happy meals

You can walk into a McDonald’s anywhere, even if it’s in the city, and you’re suddenly transported to a highway, an interstate, a pitstop in the road.  Maybe it’s a crossroads or a place to rest.  Either way, you’re tired and slightly worried about the rest of your life, despite the universal comforting smell.  Suddenly you’re tired of alone and want the right person to crawl into bed with you, to manage your cold feet and to bring you water.  You’re ready for your life to start, even though something nags and pulls on your shirt telling you not to await a start, telling you this is it.  And the longer you wait, the longer you ‘ll wait.  I just want someone who will make me risk, let me fall, someone there to catch me… someone other than me because I’ve already learned how to do this for myself.  I told you; I’m lazy.

The holidays are emotionally taxing for a reason other than regression and family time.  They’re milestones hanging on branches of brightly lit, ornamental trees.  I reflect back on my previous holidays to realize nothing is really different in my life.  And each year I hope I’ll find someone to be deliriously happy with for the next new year’s eve, and it remains that: a hope.  It’s not the worst way to begin a year, with hope.  Frustration feels heavy on my shoulders in this easy to gratify, customization town.  I’m so used to getting what I want as long as I work hard enough at it. 

Why no matter how happy I ever am will I want for someone to be in the moment with me?  I’ve been poisoned by love songs and jukebox top hits, by movies, and hopes.  I’m desperate to fall in love, the kind where you lick sauce off one another’s fingers, face conflict with a strong smile, for hands that don’t want to let go.  I feel week for being such a romantic, for thinking someone else can kick start my life.  I’ve been investing in myself, in my friendships and passions, but I’ll never feel satiated alone.  I certainly don’t mind it, but I hope it’s just a beginning.  I want a forever with a partner in crime, and maybe that makes me weak.  I don’t care.  It’s what I’ll want until I find it.  Then I’ll want to keep it and darn it socks and feed it sprinkled cookies.

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COMMENTS:

  1. Steph…here's to a new year for you filled with darning socks and sprinkled cookies…he is out there and I know you are going to find him….

    Rob

  2. Some important things to keep in mind:
    1 (Repeating.) “Remember Red, hope is a good thing. Maybe the best of things. And no good thing ever dies.”
    2) You're living a fabbo life. Great family, great friends, great job, tons of support. You've got smarts, talents, & looks (& don't give me that shite about being fat). But you're missing one thing. True, you're missing THE thing. It's frustrating and it leaves you with a incomplete, empty, and nagging feelings. We readers can feel your angst. For some, me included, all these feelings hit close to home. Each New Year's we reflect and we hope that NEXT year will be the year. NEXT year, we will share our life with that special person and be with that person come NYEve. BUT,
    3) We tend to try too hard. Every person we meet, we immediately hit the fast forward button and try to project a future instead of just letting it happen. This shite I'm telling you, you know far too well. Why? Cuz I'm sure you've shared this very same advise with your 'hopeful' friends who are in the same boat as you. So if you don't listen to me, then listen to yourself.
    4) You mention desperation. I can tell you're so absorbed with it that it even affects or distracts your focus. You shouldn' feel week for being a romantic. Weak perhaps. Like I said, there are many of us in your same boat.
    5)Finding 'THE ONE' isn't easy and never will be. The odds are against us, but if we abide by #1, remember the positives of #2, and avoid the traps of #3 and #4, we might enjoy our boat ride a little bit better! Sorry for the blog clog. HAPPY NEW YEAR. I should erase this, but you know me better..{CLICK}

  3. PT, that line from Shawshank is so weak and full of sentiment. I would blame King for it, but it wasn't he who wrote it, it was Darabont (as in Frank, the director). I only say this because you know me and you know I'm dead honest about writing, and how much I abhor melodramatic prose. I wish that line were more profound.

    Anyway, I think in the end, we are all lonely to some degree, no matter WHO or WHAT we have. Well, all right, some of us are. Some will hem and haw about their blessings, and some (like me) will just recognize that there is an inherent isolation or loneliness that we must carry with us and bear, and that it is all right. There is nothing wrong. We are not inadequate or dysfunctional. I said this once before in a previous post of SK's. Some of us should've been born leopards. To hell with John Donne.

  4. Merry Christmas. Thank you for reminding me how great it is to have found The One. I'm sure will will one day too. ;)

  5. Stephanie… I have been reading your blogs for a few weeks now. I enjoy reading them, it shows me that other people are in the same boat as me. They always say you will find the one when you are not looking for it. I have not been looking for years and still haven't found her, keep the chin up. He might just find you one day. Good luck!

  6. LX, no harm, no foul. I still like the line. I guess I relate to the DuFresne character. Do you remember why he said the 'hope' line? It wasn't arbitrary. He said it in response to something 'Red' had said to him early on about Hope. Paraphrasing, Red said Hope had no place in the stir. Ol' Andy was proving his buddy wrong. Corny perhaps, but I'm living the line. Gotta have hope, man…

  7. Oh, blah. We've already read that lousy comment somewhere else, you self-serving, attention-starved asshat.
    Go marry into your own title (because CLEARLY, that's what it takes) and fuck off.

  8. I deleted the comment for a few reasons. It was "anonymous" even though I know *exactly* who sent it, and it was very much a Mr. Potter move. I agree with Fish.

    FUCK OFF.
    Now how's that for holiday merriment.

  9. Ah well…you know, doing a blog like Stephanie's is kind of like entering Politics. Get ready to get blasted, have all your skeletons dragged out of the closets, etc. And, while self-serving to a degree which she may choose (some of us are, indeed, writers with books out there making the rounds, and we ARE TRYING TO SELL OUR SHIT to agents and publishers, so yea…blogs are self-serving), it seems like her stuff resonates with people. And so, really that's all that matters. We're all fuckos to an extent with mistakes in our past and regrets and issues. That's it. No more needed. No excuses.

    I come here to read these posts because I am so far away from this kind of life and it just seems interesting and fun and tragic and glitzy and sometimes false and sometimes nice. I don't really wish to have SK's life, nor would it work for me if I had secretly wished it. It's kind of like looking through a key hole at the experiences of a Manhattanite–knowing full well the writer lets us in on whatever she wants–selectively–and knowing full well that some may be enhanced, or events may be downplayed, or just outright fiction. There is always more than one story. More and more people will be coming out of the woodwork as this blog (and SK) becomes better and better known. It's to be expected. But, having enemies is not a bad thing. For me, it's almost better than having friends.

    PT, you are a friend and I know you won't be upset at my critique of Darabont's line. I just thought he could've done better with it. But, yes…I understand the sentiment and your allegiance to it. Sometimes I am too rigid regarding "life-changing" lines (whether in novels or films) and fail to realize that no matter how eloquently-written or not, it's the effect which counts.

    Again, writing for your audience.

    Stephanie, I hope you had fun in S. FL. I hope my recommendation of venue didn't suck so bad. It was a tad bit different when I lived there–but you know Florida. Things change every season. It's so transient…you can't count on anything staying good.

  10. Stephanie,
    Why is one so desperate? It can't help when you meet a man, being so desperate that is. A man can always tell the desperate ones, and that's not a good thing to be.
    Cheers,
    Jack

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