Sparks

You need a spark to light a fire. Truer words have never been spoken. It is true for the times you need to get a campfire going. It is true to light fireworks. It is true for relationships. The topic of making sparks fly came back to me this weekend when I was hanging out with some friends at a party in Dallas. Looking around it seems Dallas is full of coupled people. Everyone there seemed to have a boyfriend, or a date on their arm. It was quite…what words am I looking for…fascinating and queer at the same time. What seemed to be queerer than anything is they all seemed genuinely happy with their respective partners and the majority of them had a “spark” in their eyes that was clearly visible. Austin, at times, seems to be the polar opposite of what I experienced in Dallas. 95% of my friends are single. I have those friends that much more enjoy their freedom and don’t worry about finding, having, dealing with, or want to be bothered with having a boyfriend, and then I have those friends that just kind of sit and pine and wait for Mr. Right to appear on their doorstep all the while wondering if there is something wrong with them because they haven’t settled down to a his and his SUV in the two car garage scenario. Personally, I don’t know where I fit into the scheme of things. I mean…on one hand I would like to have a boyfriend and there are brief moments when I feel lonely, but I do not want one for the sake of having one. That is retarded. On the other hand, I don’t want to be in a relationship for the simple fact that I love my freedom. If I want to get up and go to Dallas or Houston…I can do it. I don’t have to ask permission, or feel obligated to carry someone with me [if I want to be alone]. Granted, that is probably a harsh thing to say considering you should want your boyfriend to go places with you, but sometimes, I just like to go to Houston to hang out with my best girlfriends, go to straight bars/clubs and dance the night away while salivating over hot straight guys, and have a no nonsense, worry about nothing kind of night. I suppose the day will come when I find someone I can’t get enough of and will drag him to every little thing that I do, and there was a time when I did experience that. This brings me back to my original comment about sparks. Someone recently asked me why I was single. Like I mentioned a few lines back…at this point in my life I enjoy my freedom way too much and I still have extremely selfish tendencies. I also told them that I haven’t come across anyone that makes a spark. With a puzzled look on her face she asked me…what do you mean? Well, I replied, you know when you meet someone that has the potential of becoming someone you want to share your life with, and you kind of feel this spark and you have this realization that they are going to be around for a while? She nodded her head up and down smiling because she knew exactly what I was talking about. “That is the spark I am talking about”, I told her. She kind of laughed and said that she had never thought about it in that context before. I was happy to enlighten her. I kind of continued on with the conversation telling her that it is a good gauge of whether or not things are going to work or not. It is just something you feel, and you know it when it happens. As the conversation progressed she asked me if I had ever felt that spark. Without hesitating or even having to think about it, I replied with a hefty “yes”. I have felt that spark twice in my life, and I feel very fortunate to have felt that spark. Ultimately, things did not work out the way I wanted them to in either situation, but I am better for the feeling. My life would be a very different thing if I had never felt those sparks. It really opens a person up to their capacity to love and be loved.

Sometimes I wonder if our lives are limited to a certain number of sparks. It is a frightening thing to think that we could be limited, and shows like Sex and the City when Charlotte proclaimed to the girls at brunch that you only get two great loves don’t really help very much…considering Elizabeth Taylor was married…what…seven or eight times? Do I ever think I will get the spark again? I don’t know. According to my astrological chart, November is going to be a romantic month, and being a Pisces it is very easy for me to drift off to one of my many worlds of make believe and imagine meeting someone that looks like Marco Dapperwith the personality of Dan Humphrey or Chuck Bartowski (who are both totally fiction) who causes a spark that ignites something so insanely addictive that it knocks me on my ass and turns my world upside down. It is easy to imagine that, a bit unrealistic, but nice. Then the phone rings or someone walks into my office and reality pulls me back from my fantasy world. So on the question of whether or not I will ever feel that spark again…I am hopeful and I am optimistic and only time and the stars will tell. Patience is a virtue and at only 29 years old…I have plenty of time, but it will most definitely be good to feel that pulse of electricity light me up on the inside again.