filled, unless I count it too.

Absence of man friend: counted. Cliché of the 31st birthday: resolved.  Next.