All along. October 29, 2007

Confession: I never thought I’d be married before thirty.

In fact, my idol when I was younger was my mother’s good friend Celia, a kick-ass forty-something litigator with an apartment overlooking Central Park and a string of men practically groveling to marry her.

I thought I wanted Celia’s life: the Big City, the Big Career, the Big Rock she bought for herself and wore on her right hand, the Big Apartment, the Big Bank Account, the Big Social Life.

When I first moved to New York, that’s what it was about. It was about moving up the ladder in the entertainment industry, about dark corners in small bars with strange men, about working my ass off and partying just as hard, about short skirts and high heels and numbers written on napkins stuffed into my clutch. Right next to the condoms.

I wasn’t a slut but I wasn’t exactly discerning either. When you’re not on the hunt for a husband, dating takes on a whole new spin. It becomes about who can give you the best time, not who will raise your children to be upstanding citizens.

M, of course, changed everything. I mean everything. It was like I was viewing the world through a kaleidoscope of hedonism and then he gently took the kaleidoscope away and suddenly everything was clear. And suddenly the hedonism? It didn’t look so pretty.

It’s hard now, sometimes, to continue to define myself as someone who is engaged, who is in a serious relationship as opposed to defining myself as the ambitious hot shot who danced on bars until 4am.

It wasn’t until my relationship with M that I became the Girl With a Stack of Hidden Wedding Magazines. Also, the Girl Who Would Rather Cuddle and Watch a Movie Than Go Out on Saturday Night. I can’t help but think that the Clink of a few years ago would roll her eyes and say, “so, you’ve become one of them. How pathetic.” Them being, of course, people in relationships.

She would, however, be very proud of how far I’ve come in my career. So suck it, Clink of a few years ago.

This past weekend I met up with a friend from the Old Days, a friend who still looks at New York as her own personal playground. A friend whose misadventures in dating had me open-mouthed and wide-eyed over brunch. A friend who still inhabits the universe that we used to inhabit together, before I departed for Relationshipville.

There is no keeping a foot in each world. I tried, for a bit. It’s damn near impossible.

Like I said, M changed everything. M made me want to be a better person. M made me want to be a wife. I look at him and I see a future quite unlike Celia’s. I see a lovely suburban home and adored children and an all-around wonderful existence that does not include dating a few men at a time and going out five nights a week, waking up hungover and unable to remember half of the night. I see happiness. Hell, I see a Mommyblog.

Sometimes I get jealous that M met me at 32, after he had gotten a whole lot of living out of his system. I met him at 23 and was a bit blindsided at how quickly my world took a turn for the domesticated. I actually think (caution: random logic at work here) that part of my jealousy issues stem from that. I was thrust from a world where I didn’t trust men as far as I could throw them (but damn, they were fun to be with) into a world where I was asked to trust someone completely, with my fucking heart. Conclusion: not easy.

I still miss my old self. I even thought of pulling out some of my old clothes and putting on red lipstick and going as 22-year-old Clink for Halloween. She was fucking fun and carefree and uninhibited and unconcerned about anything other than the moment. Right now, I tend to live in the future and go to bed at 11pm, even on weekends; planning a wedding will do that to you.

I miss her, and I’m glad I was her for a time. But, for the most part, I’m glad that time has passed.

“Who knew?” My friend said to me Sunday afternoon, as we sipped wine at noon (some old habits die hard). “Who knew that what you have now is really what you didn’t know that you wanted all along?”

Truer words have never been spoken.