For someone who has been plagued by a Lemony Snickett series of Unfortunate Events which have somehow spanned my entire 39 years, I’m always surprised by my wilingness to truly believe, deep in my festering heart, that somehow, by some Grace of God, shit will change and that “this time things will be different”. Jobs, dating, my finances, the ability to walk down the street without tripping and falling into a ditch filled with toxic waste. Whatever the situation, I just have this lil spark of hope inside that pushes me to dream of a day when everything in my life doesn’t have to be fodder for a good story. Because it is exhausting having your life be a “good story”. Sure its a great party trick and people seem to enjoy hearing about all the hijinx that any given day seems to throw at me. But I want to know what life is like for people who are able to live “normal” lives, go about “normal” tasks, and not somehow end up having it turn into a situation where you’re driving back from a hike and end up in a ravine helping extract a man from a car that flipped over and is precariously hanging upside down above a creek. And while extracting, a tree branch whips you in the mouth, blooding your lip and causing your postman to ask if you were in an abusive situation. That literally happened to me when I first moved here!! Its really hard to maintain even a semblance of sanity, when everything being thrown at you is insane. And yet, here I am, hoping for the best! I can’t stop myself, even though I know its not going to probably end well, I just have this need to see the good in the situation and believe it’ll be better on the next go around. I’m the goddamn Pollyanna of Dumpster Fires, baby!!

So its with that weird desire to somehow Secret my way out of my garbage existence, through sheer willpower, and the dumb idea that my luck has got to take a turn, that I thought it might be, maybe, possibly, the right time to dip my toe back into the proverbial dating pool and reapply to an intensive writing program in Italy I’ve been turned down for before. I figured, fuck it! I deserve good things! Honestly, this might’ve been my boldest “it gets better” thought yet. To my credit, the writing program did tell me to apply for the next round, which I took as a sign. That maybe my ass was supposed to be in Italy writing at a vila in October instead of April. And obviously, if i’m at a villa in Italy then I’m one step closer to reenacting Under The Tuscan Sun. And maybe it was with that Tuscan horniness and unearned confidence that I thought dating might be a smart idea. Never underestimate the need for human connection, friends. It’ll cause you to gloss over the fact that your dating history has been on a sliding scale from AWFUL to NONEXISTENT. I’ve not had a great experience with dating, like ever. My last serious relationship was about 5 years ago. Before that, it was a lot of wild crushes, short lived romances, and sweeping defeat. Rinse. Lather. Repeat. Moving to Vermont, I tried out Tinder for a bit. In brief, it was not the best. But see, I had moved to this new place and needed to meet people! I felt like I was well and truly getting my shit together and reclaiming my life. I wasn’t working. Learning how to sleep again. Boxing and working out everyday and I honestly felt good. Not great, but like I was on the right path, right? And if thats the case, why shoudln’t my newfound freedom and self respect translate into getting a hearty bone-down from some handsome Vermonter? Sadly, despite many, many first dates, this was not the case. I went on a date with a man who talked to me about his anger towards his mother. I went on a date with a farmer who gave me some real specifics on butchering hogs. I went on a date with a 27 year old law student who didn’t know what a fax machine was and liked to point out how much older I was, which was super fun. The worst though was the Doctor I went on a date with before his rotations. He is a pulmonary dude, so theres no way he’s not going to have to fix my busted lungs at some point, and whoo boy that will suck. If it had just been a drink, I would’ve been able to scramble home with some semblemence of pride instact. It’s easy to peace out after a drink. Instead it was full blown dinner, and I had to drive to Burlington to meet him. I walked up to the restaurant, he took one look at me and I saw his face fall, and the air in the room sucked out. Not in a romantic way. Like in a way that he was trying to remove all the oxygen so either he or I would die in order to escape having to have dinner with me. It was VERY obvious he was not feeling any of * gestures to my beefy goblin physique * this. But homeboy had to eat, so eat we did in the most stilted, painful way. The conversation did not flow. He asked me nothing. Nothing. And I knew there was no spark there, so I basically just tried to ask about him. Ask about the weather. I asked about his gym and what sorts of workouts he did. Y’all I was trying for something, anything, to just get us through the meal without me running into the street so that I could get plowed down by a fleet of Subarus. But he wasn’t engaging. And when the meal was over he insisted on paying in a way that made me feel like he pitied me and that really didn’t feel great. And I realized then and there that sometimes “it being a good story” is better than a really bland, bad date. I can handle people being mean or saying horrible things that I can rail against. But someone being so underwhelmed by me and forcing me to sit in their disgust with them was a bridge too far. I got in the car and sobbed the entire way back home. After that, I had almost come to terms with being a lonely spinster hermit, but the long winter got the better of my judgment, again and I went out for one last hurrah. Thats when I drove an hour and a half to a Rodeway Inn, where I met up with a way out of my league ski-bum NYC lawyer that I had been talking to for a few months, but never had the guts to meet. In a classic Garbage Pollyanna move though, I decided to give it a shot! The odds of him being disgusted by me where pretty high, but life is short and Vermont Winters are long, and who knows, say it with me kids - MAYBE THIS TIME THINGS WILL BE DIFFERENT! So, I went for it…and it was totally fine, mostly fun, but also made me feel pretty bad afterwards. And I never heard from him again. I’d like to believe he got swallowed by an avalanche and died, but I think he just wasn’t that into me. Which, fair. So since that point, I’ve been solo. I’m not seeking anything out, because my pride can only take so much rejection and I’m just out here trying to survive. Which, given this year, has been an uphill battle. But, last fall, I did make a new friend. Which is awesome! There’s nothing that a lonely, weird, pushing 40 hermit needs more than a friend. Well maybe antidepressants and some really good La Mer skin cream. But friendship is right up there. We met through some mutual pals. He was recently divorced and sorta trying to figure out all the new things in his life, and I think probably with me having moved here to trying and figure my shit out, we had stuff in common. We hung out quite a bit when he was in town - we’d go on hikes. Bowling. Drinks. Dinner. He met me at a weird “World’s Fair” in Eastern Vermont and helped me wrangle the three kids I brought with me. Sure most people thought I was being nice, volunteering to take the kids to the fair solo, but the reality was I really wanted to go to the petting zoo, which I had heard it was top notch, and there’s nothing weirder than a solo adult hanging out at a petting zoo alone. Lots of red flags. Lots of questions. So I brought the kids. And this fella met me and helped me wrangle them and divide and conquer on the rickety carnival rides. We also inadvertently wore matching outfits for an outing into the woods where we shot cans and jugs and targets. He took me to dinner afterwards and the waitress wouldn’t stop remarking on how adorable we were. But nothing romantic ever happened, despite basically going on friend dates all the time. He told me he was moving out of state for a fresh start this spring. Which totally tracked and made sense. And the last I saw of him was right before I was diagnosed with pneumonia. We had gone out for a drink and with my lack of oxygen, two glasses of wine did me in and I went home, exchanged a few texts a couple days later, then never heard from him again. I had assumed he had moved and honestly, I was battling my wrist surgery and more pneumonia and I figured Godspeed, friend. I had bigger fish to fry. I did send a text a month or two ago, recommending a restaurant in his new town that a friend of mine raved about and I wanted to pass it along. But no response. I figured he was living his new life and didn’t think much about it…..until last week.

Last Monday I woke up, really feeling my inner Pollyanna, and decided that it was a new week and a new me! I downloaded all the stupid dating apps and told myself that after work I would give it the old college try! And speaking of work, I wasn’t going to let the stress thats enveloping me drag my ass to Hell. Nope! I was going to just force the day to be better. Plow through the sludge and make it out the other side with a smile on my face! And while I was at it, before I left for work, I checked the website of the writing workshop I had applied to, because damnit I was feeling good! Maybe I’d play the lotto, too? Who knows! Everything was looking up, despite it all! And then I saw that submissions were closed and they had already picked the students for the course…which meant I was not one of them. I was bummed, truly, but tried to look on the bright side. Maybe Italy was due for a bad quake and this rejection would be saving my life. Maybe they just don’t like humorist memoirs. Who knows. But I tried to not let it get me down. So I drove down to work. And since I’m still sans a parking spot, despite my Winter foibles, I had to drive up the street, past work, to the free parking area, lest the evil parking gnome boot my car (again). And while I was parking, I noticed another car coming up to park. And that person was the friend that I thought had moved out of state. And after a series of urgent texts to my mutual friends while I circled the block, I found out that lo and behold, he’s been here this ENTIRE TIME. He never fucking moved. I got ghosted by a man I’ve never even kissed in a town of 7,000 people. He must do some serious maneuvering to stay away from me, since this is the first time I’ve noticed him since he “moved”. And since my pride is skating on thin ice these days, I did what any normal, totally functional woman who happened to see a man who disliked her so much he lied about moving to another state would do at 7am while trying to park her car….I waited to see that he was looking at his phone, leapt out of my car, and ran towards work as fast as I could, only stopping to take a puff of my inhaler after I had rounded the corner out of his eye-line. I’m not mad as much as I am confused? Like, how hard is it to say “thanks for the restaurant rec, move was delayed a bit but I’ll check it out soon”? Pretty hard I suppose. So that was a shitty way to start the morning, and the stress I was trying to plow though? Aside from the general chaos, I also had an ornery old man get real mad because his biscuit was cold, and he decided the best way to show me was to put his half eaten biscuit in my palm, TWICE, to prove to me its warmth. It took everything in my power not to lob that gummed up biscuit across the room into his smug face. The nonsense caught me like those sad-sack Wooly Mammoths in the La Brea Tar Pits. Only its me, instead of a giant beast, being bogged down by work and crazy people and indecision. And as I slowly sink into the mire, I remember to take my phone out of my pocket and delete tinder and bumble because, LOL. If being small town ghosted aint a sign not to do it, not sure what is? And in case you’re wondering, I was still, STILL, convinced something had to go right after that hideous turn of events. You see where this is going, right?

After work, I put on a hair mask, because self-care when your life is a cespool is imperative, and decided to pop down to the store at the bottom of my hill for seltzer water and a lottery ticket. I decided not to walk, lest it triggered an asthma attack on the walk back up. I was being smart!!! RIGHT? Wrong. As I was waiting to check out, the man in front of me was obviously on something. His eyes looked like he had double pink eye encased in two inches of ice - he was gacked out of his mind, hands shaking and couldn’t use the credit card reader. When he walked off, the cashier said, “Jesus I hope he’s not driving”. Reader, he was. And as I walked out to my car, wearing sweatpants, holding my seltzer and a lottery ticket that I just knew would turn this shit around, I witnessed Double Pink eye reversing very quickly into my car. He somehow managed to basically parallel park his car directly into the side of mine. I started screaming, “WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK” at him. The cashier started screaming at him. And surprise, he didn’t have any ID or paperwork, and said he needed to leave to get it. The cashier called the police while this was happening, given his state of mind and how he was driving away. We both didn’t think he’d be coming back. He, to his credit did, ID card in hand and with a tree branch sticking out of his driver side door jam(?)…he also decided to high tail it before the police arrived. So I had to stand, in my sweats, with a hairmask on, giving my statement for 30min to the police, while another officer tracked him down to see if he was ok. While I’m talking to one of the officers, the other lets me know that since he came back, its not a crime and they can’t test him for drugs. And then, I swear to god he said, “I think he’s just real slow. Like mentally”. And I responded, “Are you telling me we called the police on a slow person and not someone who is on copious amounts of opioids?”, to which he said, “ITS HARD TO TELL THESE DAYS!”. And with that, I took my seltzer back to my house and decided that maybe I should call it a day.

Because y’all, that was just my MONDAY. One fucking day. Thats my life in general. Any given day is filled to the brim with strange events and disappointment. Maybe its because I’m looking for weird/bad/exhausting things to happen, that they do. Maybe the shit I’m putting out in the universe is causing this nonsense to materialize. Maybe the weird stuff has to go somewhere and I’m the best person to handle it - I’m like that old commercial where they say, “Give it to Mikey, he’ll eat anything”. Maybe thats it! Maybe karmically I’m taking one for the proverbial team. Wouldn’t that be lovely? I hope thats what it is and not that I’ve got a hex on me. Some sort of slow burn witchcraft that will eventually drive me mad. Nope, I’m going to hope for the best. I get the weird because I’m the best person for the job! One day, shit will be different. One day I won’t get ghosted. One day I’ll be able to tell my friends about the Italian writing workshop I attended. One day I’ll scratch off the lottery ticket and see that its a winner. Until then, despite it all, I’m gonna just keep plugging ahead.. And just to be safe, I’ll take a lesson from Pollyanna and won’t climb any trees after a church bazaar. Because the last thing I fucking need is small town paralysis. Even Pollyanna had her limits.