problem SOLVED

"No lines, no lanes. No walls, no mercy. The newest sport at the Olympics."

        -Steven Munatones

Historically, I was never much of a dater. I have friends who are serial daters (strangely a few girls but mostly guys ... which is interesting, I never thought of this particular phenomena as a guy thing, but I bet it is, which makes sense on SO MANY LEVELS). One relationship ends and they're on the prowl for the next one. It makes sense - its hard to go from being with someone all the time to not being with someone all the time. I think this was particularly pronounced in college when you could spend close to every waking minute together (and I bet some of you floozies that went to colleges that were pits of moral depravity could spend every non-waking minute together too*) and then broke up and found yourself unsure of who to sit with in the dining hall - so you had a few or 10 beers and found a new person to be your person ...

Seems like a vicious cycle to me. Which is why I pretty much avoided it at all costs. Leading my college friends to declare that I'd meet and marry my future husband all within the same year. I claimed to need 18 months, but otherwise agreed with their assessment - I was going to avoid the heart wrenching cycle and just make one good choice.

Well, we know what they say about the best laid plans (actually, I have no idea how that phrase ends ...). My Master Plan was to be single basically until I was engaged and the plan worked right up until it failed miserably. And while the contrast between not single and single wasn't as stark as it could have been or would have been in college there was a noticeable void. So I started running and within 18 months, finished a marathon. I reverted back to being a firm believer in the Master Plan, a Born Again Master Planner perhaps since there was the one indiscretion, but a believer nonetheless and vowed off men entirely because while I believed in the Master Plan, it was apparently hard to execute and until the execution could be perfected it seemed safer to just keep running.

Apparently time and a marathon will heal all wounds because I found myself not single and then single again and this time the contrast was about as stark as it could have been (well, except for the little but persistently right voice in the back of my mind that was sighing in relief and thinking THANK GOD).  To fill this void I did my first triathlon and have reaffirmed my belief in the Master Plan complete with promises to not even get out there until there was a way to know if the one was THE ONE before feelings could be crushed.

But now, I'm starting to waiver.  Maybe, maybe after the Big Race when I have more time I'll at least consider if there is a way to execute the Master Plan with a tolerable amount of risk.  Maybe.  But I need a back up plan in case the Master Plan fails.  Again.

For awhile I was at a loss.  Running and triathlon would be old hat at that point but, given my extreme lack of eye-hand coordination anything involving a ball is out.  And then I read the article in the WSJ about open water swimming (a 10K of open water swimming) being an olympic event ... and I thought, there's my answer.  If the Master Plan fails again, I'll become an open water swimmer because if a participant in the sport describes it as having "no mercy" you'd have to think I'd be good at it.  Ha!  Can you imagine?

If I do decide to pursue a career as an open water swimmer, I can practice every other weekend this summer ... I've enlisted in a shared beach house which is maybe something that I should have done 6 years ago and not now, but whatever, my house mates are all roughly my age, so its fine.  I'm just excited to be spend my weekends laying on the beach, listening to the waves (even if they are Jersey waves and not those of my favorite vacation destination, waves are waves at some point) and I'm thinking of getting this chair. But, given my lack of coordination and heightened startle reflex I feel like I might get stuck IN the chair.  Which I'm sure would do wonders for the Master Plan!

*At my college, in an effort to preserve our morality, there were visiting hours, because we all know that people only do It between midnight and 10 am Sunday - Thursday and 2 am and 10 am on Friday and Saturday, so the rules make perfect sense, right?