Saturday Night Blues

Walked for hours in MOMA. Smile when I recognize Picasso across the gallery. Wince at Monet. Wore the wrong shoes; blisters by 4 pm.
Walked for hours in Times Square. Remembered the van Gogh I loved, the starry night, the first piece of art i ever really liked, and then was made to feel foolish by art majors in college who called it pop.
Walked for hours from the post office by Madison Square Garden; shipped home a bunch of stuff I won't be needing anymore.
Seriously contemplating ditching the shoes that gave me blisters - if I believed in god, would that be a sin?
**********
Brunch in cafe. Blinking tears.
You thought you loved someone. You thought they loved you back. They didn't.
**********
Had a disturbing thought while walking down the street - I will never leave L.A. I won't move here. I couldn't leave my nephew.
I know that's bullshit - I know it's not true.
But for the moment I thought it, it was true.
**********
I go to a coffee shop and order a large coffee and a strange Spanish pastry. I notice someone sitting alone. He is about 40. He has sandy hair and he is scribbling in a notebook. A journal, it looks like. I beg him silently not to leave. I say in my head: Don't go, don't go, please stay right there, and look at me and love me love me love me.
By the time I sit down, he's already left.
**********
When I was a child, I told myself I would never become a girl who needed a boyfriend. When I was 14, I told my best friend I never wanted to get married.
Nobody tells you what it's like. I guess because they didn't know - who would I have known, at that age, to tell me what it's really like?
Who would have been able to tell me how to behave when one is the only single person at a party?
Who would have told me what to say when a colleague asks me, "Are you with someone?"
Or how to respond when a relative asks, "So when are you going to get married?"
Who was there to tell me not to take it personally when someone says, "Don't worry, you'll find someone?"
Or how happy people are for you when you're dating someone. How they think it's the magic potion that will make you normal?
**********
For instance, I remember writing to an old friend very briefly when I began dating my last boyfriend. All I wrote was that I was seeing someone and he was nice. And when she wrote back ... it was a strange letter that said, in part, "I'm glad you found someone to make you happy, he seems like he's really good for you."
And I thought, "What the fuck?"
**********
I hate that half the time, I believe so strongly in the concept of Self, that I dismiss completely the idea that anyone needs to be with another person. When I'm in this mood, I pity women who have never been on their own, feel sorry for women who have never traveled alone or lived alone or even gone to the movies alone.
And then there's the other half of the time.
That looks at couples holding hands and thinks so often that couples often look very much alike. They have the same color skin; they have complementary features. They dress similarly. They look like they belong together.
That's envy.
**********
I cringe inside when I think about meeting someone and falling into a routine because I've been in relationships, and here is what I know about them:
1. Relationships demand compromise.
2. You can't be selfish.
3. You can't expect the other person to be everything for you.
4. You have to accept the person as he is, even if parts of him are deeply flawed.
5. No matter how much someone loves you, they will hurt and disappoint you, and you have to live with that.
**********
So. Here I am, in New York. Supposed to be having the best time of my life, like I did last year. And who knows, maybe for a few hours at the Lenox Lounge a few nights ago, I was having the time of my life. Maybe I was this morning, looking at all the art. Maybe I was at the weird French restaurant, writing in my journal.
Here I am, living my dream - "living" in New York. Working on the East Coast. Taking the train every morning to Connecticut. Making my way back. Going to bars and clubs and Broadway shows and movies and cafes.
If I'm living my dream,
Then why do I feel so goddamned fucking lonely?