On Relationships and Perspective. These Days. (Da' Moes.)

Welp. I've been single for almost 4 years.
(Don't worry, this really is about family... .)

Quick trip down memory lane?

Dating--rather, having boyfriends--used to be one of those things I couldn't stop. A leaky faucet. A routine I fell into. Briefly:

my junior year of high school, I fell in love. We're talking high school sweet-hearts, tear-your-heart-out first love. After we broke-up, relationships--well 2--materialized. Thin air. As though I had a say, but I couldn't say no. Finally, the second semester of my junior year of college (coincidence?), I studied abroad. All I remember thinking was that I needed an island of, well, women. Estrogen. Females! Unrelenting girls'-night-out after girls'-night-out. ...Good thing I studied abroad in Ireland. With, like, 25 girls : 3 guys. (Literally.) Dreams do come true. I did meet an Irish lad, in fact, my first week there. He sang me "Danny Boy" while we drank late into the night and then jigged to Irish war chants with the other lads. (...Also drew tattoos of Tigger's bust on his forearm and joked, "Alrighty then," head bob-n-weave & all, and thought it was clever.) So while I'm proud that I resisted a tempt of fate ... the Tigger bust says it all. But still.

Since then, I have had 1 boyfriend who, after 5 months of dating ... broke my hearttttt: January, 2009. (For all the right reasons, granted. 100%, I've always agreed with his decision. I mean after I told him to go... . But I did. Truly, I agree.) I will spare you the details of all of the unfortunate misgivings which have transpired from there, unrelated to ex-bf. Namely because I need leave something for my memoirs and this post, truly, is about family...

However, 
let me just illustrate the past 4-ish years with this:

First date I went-out-on after ex broke up with me (and began dating--seriously dating--other women: I mean I saw him make-out with someone first and is it not supposed to be the other way around? Yeah "Sometime Around Midnight," you got my number) was, like, 1 year later. 365 daysssss. And you know how this date started?? IN THE PARKING-LOT OF PERINTON WEGMANS. Dude had me meet him in the parkinglot of Wegman's. DIDN'T EVEN GO INSIDE TO BUY ANYTHING. When I asked whyyyyyy he made me drive 35 minutes to meet him in a parking-lot, he said it was because he didn't want his parents to know. (Are we 12???) When he drove me back to the parking-lot 'round midnight, after our date totally flopped (we're talking scolded-me-in-the-RIT-parking-lot-for-poking-fun-at-him-flopped ... what it is with parking lots?/I'm a ball-buster...), he then asked if I wanted to go back to his parents' place? Uuuuummmm.

(Baby boy is lucky we were friends first. Makes it more comical in-lieu-of creepy.)

Think that's the worst of my lack-o-boy-friend-streak? ... bah. That story is to space-trash what the rest of my post-2009 dating-history is to our galaxy: an entire universe full of burning, gaseous globules that spin on their axes & burn wholes into matter which breeds 0 life as we know it! That's my dating history. (Memoir to come.)

So Family. Da' Moes. How?

Creature Comforts.
From Momslin.

These are the luckiest, most blessed days of my life. 

These days. Where I live 15-20 minutes down the highway, the same 'hood where my parents first lived together after moving from Hornell, NY. (F-ing Hornell!) The same street my dad first lived on, in his very first apartment (room) in Rochester. These days. Where, when I'm sick (which is frequently...), I can call my dad to pick me up, usher me out of my front door with my robe (house coat) still on, and swoosh me home before I have one moment to panic.

Where my mother, when she shops at Big Lots, thinks ahead to pick me up a gigantic tin can of chix broth soup & Ritz crackers & my fav V-8 Splash because she'll know I'll never buy these creature comforts for myself. Where, on a Saturday, my younger brother flies to Wegman's to pick-up eclairs that no one needs because my mom, who's at Geva with her best-friend, is already going out to dinner that evening and bringing back desserts. Where my dad, because he and I are the only 2 left to socialize with the lil mister's (Rocky & Klondike) rents a movie ("The Darkest Hour"), mistaking it for getting rave reviews when, really, it's a bunch of 22 year olds running around Russia in their clubbing clothes, and he scolds me for chiding him the entire time the movie's on, but agrees with my critique, and yet still can't turn it off (while warning me not to blog about it).

Where my old brother walks around in shorts (they're boxers ... with pockets) and a plaid robe and bickers back-and-fourth about TV and history--something Paula Deen--and rolls his eyes whenever I ask (beg) for a morsel of food he just sizzled up.

These days.

Today, after Da Moe left to visit his brother in Hornell, John, for work at Geva and Graham, to the gym, it was just Rocky, Klonks, Momslin, and me. Rocky, sprawled between recliner (The Hagrid, if you should know) and love-seat, and Klonks, nestled on the corner of his seat, lounged lazily as Momslin and I bantered throughout "Albert Nobbs" (On Demand) and when that ended, "The Proposal" (cable). Everyone's name is Margaret in these movies, she said turning her brown eyes--still young, younger than mine--onto me. Why's my name so popular with all the meanies? She saucily cocked her head.

While I finished a bowl of chili--homemade so early-in-the-day, the aroma of stewed tomatoes stung my senses 'soon as I awoke--and slurped up the last spoonful, marble rye bread soaking up the sauce, while my Mama and I sat, 5PM nearing, "The Proposal" not yet finished: almost time to start packing my things. I admitted it.

Admitted that I do not want to go home. Home. Where is home? Why--after 4 years in Pittsburgh, 6 mo in NYC, and 5 in Ireland--why is home so elusive. So tangible and yet, fleeting?

I may be single. 27 & single. I might have had--or still have--unrequited love that swings and stings and sours. But I have home. I have my father, my mother, my brothers, my dogs. I have always had them, and despite moves and shifts, illnesses, successes & failures, I still have them.

Someday, I will relish these days. Long for them. Yearn. For the simpler times. When home--Family--was just a half-a-television-show away. I know that someday, I will have my own family, I know. (If not, no bother.) But I will not always have these days. 

These days.