The Pursuit of Butterflies

-----------------
I've decided to donate my brain to psychiatry.
I would donate my hormones, id and libido but no one wants them.


Upon examination of my brain, someone very clever might finally understand what drives me to idiocy and self deprecation in my incessant pursuit of the wrong man. 

I hear that there are more women like me and that the literature on the subject is abundant, but I haven't read any of it because I would be forced to recognize myself and stop it. 

My attraction to the unattainable is teetering between the ridiculous and the absurd.

I've been told that even available - emotionally or otherwise - guys can be exciting, could keep my attention and would make the butterflies flutter. They did decades ago, but we were all available then. We married them, divorced them and the rest is history. 

There should be a speed dating event for us good ones -  women and men alike - those of us who like the bad boys and the bitches, respectively. We would speed interact with each other with kindness and attention and bore each other to death. When they finally scrape our corpses off the floor and donate our brains to psychiatry they will discover that we are basically fine human beings with a few scratches here and there, and a few wounds that never healed. 

At the very least, they will discover that we tried as hard as we could to do the ineffable right thing. Most of the time we managed. 

But once in a while we really missed those beautiful butterflies.

Free Hugs

............
I take my hugs as I can come by them.

For lack of two strong arms to whisk me away to the land of never ending happiness, and for lack of the brilliant Japanese invention, The Boyfriend Pillow, I am overwhelmed at how a few kind words in my direction are enough to bring me to tears. 


This would lead me to believe that either I'm totally pathetic, or that at some point, my uber-woman alter ego laid down for a nap.


These are the thoughts that run through my head sometimes:


Blanche: "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers."
John and Paul: "And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make." 

So is it a bit over the top that I get choked up over the daily scenarios that make up my life - 

• being fit in at 6 pm for a two hour highlight and hair cut appointment - and greeted  with enthusiasm and a can of diet coke at my arrival;
• finding a place for new tires where I'm reassured that I can call any time of day or night if I get a flat;
• knowing that I can go to my girlfriends and they will feed me, day or night.
• going to the same doctor for 20 years, who will ignore a room of waiting patients to let me whine non-stop that I need a boyfriend;
• being greeted by name in the work cafeteria that feeds hundreds.  (I'm also greeted by name by the ones who take out my trash... I'm not convinced that's a compliment).

That's really just a stupid little partial list, but you get the point. The point that I get choked up at the drop of a hat, at the first sign of kindness in my direction. This isn't my favorite part of me but I am learning to embrace it.


And not to belittle the joys of being greeted by a poodle with my dirty underwear in its mouth, maybe one day, after a long day at work,  I will be greeted by a smile from my special someone, who will have made me a salad and bring it to me while I sprawl on the sofa. 


Perhaps it is a response to the parade of jack asses and users throughout my life, perhaps it is just a response to moving to a new city and feeling at home. What's certain is that I take my hugs where I can get them, and feel blessed every day to have them coming from so many directions. 


..........................