It goes to show you never can tell

The shows you think are going to be awesome sometimes aren’t and the shows you think are going to be OK end up being awesome.

The drive you think will go fast takes forever and the thing you’ve been waiting on for months is over in a flash.

I like discovery. I like new people and new places and I find great delight in being in rooms I’ve never been in before and having conversations I’ve never had. Some people get exhausted by new things, but I don’t. I love them. I might lean toward new things over the old right up until my better self says, “Hang on, dumb dumb, you’ve got it really good back at home even if you never jump the fence and go swimming at the municipal pool in the middle of the night!”

It goes to show you never can tell where life is going and you never can tell what will be THE THING and what will just be another thing. What’s interesting is that I’m noticing that perhaps we have more power in identifying and declaring something as THE THING. I used to think that the magic was out of our control and, if we ran into it: cool, but if we didn’t, it just meant the magic skipped us. But more and more I’m thinking it’s all over the place and we can hang on to it way more often and with big results just by deciding to do so.

It goes to show that we’ve got more sway that I used to believe.

Which is why I’m still shopping for new gig clothes. Which is why I do think I can redefine how I see myself and how I allow myself to be beautiful.

It goes to show that even a 42 year mom is just as taken up with questions of worth and beauty and image not having grown much past her 25 year old self. Yipes.

It went: Mom made my Christmas dress, I wore my cousin’s beautiful velvet dress for Easter once, Mom put my hair in curlers over night, Mom helped me pick out my clothes, Mom kept taking me shopping and I’d refuse to try anything on, Mom relented and let me shop in the boys section, Mom talked me into getting a date for the dance and I bought a dress by myself on clearance the day of the dance, Mom and I would fight about what I was wearing to church, Mom let me cry because none of the boys liked me, Mom and Dad told me I was pretty and so did the little old ladies at church, Mom sent me off to college, Mom never saw that I wore my brother’s Billabong sweatshirt almost every day that first year, Mom tried to get me to wear the pretty things in my closet but I wouldn’t, Mom was surprised when I told her I was engaged, Mom took me to get a wedding dress, I put that dress on on that Saturday morning and felt like a total phony and not a princess, we went to Seminary and the women there dressed differently than I did, I had to break down and buy maternity clothes because I could not wear anything anymore, once the babies were here who cared what I looked like? I was a utility outfielder who got the job done. I asked Mom and Dad to stop buying me clothes, I made friends with the second hand shops and garage sales, I say, “don’t look too pretty, don’t draw attention to yourself, look kinda poor, look harmless, look fine, don’t love the image looking back at you.”

And now it goes to show that it takes time to turn the ship. One shopping trip at a time.

Is it about the dress? Does it have nothing to do with the dress? Is it all connected? Do have to pick a point in history where I retrace my steps? I think yes to all of it.

It goes to show you never can tell. Even seeing the clothes and the eyes, the hands and the smile., it goes to show you never can tell. Even after talking and laughing, after years and years. It goes to show you never can tell.

Which, actually, seems like a good thing to me. I like the not knowing. I like the looking around corners and under couches. I like the stepping stones down a garden path, past the picket fence into the future tense. I like that.