A Night Under the Stars

It's been far too long since she's had a night where she can relax, shed her worries, and just enjoy herself.

She has been looking forward to the date she made for tonight all week. This is the first time she's done something like this. All her friends have been telling her that she's been working herself too hard, that she needs to take a night to do something for herself. Her friends say a lot of things, but this time, she decided that they were right, and she knew just how to accomplish that goal. So she finally cleared a night in her schedule to go on that date she's been promising herself she would say yes to. She's planned everything out perfectly. It will all happen here, at her place; she will enjoy a beautiful meal under the stars and just be herself for a night.

It's been a while since she has gone on a date, but this will be different than any of those she has been on before. This one is not a mystery. She’s not wondering if it will go well; she knows that if she commits to letting go and keeps her mind open, this will be a night to remember. This will be the first of many more nights like this to come. From this day forward, she will make time to indulge her desires, even if it may not seem like the “practical” thing to do.

She knows there is still much to do before the night commences, so she shakes herself free of the fantasy she has found her mind caught up in for far longer than her schedule allows. She refocuses her energy on the tasks she has meticulously laid out for herself to complete in order for there to be no worries once the time comes.

As she begins to prepare the evening meal, laying out each ingredient that will compose the entrée, she laughs to herself thinking about what people will put themselves through to find love. Her friends use multiple dating apps, all with varying results. One of her oldest friends met his fiancé and moved out to L.A. to live a life of luxury in the California sun with a couple small dogs, a convertible and a fancy house. Another almost made the mistake of settling for the guy who has had a crush on her since elementary school while she was back in her hometown visiting for a week. The last thing she wants to do is end up stuck there, but still, for a moment, she felt so desperate to meet the expectations of her family, that she almost made a choice that she would thereafter regret. A third friend occasionally has meaningless conversations with guys she “matches” with, only to ghost them when she finally learns some ugly truth about their life, or figures out that she was never really interested in the first place, she’s just bored and looking for something to do. Always searching, never finding, what she’s looking for. But then again, if we’re being honest with ourselves, aren’t most of us?

By this point, the meal is nearly finished cooking, with just three and a half minutes left on the timer, and it’s somehow almost reached that time of night. Today just flew by, she thinks to herself. The anticipation has all been building to this moment. All that’s left to do when the timer goes off is plate the meal. For a moment, she’s anxious that her date may not arrive on time. Perhaps it was foolish to think that this was all going to come together. Why would she think that something would go right for her for once? How could she be so - but as she’s thinking this, she drops the needle onto one of her favorite old jazz records and just then, almost magically, she arrives. The worries are gone: she’s clear-headed and dare she say, joyous? She is utterly and entirely liberated, filled with a sense of lightness that she only feels when she is surrounded by music that she loves. Now everything is just so, just as she has planned it.

She pours herself a glass of merlot, picks up her plate, walks over to the table she has already set for herself, and kicks back on her balcony to gaze at the stars.