By all rights, Labor Day should be depressing; dawn comes later, dusk comes earlier, and lazy days at the beach are, officially at least, over. For school age children, it marks the start of the arduous portion of the year, and for parents, it's a sudden jolt into the harrowing world of schedules and carpools and piles of paperwork cluttering up the kitchen table.
But Labor Day, like the month of September, has its pluses. Despite lingering days of extreme heat, mornings and evenings are cool and comfortable, crying out for sweaters and sweatshirts and all the other cozy outerwear of autumn. By some bygone fashionista's decree, it's the last day on which it is appropriate for people to wear white. Let's face it, most people out there can't carry off your basic pair of white pants, so Labor Day brings with it some esthetic blessings. And, with the onset of the end of summer, there's no longer any pressure to enjoy the outdoors and live life to the fullest, to make the most out of seemingly endless days, or -- and this is a real upside for me -- to fall prey to the passion and fantasy of a summer love affair.
The closest I came to a passionate, fantastical love affair this summer is a second date with a guy on whom I had spilled a glass of red wine during our first five minutes together. I thought it was quite romantic of him to not only call me again but also to refrain from presenting me with a dry cleaning bill. It don't get any more passionate than that. At least for me.
I'm kind of liking my fall fantasy love affair better. I've decided to rule out any man on a dating site who lives within a hundred mile radius of my end of deep dark suburbia, focusing instead on exchanging passionate emails with someone completely inaccessible (in the geographical sense). My latest fantasy man lives in Toronto; even better than having the buffer of over a hundred miles of physical distance, we'd need to pass through customs to actually meet each other. A total pain in the ass, totally not worth it.
To him, I am just a picture, a picture of a radiant, smiling, showered, coiffed (sort of), and made up (again, sort of) fifty-one year old. My profile boasts a somewhat accomplished history of education, careers, and hobbies, and my emails do little to disabuse him of the notion that I am a smart, witty, well adjusted, and forward moving middle aged woman who can't wait to experience the next adventure. Sure, on a good day there might even be some truth to that. But he does not have access to the bleary eyed insomniac, the scared, exhausted pessimist who tosses and turns all night worrying about how she is going to survive the divorce that just keeps on giving. Oops, wait, I did give him the blog site. Hopefully he's lost it.
I'm going to enjoy my fantasy Canadian and his funny emails (which have, on occasion, included silly poems and enticing descriptions of our first meeting), and his adorable photos as long as I can. When I chat with him, I actually feel more like the chick in my pictures and less like the faltering, uncertain little girl who seems stuck in a permanent state of limbo. It feels damn good. I suppose it's fair to say that the real me is just a little bit of both.
So life is good in September. Even if I had white pants I wouldn't be wearing them, and there's some guy out there who doesn't know the whole story yet, who, from across the border, makes me smile. God, I hope he doesn't read this!
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