Mind Games

A funny thing happened to me last week.

I went to the local Italian restaurant a few blocks away with the local characters I run with and encountered, after a few beers, a local waitress who wanted me to kiss her. Male companions were all for this, and before I knew it, amidst half-empty pint glasses and plates of spaghetti, I found myself being peer-pressured to do something.

"What is this, high school?" I asked.

"Oh, c'mon," said the perky brunette waitress, (I'm guessing she was a hockey cheerleader back in the day). "I bet you've never even kissed a girl before."

"Yes, I have. My very best friend." I wanted to add that she was far superior to the waitress in every way, but I didn't.

Now, of course, as a mature ADULT, I knew that this peer-pressure was ridiculous, silly, and far beneath me. I knew that whether or not I kissed this girl so that she could impress the boys that had accompanied me and were now harassing me, I would still be the same person and that my worth as an autonomous entity would not be determined by whether or not I pleased this crowd. It was embarrassing, really, that any of us were even entertaining this thought.

But then I did a strange thing. I leaned over to the short, cherubic, twenty-something gal and planted one quickly on her lips. 

Why did I do it?

I am still wondering myself. I could say it was just to shut them all up. To move on. To prove it was no big deal. I could even say it was because I suddenly became bi-curious and wanted to explore my own sexuality.

But then the bartender peer-pressured me into having another drink.

And I said yes once again!

Apparently no no longer exists in my vocabulary.

That is the thing about my new single life. In some ways the anchor is gone. Two years ago I was showering every night at 9pm on the dot and settling into bed with socks on my feet in order to read for half an hour before my husband came in to kiss my cheek and I fell asleep. Last year I was caught in the middle of transition and all routines gave way to crying and exhaustion. This year I'm staying out late on Monday night, kissing waitresses and drinking beer. It's a shocking phenomenon. Could I be experiencing what John Mayer coined as the quarter-life crisis?

I think rather a new chance for identity has landed before me and it is my job this year to embrace it all. I have cast off the numbness of my past and the trauma of divorce and now get to make out with the world.