May

Mayday: I had a lot of expectations for my date scheduled for the first of May; how could I not, coming off of The Month That Ate All Other Months? I had a nice time, but I asked the wrong questions and got very long answers. And when he asked me, 45 minutes into sharing a pot of tea, "so, tell me something about YOU," I couldn't think of anything I wanted to say. The sharing window had passed. He asked, was I doing anything after this, would I maybe like to go to the zoo, and I said perhaps some other time.*

*This is a pet peeve of mine: the afternoon beverage that could presumably turn into an invitation for an evening date. I have places to be, people. And even when I don't: I'm planning to go home and recover from the stress (good or bad) of this first date. It's booked. No fair springing a new invitation when I've pumped myself up enough only for the time we have planned. I'm going to say no whether I like you or not: why put me in that position at our first meeting?

There were some other beverages and chats that went nowhere productive, and I didn't mind so much because the calendar was still thick with activity. I wrote at the time: "I am getting choosier. I no longer feel the drive to date solely for the hell of it, to see what happens, and to 'get myself out of the house.' I've found a better balance of calling on my friends, and work has just been crazy with events. When I have free time, I like spending it on my own these days."

On my own I raided the annual friends of the public library booksale, scoring some sweet panoramic photos of Houston in the early 1980s. I tore through three seasons of Parks and Rec on Netflix. And I jinxed a horse at the Kentucky Derby. At work, I wore heels well into the evenings: guest lecturers and fundraisers and various spring networky type events.

By the end of the month I was seeing a lawyer with some regularity. And even in the thick of that, I felt sad. I knew we weren't communicating very well about feeeeelings and I thought that was probably ok because I wasn't really having any feelings anyway. I thought: keep it light, go through the process, etc. etc. I thought that maybe we would be able to talk and draw each other out of our shells, if and when it became necessary. And that's how I learned about The Disappearing Act.