I started reading Lauren Graham's book Talking As Fast As I Can. I was SO excited to read her book. She writes like she talks. Or, at least how Lorelei talks in Gilmore Girls. The first few chapters were not as great as I hoped. I got to the chapter titled 'Before My REI Card - Some Thoughts on Being Single.' The premise of this chapter is her being single and looking up one day and realizing all of her friends were married with children. She says "You guys, who's free for dinner Saturday? Oh, absolutely no one?" (I feel ya, Lauren. Let's do dinner.) She met her now boyfriend, Peter Krause (aka her brother, Adam on Parenthood) five years earlier at an awards show where they held hands walking out on stage and not knowing what their future held. On the set of Parenthood they clicked and started dating. Here's what she has to say:
Last week I opened the car door and one of Peter's golf balls rolled out and onto the street, and I thought, there was a time when this would have been a very big deal. Today my car not only has random golf balls in it, but also khaki-colored sun hats that resemble those worn by beekeepers, an assortment of bandanas, those sunglasses that are only meant to be used as protective eyewear during a racquet sport, and dogeared paperback books of poetry. Now I take these items for granted. Back then, a man's golf ball rolling out of my car would have prompted frenzied calls to my girlfriends: "He left a golf ball in the car. He just left it there. What does it mean? WHAT DOES IT MEAN? Should I text him about it? I SHOULD, right? He's probably looking ALL OVER FOR IT." I wish I'd enjoyed my single days more and spent my free time reading or becoming a better photographer or something, and not worried so much about the meaning of golf balls.
Because here's the thing: I was fine on my own, and so are you. But it can be hard when you feel ready for Happy Couplehood and you seem to have missed the train. As my friend Oliver Platt used to say to me about hopes and dreams I'd share with him: "It's coming, just not on your time frame." I find this a helpful reminder in any number of ways: not only when you're hoping to meet someone, but also when you're waiting for a better job or for some relief during a bleak time. When Peter and I held hands that night all those years ago, I had no idea we'd end up shopping at REI together one day. It might have been nice if he could have turned to me and said: "Look, tonight isn't the time, but we're going to leave here and learn a bunch of things that are going to make this work approximately five years from now--see you then!" But life doesn't often spell things out for you or give you what you want exactly when you want it, otherwise it wouldn't be called life, it would be called vending machine.
It's hard to say exactly when it will happen, and it's true that whatever you're after may not drop down the moment you spend all your quarters, but someday soon a train is coming. In fact, it may already be on the way. You just don't know it yet.I felt like Lauren wrote that to me personally. Love her as Lorelei Gilmore and love her even more as Lauren Graham.
I think back to when I met Joey for the first time and then when I met him the second time which is when we started dating. I have never been able to figure out if it was months or even a year between our encounters. It does however along with what Lauren said, give me hope that my journey thus far has only been setting me up for my future journey. And that gives me a little sliver of hope that things will work out just as God intended.
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