aLwaYs iN tHe "LaIn- LaiN" cAtEgOry?

I told him that i had been in love many times but had been worried about whether I could ever become serious with anyone. If I had continued that way, it would have led to a solitary old age, and I had been very fearful of this.

I dont't think you look to love as a means to a comfortable retirement.

Coelho, The Pilgirmage

Dear jess,

If you can take a snapshot of your life, what would it be? The day you were born? the day you graduate? Close your eyes and imagine with me for a moment a photographic collection of your black and white pictures, almost faded, the one with your mum carrying you as a child, and the one with your first birthday, the one with the wild 21st party or the one with the whole family at Christmas.

The snapshots of our lives that contain people we love, the ones that contain people who've died and left, but forever looking so happy in those pictures, and in every picture, people are always smiling. Rarely if ever at all, do we catch snapshots of tears. I remember when mama passed on, i took pictures of the coffin, i know its madness, but something voyeuristic, if i may use that word, made me do it.,

Whats my point really? No man is an island they say, but even more so for people who are extreme extroverts. For them, us, and me, a short walk to the shops nearby can seem like hours without anyone next to you to express how stupid that guy looks dressed in those shorts, or how beautiful those plants are.. They have a constant need for companionship. Some people are created with the amazing ability to be single all their lives and some people just have the ultimate aim of wanting to get married. But perhaps the worse, or the best, depending on which you are, are the people who have the constant need for companionship (not necesarily romantic) and the high explosive need to be independant- even of the companion, adventorous and just plain mad.

Watching a movie, shopping alone, and even havin lunch on your own feels like a liffetime of torture, and yet the idea of living with one person for the rest of your life is just too much to take. These 'free-spirited' folks confuse people who dont understand their diversed need for companionship and yet independance.

What scares me the most is that the jess i once knew who had so confidently said that she can live without marriage and have a ball might one day become the jess who looks to love as a comfortable retirement. Perhaps if my girl bestfriends who are all in this limbo category never get married, we would start a womans fraternity and live the rest of our old age having loads of fun, drinking champagne's nightly, and traveling the world and when we need a man to come change the lightbulb, well we'll look for one then.

your companion,

jess