The Prize

I'm going to do something that I abhor... I'm going to compare relationships to a prize to be won. As much as the human race hates stereotypes and cliche, we love it! Maybe I shouldn't say the human race, maybe I should say Americans, and not all Americans, just the middle class with nothing better to do to fill the gaps of down time that there are in life that need to be filled or distracted from or simply ignored. And I am mostly wrong most of the time, so regardless of everything I say, I'll change my mind tomorrow.

So, back to the whole comparison... I have realized recently that I have been chasing an idea a prize that doesn't belong to me. Last night, in the sweltering heat of Fresno, CA, in the stifling humidity of a local bar (which in and of itself is ironic because of my lack of drinking)I had a date with misinformation. I saw a person, a sweet person, whom I shut out of my life because he was not ready for... well, me. But he, much like I, had seen something between us. Could it be everlasting love, the kind that only dreams are made of. There's a glimmer or a phantom of true love in most dating relationships and so, he consistently works to remain "friends." But in that dark space, that bar, the hurt that had been inflicted by indecision rushed right in, back, from the memories of 9 months ago, and from the memories of boyfriends past and bad timing. And a huge character defect of mine where no situation can stand alone, and all of the history of boyfriends (dates) past comes flooding back to me, and all the failure that I have racked up haunts me and plunges me down into a pit of gloom. I see each encounter for what it could have been, and all the distortion that I have added to each story over time is exaggerated.

Except... this time I stopped the madness before it really got rolling, before a tear was shed before my emotions got to a place of complete and utter flood that could not be stopped. A simple idea popped into my head in the middle of it, in the middle of the chaos that usually accompanies things that are distorted and exaggerated. He is not my prize. A person being a prize is a weird concept, but that is the the thought that stopped all that emotion and situations past, and I don't want another person's prize... and right then, right in that moment, I realized that idea could be applied to all past dates, boyfriends, and fanciful notions and I am finally free of all the pain, just like that!

Yes, I realize it is anticlimactic, but I had to share it anyway.