The names are changed but the constellations are still fallin’

More from September… or, a peek into my disjointed mind

Personality “muscles” I haven’t flexed in a while:

  • Latin dancing: Intimacy with strangers, risk, the ice queen at work
  • Dating: I want a boyfriend, but I don’t want an insta-boyfriend. Slow is the only speed I move at, at least right now.
  • Dancing: I forgot how shy I used to be. I’ve always said that cheerleading, and then dancing, drew me out. I guess it’s true.

… 

I’m sore today. My lower back is tense. I used both hands to grip the railing of the circular staircase at work, easing myself down into the lobby or up into the breakroom. I went to a dance class last night, and it feels like the first time I’ve used those particular muscles in years.

I feel like I’ve been learning a lot about myself lately. I’ve never been 26 before, but it seems like the way to spend this year. I’m always growing up, I know that, but 26 seems so adult. I’m on the brink of my late twenties,

… 

Two years ago I started “talking”* to Fly Boy just before his 29th birthday. Thirty still lurked a year away, but he was looking forward to it. Your twenties are a time for confusion, for struggling to figure out who you are and what you do in life. But your thirties are a time to embrace the resolution of those questions, he hypothesized. It’s a time to become established.

I was only 24 at the time, but suddenly 30 sounded pretty good. (A friend in his thirties later told me that Fly Boy was full of it.)

*Speaking of talking—isn’t it funny that everyone has different definitions of these terms? A friend and I were trying to pin a label on a relationship recently. I suggested dating, except this couple had actually only gone on one date. She proposed talking, but immediately tabled the idea. Talking, she said, involved making out at least once. Funny—I thought it simply meant talking, with a degree of interest implied.

 

…now, back to 2008…

2 thoughts on “The names are changed but the constellations are still fallin’

  1. I always thought that talking meant TALKING with some degree of interest implied, as well… (I have, however, taken to using the term “acquaintance with potential” … ha.)

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