A few weeks ago, my crew and I saw the Italian Saxophone quartet. Just two days ago, I finally got the CD that Marco, the sweet alto sax player, left for me. Inside the cover was a short note. \u201cAlla bellissimo Michelle\u201d, it read. Such sweetness. Just now, here at work, I had a visitor to my lonely office. It was the baker in his chef whites, a guy who I\u2019ve hung out with a couple of times this past week. He came to say hello, gave me a quick hug, and I turned back to my computer to work. I looked down and saw that my shirt was covered with flour. Sometimes, it\u2019s the little things that threaten to break my heart.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been wondering if I\u2019m ready to date. I know I\u2019ve been saying that I\u2019ve been single for three years, but it\u2019s been much longer than that. My ex and I were broken up a couple times during our years together, and it\u2019s a well-documented fact that most of the time we were together, I was still alone. Singlehood defines me. I really know nothing else other than random dating and short time spent.<\/p>\n
Marco, the sax player, was one of the kindest, funniest, most gentlemanly men I\u2019ve met in years. I only spent a couple of hours with him, at a wine bar with 100 other people, and nothing but a chaste kiss goodnight, but he reminds me that there are good ones out there (that hopefully don\u2019t live in Italy). My baker is adorable- sweet, silly, passionate, filled with wonder and conviction. He\u2019s also 24 years old. Distance can be measured in a number of ways, and 24 is almost as far away as Italy. Also, when you are 24, your heart is much more delicate, infinitely more capable of loving and breaking, and I do not want to hurt this good man. As my mom always told us, a touch is also a promise, and I\u2019m not sure I can casually date this man because he\u2019s already nuts about me.<\/p>\n
And date at all? It seems so funny and weird. What constitutes a \u201cdate\u201d? What is the difference between hanging out and dating, dating and \u201cboyfriend\u201d, boyfriend and lover? I\u2019ve never inhabited the dating world. It\u2019s never interested me. Friends become lovers and boyfriends. That is how it\u2019s worked. And I\u2019ve always dated men older than me, without exception.<\/p>\n
So I\u2019ve never been much of a \u201cdater\u201d, and I\u2019ve always fallen in love with older men. I\u2019ve also chosen rather badly and had a largely crummy love life. Hmm. Maybe it\u2019s time to follow my brother Kent\u2019s advice and do this wrong differently. Maybe it\u2019s time to start dating, and maybe I need not be so arbitrary in my choices. Maybe it\u2019s time.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A few weeks ago, my crew and I saw the Italian Saxophone quartet. Just two days ago, I finally got the CD that Marco, the sweet alto sax player, left for me. Inside the cover was a short note. \u201cAlla bellissimo Michelle\u201d, it read. Such sweetness. Just now, here at work, I had a visitor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}