Sure She Can Break Your Heart...

But don't let her touch your spirit.

I'm at Starbucks, sipping my latte and happily typing on my computer. It is cathartic. Warm drinks and writing. Nothing better. Until I hear a familiar trill from my backpack.

A text message. My heart pounds rapidly. My breath is shallow. My fingers, weak. They fumble around the keyboard, drunks colliding, unable to maintain their space.

I have to check it. Finish your sentence. It will not be him. Finish the sentence. I can't feel my legs. Finish the sentence. Please let it be him.

The drunkards complete their task and I am free. I turn and unzip my backpack hanging on the back of my chair. I dig for the phone. A calm washes over me. I will soon have my answer. I locate the phone and click, light up the screen.

No messages. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. It wasn't even my phone.

Made me laugh too. He might have broken my heart, but he ain't crushed my spirit.

An Even Bigger Reality Check

Boy do I feel like an idiot. Why couldn't we date? Turns out there wasn't a reason X,Y, or Z. The reason was me. Looks like that bus isn't going to do me a whole lot of good after all.

Promise I'm back to the advice for guys soon. Because apparently I'm only getting better at this dating thing.

I Have a Confession to Make

My last post seemed to resonate with some women out there, so I figure I should share a couple of my own most ridiculous, far from reality, 'happily ever after' scenarios. No, they do not include small rodents singing to me and making me dresses, but for as realistic as my fantasies are, there might as well be.

Without further ado:

I walk into a swanky bar, my date's hot hand on the small of my back. There, across the room, is the man who let me go. He is on a date with a beautiful woman. Mr. Let-Dauntless-Go notices me immediately and cannot peel his eyes from me. He is barely speaking to his date because of it. When I excuse myself from my date to go to the restroom, he does the same. He meets me in the hallway, professes his love and stupidity at letting me go, and asks me to end my date and meet him for coffee. Cut to the coffee shop. He and I are sipping from over-sized mugs. The camera recedes as I cautiously laugh at his joke, guarded at the beginning of this second chance.

Then there's the really bad one. This one's been around for 15 plus years.

Mr. Dauntless-is-great-but-I'm-not-ready-for-whatever-reason has told (or texted) me that we shouldn't see each other. That he is not ready for reason X,Y,or Z. I am heartbroken. Our connection, intellectual and physical, is so strong, I cannot fathom either of us could ever find anyone else. But, I am understanding of his X,Y, or Z reason (as I am eternally patient and kind) and know we shall live happily forever, regardless of the fact he has not yet come to the same conclusion. Until one stormy day, tragedy strikes. A terrible car accident has left me in the hospital, unconscious. When I come to, Mr. Dauntless-is-great-but-I'm-not-ready-for-whatever-reason is at my bedside, head bent, silently crying. I say something witty and he looks up, shocked at the sound of my voice. At this point, he professes his love, can't believe he almost lost me, and reason X,Y,Z is no longer an obstacle.

What!? Really? I'd put myself in physical harm (even only in my imagination) just to have some dope wake up to the realization that I'm awesome? And I call myself a feminist? That, my friends, is why this is a confession. And here's another:

Last night I was crossing the street when a bus almost turned into my path, leaving me a pancake. Instead of saying a prayer of thanks for the driver's opthamologist, I thought, "Hmmm..."

So, ladies, what's your go-to 'happily ever after' fantasy?

Read, Recite, Repeat

Ladies, we have to stop. Reading fairy tales to our little girls, understandable. Believing them as grown women, disasterous.

Our princes change, but the story line remains the same. We picture grand gestures in which he professes his love (usually it's the love he only just realized he felt). We replay scenes in our head so often we think they're possible. Our Lloyd Dobler is outside our bedroom window, boom box high above his head, his solemn expression a testiment to his determination to be there for us always.

My nine year old niece wrote a story last weekend. The topic wasn't love, but the beginning struck a chord and ripped me from my own impossible fairy tale, "This story is not like any other story. It doesn't beging with 'Once upon a time' and it doesn't end with 'happily ever after."

Read, recite, repeat.