I met a woman on Tinder that piqued my interest as a friend, because as I told her, I don’t want to date anyone I don’t know… and the fact that I really, really don’t want to start dating, at least not yet. It’s too much for me. I’d just like to meet more local people to go and do things with, and to keep my mind humming about something other than the past. I think we’re off to a good start.
Like most people in DC, I can’t tell you who she is or what she does, because her job isn’t shadow government B-16 sensitive (Scandal, holla!) but sensitive enough that if anything on this blog were to be traced back to her, it might cause problems. However, I can tell you that she is a recovering lawyer and Episcopalian, Southern, although different Southern than me. North and South Carolina as opposed to the great state of Texas (its full title), and has about as much accent as I do (take that for what you will).
When I swiped right, I was blown away that I’d already been matched. We had some great conversations over e-mail, but as you might imagine, I am quite gunshy about continuing that whole thing, so we met up pretty quickly. I told her that my writing was barely a quarter of me, and to only know my writing personality is not advisable… but I wasn’t lecturing her, just hard-won experience on my part…. obvi.
She is equal parts power suit and blue jeans, hilarious and lovely. Plus, there was this funny exchange:
Leslie: I gather that you are kick my ass smart. I love brains like that.
Her: Best. Opening Line. Ever.
Eventually she’ll get a nickname on this blog, but it takes me a while to come up with these things, because I want the nickname to be a reflection of who that person is. Argo, to me, was a ship of enormous proportions, carrying me through uncharted water. I had a thousand other nicknames for her, but Argo was the one that stuck on this blog, although my favorite is probably A-dog O’Bling Bling, because it is funny to me to imagine just how much she would hate it.
She never said anything about it, so maybe I’m wrong, but in my head it was “gods…. are you mental?” (shut it)
I’m in a space where I am not underestimating friendship. I want to take the chance of being close, trying not to be jaded and bitter on the idea because I’ve come such a long way… or trying to, anyway. Trying to be honest with myself and others, trying to be a better writer than I was the day before (to varying results), and the surprise of hearing that it was my blog was one of the things that made her want to meet me, as opposed to running away.
That was my perfect scenario, anyway. I figure why bother with people who can’t wrap their brains around the enormity of writing every day, and writing seriously about my own mistakes. I don’t think I would be willing to take the heartbreak of introducing someone to my blog long after I met them, because I cannot see that going well, ever. Something akin to, “why didn’t you tell me all this?” Ummmm, because I thought you’d think I was a freak show…. not that it’s a dealbreaker if you think that.
People can think I’m as cracked as they want as long as they’re willing to accept that there are also enormously amazing things about me, too. I remember the first day of ninth grade at HSPVA, when my Algebra teacher, Dr. Papakonstantinou, got up in front of the class and said, “I teach at Rice half a day in upper mathematics and here half a day with Algebra and Calculus. I also can’t ride a bike or drive a stick shift car.” And that, to me, is me in a nutshell. I’ll tell you all my flaws as long as you recognize that there are also things I do incredibly well.
Write me off as just the crazy part and you are seriously missing out, because some of the fun IS the crazy. It’s just all part of the creative process, and how I come up with big ideas instead of small ones. The words in the English language that drive me the most crazy are “we’ve always done it this way.”
We’ve always done it this way is a death knell, and following rules gets you nowhere in my line of work (the writing part, not the SQL part). But rules are important in their own right, and the one I want to keep most of all is that I will not let my past impede my future. I know who I am, and who I am says to let go of all the things I can’t control, when I tried so hard to be stuck in them and failed.
What has ruminating on the past ever got me except problems I couldn’t solve with people who didn’t care?
There won’t ever be a part of me that wishes things had been different, but that was then. This is now.
What am I going to do with it?
Stories That Are All True 