It's Always Fun Until Someone Pees On The Couch ... Meditation, Men and Hopeless Dreams

Happy Monday, LilyOnTheLam.Com Readers:

"The Grass Is Always Greener On The Other Side of The Fence" - this adage keeps popping up lately in conversations with friends. 

Many a time I have thought someone was very lucky, fortunate or blessed; only to realize that the rosy picture I thought I was seeing was really a grisly nightmare.  Which of course reminds me of another adage: "Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it."  

Or the more poetic: "Getting what you want can break your heart" lyric from Matt Nathanson.

I used to travel a lot - week after week after week after endless week for work.  Landing in a new city by myself, orienting myself and showing up to companies I have never been to, meeting people I did not know and trying to get them to think we were the best thing since sliced bread.  

It was a lot of song, a lot of dance and a lot of forced extroversion.  

I knew a woman, who at the time used to brag that her entire life - work, social, family- was confined within a two mile radius.  

She was astonishingly quite proud of the fact.  I say "astonishingly" because having my life confined within a two mile radius would be my own personal definition of hell.  

One night, probably over beers in a dive bar within a two mile radius of her home; this woman looked at me in awe when I returned from an international business trip.  She leaned in with a puzzled look on her face and asked: "So you go places by yourself, places you have never been and you just get a car and you drive to where you need to go - and you just do it?  How do you have the courage to do all that on your own?"  

Her eyes scanned mine as if surely I must have magical powers to be able to accomplish such a heroic feat.

I looked at her, kind of dumbstruck.  

After years of doing a road warrior lifestyle, I realized no one had ever asked me this question.  Nor had I ever asked myself the question either.  

Usually, I answer questions right away.  And usually faster than my brain can work.  My mouth has a way of running off with itself.  But for this particular question, I stopped and stared at the ceiling as if the answer was written on one of the drooping acoustical tiles.

I remember my lips started moving - chewing the air- but no sound was coming out.  It was like her question had completely severed my brain from my mouth.  I was slack jawed.  

Finally I said "I just do it.  If I stopped to think about it long enough, I would probably never do it.  But I don't give myself the option.  This is my job.  This is what I have to do.  So I just do it."

I think there's a lot of things in my life where if I slowed myself down and said "Hey, can you really handle this?"  I would freak myself out into complete and utter paralysis.  So much of my life has been "sink or swim" from a very young age.  I never had the luxury to say "No thank you, I'll pass on this one."  Or "No thanks, I don't have the cojones to take this on.  Find someone else."  There was never the option.  Or at least I never saw any other option.  

If I had to guess the origin story on this particular foible of my multi-faced, multi-foibled self, I assume it all comes from growing up with my single mother (my father ducked paying child support and then died).  

My mother worked full-time and went to school at night.  English was not her first language.  She would pour over nursing textbooks with our battered red Webster's dictionary and a medical dictionary next to her.  There was a small lamp illuminating the white textbook papers and creepy anatomical drawings.  She would study late into the night.  She would never stop, no matter how tired she was.  There was no option.  There was no taking a break.  There was no "I'll pass on this, it's too difficult for me."  There were no options - just sink or swim.

So I work hard, but I also reward myself in an equally grandiose fashion with material goods and travels - and that can draw some good-natured envy or some cold-hearted jealousy from some around me.  It's human nature and I would be a liar if I didn't say I was envious or jealous of others at times too.  But of course, be careful what you wish for ...

For better or worse, I am used to some jealousy.  It's usually not meant in a malicious spirit and even when it is, it is rarely soul-shattering to me.  I live my life in good times and in bad.  Whether that garners me jealousy or pity, envy or sorrow; it has no effect on how I live my life.  I live my life for me, not anyone else; so the opinions of others rarely resonate a course correction on the pathway on which I steer my ship.

However, I will say that the rare moments of "animal jealousy" have made a much longer lasting impression than any "human jealousy" experience.  Allow me to elaborate on this ...

A long, long, long time ago, I had a boyfriend who lived in San Francisco.  I would pick fights with him and threaten to leave him whenever I wasn't getting enough attention.  I was a very, very immature girlfriend.  He would beg me not to break up with him and I'd feel secure that "ohh, so he does really care for me."  But one can only cry wolf, so often.  

I was in grad school and I knew the relationship was going south.  He was afraid I would cheat on him and desperately wanted me to marry him like NOW.  Which come on, if I were the type of person to cheat (which I am not) - would a marriage license stop me?  I didn't understand the logic.  

I moved to San Francisco to be with him for the summer and told a close friend that the summer would either make or break the relationship.  I knew in my heart it would be the latter, but I wanted to at least try.

The boyfriend had a big white hunting cat.  This cat was huge - all muscle, death on four legs.  He was fast, strong and had an attitude.  And he was pretty angry that I was moving in for the summer, taking away his owner's time and attention.

One day I walked into the bedroom and it was like an aviary exploded.  There were feathers and bird guts EVERYWHERE.  I let out a scream and ran out to the living room.  

Apparently the cat had brought his owner a gift - a bird he had killed.  Maybe he thought the gift of the bird would get his owner to dump me?  I refused to go back into the bedroom until my boyfriend cleaned up all signs of the carnage.  I had no idea how one bird carcass could be shredded into so many pieces!  

The cat was not happy.  And neither was I.  My boyfriend was caught in the middle between his cat and his girlfriend!  If there hadn't been bird entrails everywhere, it might have been comical.

Later that week, the boyfriend and I were sitting in the living room when the cat walked by.  It looked like it was carrying a purse.  My slow-moving brain was thinking "Why does the cat have a purse in its mouth?  Wait that's not the handle of a purse ... that's a tail.  What?  OH MY GOD, THAT'S A RAT!"

The cat had killed a rat and was carrying it back to our bedroom.  I started shrieking and pointing and shouting.  My poor belabored boyfriend probably had blood streaming from his ear drums.  

"GET IT!  GET THE RAT BEFORE THE CAT SHREDS IT!"  

The boyfriend who I will affectionately name "The Schlub" ran to the bedroom and grabbed the carcass of the newly murdered rat.  The cat came out of the bedroom and glared at me.  

I was pretty sure the cat was going to kill me next.

Later that week, I grilled salmon for dinner.  In this particular relationship, I was Julia Child.  The cat came over to me - both hating me and yet curious as to what the delightful smell was.  I had never had a cat before.  I was pretty sure I liked cats, but this homicidal one had me a bit scared.  

I cut off a piece of my salmon and shoved it over to him.  He sniffed it, then devoured it.  I gave him some more.  He inhaled it.  I held a piece in my hand and he came over and gently ate it from my finger tips.  By the time we were done, he had eaten over half my filet.  From then on, the cat loved me and no more dead animals showed up in our bedroom.  I was shocked by the 180 degree turn in the hunter cat's personality.  If only I had known before how easy it would be to win this cat's love!

I ended up dumping the boyfriend however.  No amount of salmon could fix that relationship!

Back to present day ... I have been putting off getting back into the dating world.  I have not been in a "real" relationship since The Grizzly Bear I dated last year.  A very sweet guy who is very, very lost.  Story of too many guys I have dated!  

Since then I spent some time with a previous ex, because to quote my own Lily-ism "It's always easier to go backward than forward."  But there is a reason the ex is an ex, so I extinguished the flames on that reunion pretty quickly.  

However life is short, so I finally decided to go back to the tempestuous waters that is dating in Florida.  (Oh so many rednecks!  Oh so many smokers!  Oh so many hillbillies!)  I kept stumbling upon a side show of carnival freaks - and absolutely no one I wanted to date.  Oh well, at least it should make for some funny (or sad) blog posts!  

As I waded out into the dating waters, I developed a deep crush on an extremely wonderful, yet also extremely emotionally unavailable man.  Which was really sad, because I very much like him.  

Perhaps it's just masochism on my part or even my own deluded form of commitmentphobia, in falling for this particular person ... I am not really sure.  There's a part of me that hopes that one day the stars will align and it will just happen, but the more realistic part of me knows there is an inherent danger in hoping that much.  

Sadly I have found many times that the bigger the dream, the bigger the potential to crash and burn.  And this particular gentleman is definitely someone who has the potential to shatter my heart.  I drove my convertible north listening to Matt Nathanson's "Last Days of Summer in San Francisco" over and over again trying to figure out why I was so strongly fixated on something that was not even there.  But the only conclusion I could come up with was that the heart wants what the heart wants.

  

But the realization was still getting me nowhere.  I decided to lock up my hope into a box and move on.  I felt that the universe was telling me that I needed to spend my energy in a more positive direction.  

Then the universe sent me a man I shall call "Mr. Key."  A northern transplant with relatives in Minnesota (where I am from) and Western New York (where I went to school).  It was like he and I were forged from the same pop culture kiln.  We shared so many commonalities, experiences and viewpoints.  We kept finishing each other's sentences.  It was definitely like we were two peas in a pod.  I felt like I had known "Mr. Key" all my life.  He is very comfortable to be around.  

I enjoyed spending time with Mr. Key.  We seemed to play a game of who could make whom laugh the hardest and we were both amazingly good at it!  A very delightful game indeed.  And he has the prettiest eyes and eye lashes that women would kill for!  He is all around very handsome and stylish.  For my plunge back into the dating world, I had selected a chivalrous cutie.  It has been fun getting to know him.  

So one night, Mr. Key and I decide to watch a movie at his house.  Being a gentleman, he let me pick the movie - and I did not pick well.  The movie was supposed to be suspenseful but we kept guessing each twist and turn before it happened.  I kept making Mr. Key high-five me each time we guessed the correct twist.  I'm surprised our hands weren't burning the number of times we high-fived!  

Mr. Key has a two year old, fifty pound dog.  She is very cute, but I could tell she was not happy that I was there.  I looked at Mr. Key and said "I'm sitting in your dog's spot on the couch, aren't I?"  He said "Yes, but don't worry about it."

You would think given my earlier experience with animals who are not happy that I would have been more alert about potential mayhem.  But I was cuddling on the couch with a very good-looking man, watching a very bad film ... so my mind was elsewhere.

The dog kept climbing on top of me, pushing me out of the way to try to sit on her master's chest.  Mr. Key pushed her off several times.  Again, you would think I would have been more aware that this could all go badly.  But noooo - I was a little too involved with thinking about kissing Mr. Key to be concerned with his dog!

After the movie ended - with a twist that I think was supposed to be shocking and instead just made me roll my eyes and groan.  Mr. Key and I got up and walked into the kitchen.  We were talking and laughing.  I walked back into the living room and stared at the couch.  I'm a little slow at times ... OK plain stupid sometimes.  I said "Um, did you spill water on the couch?" as I looked at a splattering of wet spots on the couch.  Mr. Key let out a groan.  The dog had peed exactly where I had been sitting.

Well, doesn't take the dog whisperer to understand that this bitch didn't like another bitch making out with her owner!  Whoops!  As I titled this post - it's always fun until someone pees on the couch.  

You know what completely sucks the spicy libido out of a date?  

A couch that has been peed on.  

I don't think this is a very good omen for my return to the dating world.  Although I guess I should be happy that the dog peed where I had been sitting versus peeing on me!

Maybe I should start dating guys who don't have pets.  

While I continue to muse over my crazy dating life and try to unbend the mental knots I seem to create for myself; I have been listening to Matt Nathanson's "Annie's Always Waiting (For The Next One To Leave)" on endless repeat.  It's a song title that hits a little too close to home for me.  

There's a line in the song that says "She has a Masters, in disappointment."  I met a man recently.  We were discussing our education.  I said I went to grad school ... which is what I usually say since when I say "law school" I usually hear a bunch of annoying lawyer jokes.  

I find most men don't stop to ask me what I went to grad school for, so I never have to explain that I went to law school.  But this guy was different and he actually asked me what I had my Masters in ... and I laughed and stole Matt Nathanson's line and said "In disappointment."

Last night (Sunday), I did a sunset meditation overlooking the intercoastal.  My friend "The Mysterious Madame Chu" had urged me to do it.  Evidently Sunday was the "full moon something something aquarius something" and it is a time to shed all old, bad ways and begin anew.  Which makes me think of that line from the book "Fight Club":  "If you wake up at a different time in a different place, could you wake up as a different person?" 

The Mysterious Madame Chu led me outside with a handful of meditation instruments to get me rocking into an altered state.  I sat under a sail shade in the drizzling rain, staring at the flame from a little pink candle resting in a virgin coconut shell that reminded me of too many birthday candles long since blown out with wishes unfulfilled.  

By the way, don't ask me what a virgin coconut shell is.  I wouldn't know the difference between a virgin coconut shell and a slutty coconut shell, if you paid me a million dollars.

I had had three cocktails before going to The Mysterious Madame Chu's house.  I usually don't spend my Sundays liquored up, but there it is.  

As I stood in The Mysterious Madame Chu's backyard on the water, I couldn't help but have lyrics from the Gin Blossoms' song "Lost Horizons" going through my head:

She had nothing left to say
So she said she loved me
I stood there grateful for the lie
Drink enough of anything to make this girl look new again
Drunk drunk drunk in the gardens and the graves

I physically shook my head as if that could turn off the song between my ears.  "Drunk drunk drunk in the gardens and the graves ..."

"Focus!" I whispered to myself.  I had The Mysterious Madame Chu's iPhone and headphones in my hands.  I put the headphone buds in my ears, pressed play and hoped for some rapid transformation into "Lily the Meditative Monk."  Although it was more like "Lily the Meditative Drunk."  "Drunk drunk drunk in the gardens and the graves ..."

I was listening to some wayward low buzzing that was overlapping quieter beach noises via The Mysterious Madame Chu's meditation app.  (Who knew there were meditation apps?)  

I concentrated on the sounds crackling through the head phones and the Gin Blossoms song stopped its endless repeat.  The mooing buzz made me think of cows getting electrocuted, which is not exactly the most meditative of thoughts.  

Eventually I gave in to the meditative app soundtrack and the flickering flame of the candle in the hollowed out coconut.  The Mysterious Madame Chu had told me that the flame was supposed to represent me.  I stared into the short yellow flame.  If this flame was me, it was decidedly lackluster.  I kept staring but the flame was annoying me.  So I closed my eyes.  

With my eyes closed and just the electrocuted cows and beach noises buzzing in my ears, I was surprisingly able to just release myself.  I willed all the baggage and road blocks within me to dissipate into the air and leave me fresh, anew and reborn.  I could feel my heart clench in my chest as if it didn't want to release any emotions.  

I was startled as I heard a voice, that was my own but unrecognizable, bark "Let go!"  My chest collapsed as if someone had cut away chains and an anvil.  I could breathe fully.  Maybe there was something to this meditation app, after all. 

With eyes still closed, I started inhaling deeper and deeper, as if I were a bottomless cavern.  I felt lighter and more optimistic, almost as if I was about to rise out of my chair.  

Then I felt a lot of rain pelting me in the face.  I opened my eyes.  The flame on the candle was out.  That didn't seem like a particularly good omen if the flame represented me.   

A storm had kicked up and was driving needles of water into my skin.  It was as if all the negative energy had left my body but was now assailing me via precipitation trying to get back in.  Maybe I needed an exorcism too.  

It was time to get out of the rain and get moving with my life.  And hopefully no one would pee on me.