Point Of View – No Date For The Weekend? Read This!

When You Don’t Have A

Date For The Weekend….
by Lisa Cregier

I had been staring out the window for over an hour.  It was Saturday night, and my ninth one in a row, being home with nowhere to go.  I was deeply agitated, as I stood in the window and watched my neighbor’s boyfriend open the car door for her and kiss her on the cheek, as she slid in.

I had just gotten the news that my best friend’s ex had shown up “mysteriously” and ruined our plans to take in a movie.  I hadn’t had a date in eight months and I was beset with jealousy and disappointment.  I wanted to be out somewhere, and I needed to be out somewhere.  I was fed up with the house, and its familiar noises. 

There were times when I felt like a kid being punished to sit in the corner with no idea when I was coming out.  I remember feeling blue and bored one Friday night when it occurred to me that I had read somewhere that a little exercise can pick your spirits up, and the end result is a “clean high.”

As I began to stretch and touch my toes, while raising my arms high above my head, I began to feel better.  I thought of my friend Annie, who had been in a wheelchair for the last two years, since her car accident, and my spirits began to rise.  After all, I could walk and go anywhere I wanted, and poor Annie didn’t have that luxury.  I recalled the night she called me, because she could find no one to go rent a video for her.  She was so depressed because she couldn’t get into her car and get what she wanted, and here I was depressed because I had no where to go, or no one to be with.

I felt revived, as I stood up to shake myself out of the self-imposed misery I was in.  Suddenly, I looked over at the C.D. player that had lost its appeal last year when the guy I was dating told me he had met someone else after standing me up one night.  I had gone into a music moratorium, because all the “love songs” lost its allure when I didn’t have it anymore. 

I hurriedly looked for and found my Frankie Beverly collection and put them on.  When my favorite jam began to bellow through the stillness of the house, I shifted rhythmically to the irresistible beat, as my thoughts began to churn out all the things I could do at home to entertain myself and be productive at the same time.

With the music blasting loud, I turned to my closet which I had been intending to organize since New Year’s Day.  (It had been No. 1, on my resolutions list)  But I had never gotten around to it.

I pulled out, threw away and tried on clothes I hadn’t seen in months.  I separated slacks, skirts, jackets and blouses, and categorically organized them to fit respectively in their own little domains.

I had so much fun, that when I finished, I did the same thing to my kitchen cabinets.  At the end of the night, I felt accomplished and fulfilled, when I turned off the music.  As I sank down into a cushy chair that I seldom sat in, I thought about the agony I often felt because I didn’t have a man to go places with.  I recalled my past relationship and the genuine care and respect that was absent from it, and how I hung on for dear life, because I couldn’t stand to be alone. 

I decided right then and there that from now on, men would be mere amusements for me to enjoy for the moment and not get attached to emotionally until just cause.  On that night, I came to realize that I could entertain myself and have a great time within the confines of my own space.

The next weekend, I wallpapered my bathroom, did not turn the television on, read all the magazines I had not been able to get to, and sewed on all missing buttons.  By the time Sunday rolled around, I was exhilarated with a new attitude.  I could stay home without being bored out of my mind.

Ironically, I was invited by a cute neighbor to go to a concert the weekend I decided to finally paint my bedroom.  I dropped everything.  I figured that there was always time to do such things.