31. Pajamas

I have the Cold That Won’t Die.  It was pretty much gone by Friday, but then I went up to Algonquin Park for the weekend and it decided to make a comeback.  Very frustrating.

This weekend was Canadian Thanksgiving… so, Happy Thanksgiving, eh!  My mom organized a trip up to the aforementioned Algonquin Park with a few of her friends, and me.  The park is always gorgeous this time of year, with the leaves changing colour… and this year it was warmer than last year, so it was really nice.  Not to mention that the more people available to act as a buffer between me and my mother, the better!  I actually had fun, which is more than I can say of a lot of our previous trips up to the park.  

I had only met one of the people my mom brought with her before, so I was a bit nervous.  I have no problem with my mom’s friends for the most part, but I knew that these were her church friends… and well… my mother and I go to very different churches.  (My mom goes to TACF, I… uh, do not.)  My mother thinks that I have lost something in my faith because I no longer go to such an overtly charismatic church, and often when I’m around her and her church friends I feel a little bombarded.  

Anyway, when we finally met up (we were coming to the park from opposite directions), she started to tell me about the people she had brought with her, and when she got to one of them (the daughter of one of her friends), my ears perked up… I couldn’t help it.  If this girl had been a guy, I would have thought my mom was trying to set me up, because she couldn’t have given a more enticing description if she’d been trying.  Point A:  “She’s been traveling around the world… backpacking for 2 years now.  She’s been all over the world!” (I love to travel, so right away I’m excited to have someone to talk to who will understand my itchy feet.)  Point B:  “Her mother was in the circus, she was a famous trapeze artist (!!!), so she grew up in the big top, traveling around the country… literally raised on the sawdust!”  (Do I even need to explain why this was intriguing?   Have you ever met anyone who grew up in the circus?  That’s a pretty cool introductory fact.)

A few minutes later this girl walked in, and she was lovely.  Exotic, in a very Mediterranean way… and striking, with a wide smile, and big brown eyes, and at least one other fine asset that I appreciated.

By the way... that pun? Fully intended.

Don’t worry; I haven’t developed a new crush… I wouldn’t even say I’m infatuated.  But I was attracted, and I made a quite conscious decision to allow the attraction to happen, and to allow myself to feel it.  That may seem silly, I suppose, but I spend so much of my time having that part of me closed off, and it feels so good every once and a while to just let it be – kind of like coming home from a formal dress event and taking off your uncomfortable clothes and putting on your PJs.  It just feels good… and kind of… oy, I don’t know if I can articulate this properly.  Like I said, I normally close that part of me off, meaning that if I meet someone and I realize that I think she’s pretty, or really smart, or funny or whatever, I preemptively stop myself from going any further down that road.  (I’m not talking about finding women attractive, or seeing a pretty girl on the street, I’m talking about stopping myself from becoming attracted to someone I actually know.)  It’s exhausting, and frustrating.  Fleeting, silly crushes are kind of fun (if you’re single), and a perfectly natural thing to have; and stopping myself from having them is kind of like stopping myself from seeing a certain colour, or hearing a certain sound.  I feel like I’m missing something.

So, when I met this girl this weekend, I decided to just let myself be me.  I figured it was a fairly risk-free situation.  I’d be with her for a grand total of about 36 hours, I have no idea when (or even if) I’d ever see her again, she was probably straight, and besides… she smokes, which is kind of a deal-breaker for me (not that there was a deal to be broken, but… you know…).   It felt so good, like I was allowing myself to fully exist for the first time in a long while.  I actually ended up coming out to her – we were alone in a canoe for a few hours.  Things just sort of came up.  

Like I said, it’s not that big a deal, I’m not in love, or even in crush mode.  It was just nice to allow myself the freedom to enjoy being around a woman who excited me (no, not like that, get your mind out of the gutter!).  But now I’m back home, and that door has to be shut again.  I guess that’s what holidays are for… hanging around in your pajamas.