sea of love

it was 80 degrees a little over a week ago. for one quick, sunny day it was 80 degrees.

i woke up around 6 a.m. two friday mornings ago, and i couldn’t get back to sleep. the sun was shining, and i woke up extremely happy. it was one of those mornings you just want to roll around in bed, messing everything up until it becomes a nest you can't get yourself out of.

i spent what seemed like hours on a stuffed, delayed red line. i was sweaty and a little hazy. i could smell red wine from the night before in my sweat. every time the train doors opened, the entire train seemed to exhale in relief.

it’s so funny how people react to weather. when it’s cold, we want it hot. but the second it warms up enough to make us sweat, we’re begging like babies for a 50 degree day.

i came home to a sleeping apartment. i like being the only person awake in my apartment. with open windows, the whole place smelled like spring.

when lara woke up, we decided to spend the day walking around. it was nice enough for short sleeves with pants.

she dragged me into GNC, which is one of my least favorite places. the (only) best part about GNC is the arnold schwarzenegger protein powder. it’s going to pahmp you up.

there was a blind man in the check out line in front of us. he turned and asked us for help signing his receipt because the cashier was on the phone. i walked up to him and helped him put pen to paper.

“you have such a bright spirit,” he said. who doesn’t love to hear that? especially from someone who has no idea what i look like on the outside. he can’t see the hair that i styled or the eyelashes i painted with mascara for five minutes this morning.

the next things he said, i don’t exactly remember. but the thing i do remember is that he said, “in order to love other people, you must first love yourself.”

now, lots of people have said that to me. i get it. well, i don’t exactly get it, but i get where they’re coming from. they have context. they know me. they read the blog. blah, blah, blah.

but who is this random stranger telling me to love myself?

i keep my religious and spiritual feelings to myself because they are mine to have. i wouldn’t say i am religious in a traditional sense, and my yoga practice has a lot of influence on the way i think about spirituality.

but it feels a little like someone meant for me to help that man in that GNC on the best day (weather wise) of the year.

especially considering that i decided to give up dating for lent.

usually every year, i give up sweets (because i love fruity gummies) and then i challenge myself to do something every day to make me better. one year i gave a sincere compliment to at least one person a day, another year i made sure to smile at anyone i made eye contact with, and last year i told myself once nice thing about me every day.

this year, i gave up dating.

which made lots of people laugh, but i wasn’t really sure why.

i think that i have come to a time where i am actually, honestly, truly okay with being myself. …and being by myself.

internet, it only took me nine months to get here.

and so, on easter eve, to celebrate 40 days of self-induced singledom, we drank, and we danced, and we ate pancakes.

at a gay bar. surrounded by dancing bunnies and drag queens. it wasn’t exactly the morning i thought i would spend in church, but i left the club feeling so full of love and happiness.

side note: the club that we went to seemed to be very popular with the hispanic gay community. the dj spoke only in spanish, the drag queens spoke only in spanish, they played only spanish music, and we had no idea what was going on the entire time.

but we danced, and we hugged, and we laughed just the same. just the same.