One Away

I was sitting on the train yesterday, having just had all these conversations with friends who are adding to their families, or getting married, or working their dreams jobs, and I was having a sad/contemplative moment. I look up and see a cute guy (one whom I've never seen since I was taking an earlier train that day). We made eye contact so I smiled briefly and looked away, out the window, blushing. Let me stop right there and address the skeptical look on your face. I am shy. I am loud and obnoxious and outgoing, but when it comes to attractive men, I am socially awkward, blushy and ridiculous.

As I looked out the window contemplating my utter lack of charm, I thought about how comfortable I am in my new (slimmer) life, and how I want to be moving forward and start thinking about adding people to it. Let me say that I'm happy in my life and perfectly content to be single, but I'm no spring chicken (as they would say seventy years ago) and I need to start being a little more pushy in getting myself out in the world if I want things to change.

I had never seen this cute guy before, but I had never taken this train before. I suddenly had an epiphany that all it takes is one moment to change your life. In the past few years this has manifested in a negative way. There have been moments when things change in an instant and they've all been bad. But this doesn't have to be the case. It dawned on me that life can be changed for the better in an instant too. Maybe that smile could have turned in to a conversation, and a date and on and on. Maybe (as was this case) it was just a nice moment and nothing more.

I spend so much time on the same trains, and in the same bars, going to the same events with the same people, and obviously it's not moving me forward (surprising that hanging out with all married/attached friends isn't helping me in my relationship search, huh?!). My routine makes me feel like I'm so far away from my future; but really I'm just one change away from everything I've dreamed.

So what can I change today?