The music’s blaring, “a little less conversation, a little more action please.” From my place sprawled on my friend Anna’s floor in Benedict with a cosmo magazine, I look over as friend-Anna sits at her computer. With a solitary and understood eyebrow-arch we are on our feet, getting down with our bad, bad selves. It was a glorious moment in the midst of a remarkable, chaotic year. At the time, we laughed at our mangling of lyrics in the already-garbled Elvis remix. Then, we were a whole year younger and could laugh off the total lack of “play” for women like us at Sewanee: Irrepressible, smart, cynical, desperately hiding our charming baggage, and perhaps (I’m ashamed to remark) a little less than Gwyneth Perfect. Yes. The Gwyneth Perfect gets a capital P.
Over the summer, my normal straight-out-of-a-musical summer romance failed to occur; because of that, my already quietly nervous romantic sensibilities were jarred.
School started before I knew it. A sweet freshman girl claimed she had found the perfect guy for me. I was skeptical, but began wearing makeup to class and tried to stop short my verbally incontinent nature should I ever accidentally encounter this mystery man. I wanted to be observed without worrying that I’d be doing something loud, absurd, or anything that might give a clue as to who I really am – why foist that on someone right away and spoil the surprise? Then, there was the inevitable first sort of conversation. “Sort of conversation,” I hear you echoing, and there, I nod sagely. There was no preface to the dialogue, no hello, none of the usual queries about weather or classes. He opened up his rugged mouth: “Did you know that Alaska is four times the size of Texas?”
Followed by much blinking on my part and then – God help me – I tilted my head and replied, “Well did you know that Texas is bigger than France?” It didn’t get any better. Even some nicety inquiring after the health of my parents would have been less shocking. Later that weekend, I told the story to a roundtable of friends over dinner for probably the eighth time and a boy who shall remain nameless, but for artistic purposes will be called Hub Weller – shook his head at me, “Wow, ‘I’m Lauren and my standards are way up here!’” That’s when I realized maybe he was right. Maybe it is expecting too much, desiring to spend time with someone who’s just moderately interesting. I’d rather have dinner with someone I hated then with someone who has nothing to contribute on the way I think or live or even what I order.
It was at this low point, while I wallowed in seasoned fries and coke, that my friends decided I needed to arrange a SWAT team every time I went out on a date. Nothing fancy, maybe a surveillance van or underground lair with high-tech gizmos, but I’d settle for a table on the other side of the room, dark glasses, and a tin-can telephone. From this safe distance, I would be instructed on what to say, how to say it, when to say it, and if to say anything at all. Horrifying visions of Anna smashed on Ruby Tuesday’s Appletinis and hoarsely whispering into the tin can “Take off your braaaa!” and me, staring the potential new boy down and requesting that he remove his undergarments flashed through my head. Our cute waiter Jason shattered the moment, and I proved how desperately I needed a team of experts by thanking him seven or nine times and apparently batting my eyelashes. This would probably explain why he looked sort of a cross between confused and sick to his stomach. It’s okay; he had a tattoo of a rose wrapped around his wrist, and what we thought was cute winking finally appeared to be a permanent facial tic. Me and my standards.
When I was eight years old I had no idea I’d even make it to twenty alive. I distinctly remember leaning against my kitchen counter and asking my mom if when she was small, she’d found the idea of turning twenty an impossible one. This is not where I thought I’d be. I thought I’d be blonder, funnier, nicer, and more honest. I thought I’d be famous by eighteen, seriously dating Daniel Day Lewis by nineteen and retired after critical accolades by twenty.
I thought by the time I was twenty all that my parents told me would have come true and that I’d believe in God with the same seamless strength that they do, and that men would think I was as beautiful and as unique as I’d always been told I was. I thought I would understand the way the world worked, and more importantly, accept it.
What has happened isn’t all that awful. I’m nowhere near as blonde, nice or honest as I’d like, and rather than being famous, I’ve finally come to accept that wanting nothing more than to hide out in a lab is a worthy endeavor. I’ve learned what’s important to me, and sadly it’s not Daniel Day Lewis or any of the bad boys my mother promised would someday see the error of their ways. I just want to get up on time every morning, sleep in on the weekends, and never go to bed without having a good story to tell.
It’s not an easy thing to realize, after a decade of thinking only someone else could make me happy or whole, that happiness is my own choice, but with every rainy day and aimless boring conversation, every good book and bubble bath, I’m reconciling myself to becoming something better than a nice blonde: a strong one.
