Picket Fences

One of my college roommates is pregnant.

She’s going to be a mother, a grown-up, someone who is a responsible adult. I can’t even remember to water my plants and she is going to be in charge of another person’s life.

Of course I’m excited. When she told me I was completely silent for approximately a century. I was in my car and may have blacked out for several seconds until the person behind me gave the signature Los Angeles hello by laying on his horn. I came to and said the usual excited, reactionary things, “Oh my gosh! I can’t believe it! Congratulations! I have sweaty palms! Can you name the baby after me?!”

And of course I cried.

I always cry. Which is strange. I’m not a big crier but over the years I have found that when my best friends call me with big news my first reaction is to burst into tears – leaving them confused and a little annoyed at stealing their thunder.

In college, one of my roommates told me she was engaged as we were standing in front of the chicken nuggets at Dining Services. I collapsed in a puddle of tears so obnoxious that one of the DS staff handed me a napkin and awkwardly patted me on the back as I kept repeating, “I am just so happy…I am just so happy.”

Over the years I have celebrated life-changing events with many friends. And as the celebrations pile up I would like to think I have become more tolerant, more pulled together, and not such a crybaby. But it has actually gotten worse.

After a good deal of soul searching I think I’ve pinned down the reason for all the tears. It’s not an overwhelming happiness that brings on the waterfalls (although I am happy.)

It’s a sense of loss.

After my sentiments about how excited I am, how proud I feel, how they are making the right decision, I hang up and there is a silence that follows. In this silence my loneliness is palpable.

It feels like I am losing my friends a little more every time their life moves forward without me. It makes me realize that I am sacrificing something to live here in Hollywood. By pursuing what I need to be pursuing I am missing another part of my life.

I want to be there, screaming and jumping up and down with my friends instead of being alone, in my car, making the person stopped beside me think I’m having some sort of a seizure. I want to be there to hold hands, to button up wedding dresses, to buy a house next door to my friends, have millions of children who will one day marry each other, and live happily ever after.

Instead I’m in Hollywood where my closest neighbor is the creepy guy who takes out my trash without asking.

Usually it’s fun to be the friend who is single and adventurous, and pursuing her career. The friend who doesn’t need marriage, or a guy, or a family, or a stable job. She has her dreams!!

It is only in my friends’ exciting announcements that I feel that I’m missing something. The sense of loss comes rushing in, overwhelming me. It is only then that I allow myself to grieve over what I’m giving up.

And yes yes. I know if that’s what I REALLY want I can pack my bags, move back to the Midwest, snatch up the first home-grown boy I see and makes lots of blonde-haired blue-eyed babies. And someday I will.

Someday I will trade in my picket lines for picket fences (okay, I’ve never been in a picket line but I just couldn’t pass up that great play on words – plus the sentiment is the same.) Some day I will live closer to my family (I promise, Mom) and raise kids, and have a backyard with a grill and a dog. But for now I want to live in a an apartment with no backyard, a creepy neighbor, and no grill. I want to have long phone calls with my friends and try and get through the momentary feelings of loss.

Because if I moved home I would lose something even bigger.