It’s been a quiet weekend, not a slow one, just quiet, a calmness, a lull in the action, a bit of the doldrums. No sex, a few activities, nothing traumatic, yet nothing exciting either. It was one of those times when you start to think too much, about life, the pain you have, the pain you’ve missed, the pain of others, the pains yet to come.
It was a a weekend of sitting quietly on the edge and watching other lives go by. I sat at a table for a church youth banquet as other families dropped in, sat down, and played out their own dramas. Young mothers with missing husbands, old couples who still held hands, another which came in together and didn’t interact for the next 2 hours. They sat at different tables to eat, talked in different conversations, and, at the end, walked out together as if they were strangers in an arranged car pool, merely sharing a ride.
I watched my friend’s daughter work the room, she’s 17 now, beautiful, tall, and a bit of a player. She smiled at all the boys as her mom watched her flit about. She used to be sweet, innocent, a little girl, now she’s sexy, attractive and attracted, and dangerous. She is a girl done wild. But you have to watch. You have to se the changes in her. You would need to know her then, and now. Now, she is a potential mate, a lover, a mistress, a _______. A wife? Eventually, yes. She was so nice a few years ago, she’s nice now, but changed, and her parents know it.
A newly divorced dad comes by himself, the widow hobnobs with her friends that she didn’t have before he passed, and the overwhelmed mom from down the street allows her kids to run crazy for two hours, just happy to have someone else doing the cooking.
So I sit, and I watch, I commiserate in my head with the divorced dad, wishing him well and envying him just a little while I don’t wish to be in his shoes.
I have too much free time to think these days. Way too much time.
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