No Wine Before It’s Time
Copyrighted by Lorna Tedder. Originally published in Third Degree Ebb and Flow.
I’m making huge progress tonight on finishing a special project that’s been floating around for over a year now. In fact, it should have been done a year ago, but for some reason, it was delayed.
I didn’t understand it then. Why the delay after all that wonderful effort? It was so meant to be! And yet, things kept it from happening on the time schedule I wanted.
What’s happened in the past year is that some new information has come along that I’ve added to the work- in-progress that I’d thought was the work-that-had- progressed-to-done. And what I’ve added makes it a stronger result, with longer-lasting effects.
I guess it was still fermenting.
I took a short break tonight and suddenly realized that it’s a Friday night. I had not even considered anything social tonight, though I enjoyed last night’s mind-puzzle movie, The Prestige. But because I played last night, that meant working tonight to get this project out the door on Monday.
So I was caught off-guard by the realization that I’m into the weekend and hadn’t made any plans whatsoever other than home and project stuff. There’s a mind-set my generation has that you should be “out” on a Friday night, or if not, resting up for your big Saturday night. Sometimes that seeps through and surprises me.
I don’t know which bugs me more—that I’m not out and about and being social on a weekend night or that I didn’t even think about it.
That’s when I sometimes get this quiet but definitive wave of wishing I had a partner on this Friday night to sit with under the stars and listen to night birds and talk about…everything…and end up making out in the grass or snuggling in the hammock.
The devil on my shoulder whispers to check out the men online or just call someone but with a few cleansing breaths, I can usually regain my serenity and skewer the little bastard on my shoulder. The online dating sites are definitely not for me, not any more than the bar-and-club scene. I really don’t think I’m going to find anyone special hanging out in any of those meat markets, and even attempts at male friends on line have, for the most part, been disappointing.
Guys don’t seem to understand that when I say I’m looking for friends, I mean I am looking for people to talk to about common ground and share experiences as friends and without the romantic trappings or any intent of sex, ever. The guys who say they’re looking for friends mean they’re looking for someone to have sex with without the romance and without any semblance of a relationship. Friendship equals no-strings sex? Oh. Talk about a major misunderstanding and disgust on both our parts. I clearly did not understand the definition of friendship, but that’s my romantic side, I suppose.
But the occasional bout of loneliness is still not enough for me to settle for less than I desire in a partner, even if that means it takes a while.
Still, I’m making huge progress on finding someone special enough, even though that idea’s been floating around for a couple of years now, since my divorce. In fact, I would have thought I would have been done finding someone special a year ago or more, but for some reason, it was delayed.
I didn’t understand it then. Why the delay after all that wonderful effort? I know I’m not meant to be alone. I’m too loving not to share it. And yet, things kept it from happening on the time schedule I wanted.
What’s happened in the past year or two is that some new experiences have come along that I’ve added to me, the work-in-progress that I’d thought was the work-that- had-progressed-to-done. And I’m sure that the partner I long for has been going through his own unique growth experiences. And what we’ve added will make for a stronger result, with longer-lasting effects. I’m feeling really good about where I am now and what I’ve learned and how far I’ve come.
But wherever my partner is, I guess he is still fermenting, too.
First, a proofreading note: your title is correct if it means “No wine before it is time.” If you meant the wine’s time, counter-intuitively, the word you need is “its.”
Now that that distraction is out of the way, I wonder how to tell whether I’m fermenting, or just not doing what I need to be doing. I have been having some false starts myself, but with finding or starting a spiritual group rather than with romance. I’m not sure whether the answer is to be more patient or more persistent.
Actually, I did mean it as a contraction, not a possessive. I wasn’t concerned about the wine’s time as much as my own and it being time for some new adventure or project. If you’re looking for typos, you’ll definitely find some in older articles such as this, which were transferred in bulk to this site from an old document–some of the hyphens still show but I decided it was more important to make the articles available than to make sure they’re 100% typo-free.
I had similar false starts with starting a spiritual group, but really, they were all different groups. The first 3 or 4 didn’t suit me as well. The one I started 2+ years ago has become a sweet family, and I treasure my times with them. The right people had to be available at the right times, and until this group came along, I was attracting the same kinds of dramatic, control-freaking people. I changed my mind about what I was looking for and then it all fell in place.