Skip to main content

Just a Little Ache

I'm feeling an intense ache today. It's deep within, and the best way I can describe it is like the way it feels to eat just a tiny amount of food when you have been so famished you didn't even realize you were hungry.

Yep. I think that's it.

I spent eleven hours yesterday with one of the most interesting people I've ever met. We hopped in an old Jeep without doors and cruised down US41 with plans to go to a shooting range. After missing our turn and ending up halfway to Miami, we did some Old Florida touristy things like visit the Florida Skunk Ape Museum (where I got to hold a 60 pound albino python). Eventually, we found the shooting range, and I was able to prove that I'm not a bad shot. (I was actually told that I was a natural with a gun.)

Later, he made dinner for me that consisted of fish and lobster he caught himself. It was absolutely delicious. I'm impressed.

I hope he feels the same way. If I've learned anything from dating, I've learned that you just have to find someone who you like to be around and hope they also like being with you. It's really that simple. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. I get that.

My struggle this morning, though, is realizing just how empty certain places of my soul have been. They've been so starved for the last few years that I didn't even realize it. Yesterday filled just enough of that emptiness that I am painfully aware of what I had been lacking. I oh so needed an afternoon of being outdoors and stopping at goofy tourist traps and trying something new and talking freely about whatever subject comes up and taking in the beauty of the Everglades countryside. I needed a little adventure.

I suppose this is the flip side, and for some reason I need to embrace this aching. It's not fun to be caught between what you realize you need in your life and the fear that you may not ever find it. But this time, I don't want to take the escape route into the mundane again.

Comments

Rebecca Jeffries-Hyman said…
I can identify with this ache. I'm feasting on things now I never knew I was starving for. You will too.
11:27 AM
frabjouspoet said…
Thank you for that. It's so nice to know that I'm not the only one who has felt that...it's such a strange feeling, you know?
6:04 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Restless Soul

Someone recently told me that I have an impulsive streak. ("Just an observation, not a criticism.") My initial reaction was to vehemently deny that statement despite the fact that I had just confessed to walking into Total Wine and buying $200 worth of wine just because it seemed like a good idea at 11:00 on a Thursday morning. Me? Impulsive? Don't answer that, especially if you know the truth. I shared this with my therapist yesterday and his eyes lit up when I said, "I think I have a restless soul." The fact that his eyes lit up is significant since we spend most of my sessions arguing with each other about ideas like whether or not a book he recommended is filled with psychobabble bullsh*t or why I should do a bit more thinking with my heart instead of my head. For once, he agreed with me and quickly pointed out that this is not necessarily a bad trait. In fact, it's what stirs my needs to explore and to write. It's also the reason why I don't, by...
5 comments
Read more

Gators and Bees and Snakes...Oh My!

Let me preface this by pointing out that we have a deaf, epileptic Great Dane, a one-eyed cat, and a slew of young cats outside that we just haven't been able to part with. Love for animals abounds here. It seems we have a critter fest going on around here lately. In mid-September there was the Great Goose Massacre courtesy of a visiting alligator. Two weeks ago we had the Invasion of the Bees that left nearly 100 dead bees in its wake. Last week was the Demise of the Rattler. Alan heard a strange sound when he walked out on the porch last Sunday. He thought at first that it was a large dragonfly caught in the screen. It turns out that it was a rattle snake, coiled up and ready to strike. He says that he will never get the rattling sound out of his head, but I think he was a bit more freaked out at the thought of watching one of the kittens get struck by the snake. (Bonsai was apparently completely willing to risk his life to investigate the snake.) His first words to me when he pi...
5 comments
Read more

Frustrated Readers Make Great Fans

I haven’t felt this betrayed by a story line since Neo learned that not only was he not the first person to challenge the Matrix, but he was part of the plan all along. Even though I was sorely disappointed in what appeared to be a cop-out story line, I can understand the logic in that disappointing plot twist. I can’t say the same for Stephenie Meyer’s conclusion to her wildly popular “Twilight” series. Look, I’ve read each of the first three books at least twice, and my grad school entrance paper was a character analysis of Edward Cullen. I loved these books. I read “New Moon” and “Eclipse” in a single day. I’ve been discussing the plot lines and characters with my students for the last two years. It was a long wait for this final book. And a huge part of me wishes I was still waiting. It was that much of a letdown. I’m still debating just how to tiptoe through my inevitable conversations with students about this part of the “Twilight” saga. My students were embarrassed enough by th...
5 comments
Read more