Giving Thanks

I’ve written before on this blog that I think it’s very difficult to be happy in the present. Usually people only recognize happiness by looking back over their past. Not that we’re necessarily always unhappy in the present, but it takes a bit of time and reflection to realize that perhaps we should have been more grateful, more content, more satisfied with what we had in the moment.

I think this because I experience it on a daily basis. Very rarely do I just enjoy the present, savour it, relish it and experience the joy that is coursing through my body. Instead, I am always looking to the future or mourning over the way things once were.

But you’d think I’d have learned my lesson to be content with the present, because after all, isn’t the present where I’m supposed to be?

I’m thinking about this because I am about to make another detour in my life’s course. More specifically, I am about to move out from Tammy’s condo in Calgary and into my own basement suite in Cranbrook. And this has gotten me thinking about my life here in Calgary with Tam as my roommate.

Miss Tamara Lee is what made my life in Montreal a fantastic experience. She is one of the reasons I cherish the time I spent at McGill. And even if my hopes and dreams for my degree haven’t panned out, my friendship with her certainly has. We lived together for three years out East and I really truly enjoyed every minute of it.

Well, kind of. Looking back now I realize I did. But at that time, I distinctly remember Tam and I moaning continuously about our lack of boyfriends. We sighed, we whined, we fretted. And we always lamented that our lives would be a trillion times better if only we had boyfriends. Boyfriends to entertain us, boyfriends to get us firewood/ice cream/presents. Boyfriends to take us for dinner. Boyfriends to go for walks up the mountain with. Boyfriends, boyfriends, boyfriends: WHERE ARE YOU?!

I think most single girls of that age are very similar. We all want to be in a couple. However, because both Tam and I had boyfriends for probably only one percent of the time we were together at McGill, we instead leaned on each other. We became “Super Roomies” which involved us making some hilarious, often pathetic but nonetheless endearing memories. From day trips to Ottawa and Quebec City to cross country skiing on the mountain to martini swilling evenings on St. Laurent, we had a ton of fun. I just don’t think we truly realized or appreciated it at the time.

So it was with absolutely no reticence that I took Tam up on her offer to become roommates again last January. I remembered all of our fun times and thought it would be a blast again. And it was.

Well, kind of. See, the thing is, this time around it’s been different. And the difference is, we’re older now and we both have serious boyfriends. Why, even our conversations now are different. Instead of bemoaning the lack of men in our lives, we’re just bemoaning the ignorance and idiocy of the two guys that we got.

But it goes beyond that. We’ve watched perhaps three movies together over the past six months, gone out partying together once, and gone for bellinis twice, a far cry from our “do everything together” mantra that we lived by in Montreal.

But this is to be expected. When Tam wasn’t teaching at night, she was with her boyfriend. When I wasn’t in Crannie with Adders, I was on the phone with him. Boyfriends change lives.

And the thing is, having a boyfriend is as wonderful as I always anticipated it would be (although a GAZILLION times harder too). Boyfriends DO buy you ice cream and presents and fire wood. They do take you for dinner. They do entertain you. And beyond that they are (usually) wonderful and delicious and cuddly.

But what I realize now too is that boyfriends are kind of like having a baby. They take up a LOT OF TIME and they change your life irrevocably. It takes so much energy that I never anticipated maintaining a relationship, especially when you’re the type of girl like me, Tam and Charkins. We invest. And therefore we watch and fret and tend to our investment VERY VERY carefully.

So yes, it was different with Miss Tamara Lee this time around. No longer were our Saturday nights filled with peanut butter M&Ms and “Sex and the City.” No longer did we take an afternoon to go shopping. No longer were we scouting for new restaurants to go try out.

And while I realize that this is nothing to be sad over – hell, we both finally got what we wanted: BOYFRIENDS! – it does make me appreciate all the more the time that we did get to be single and just have each other, our girlfriends, to rely on.

I’m grateful now in a way that I never was before that I didn’t have some guy distracting me while I was in high school because maybe then Char and I wouldn’t have the relationship that we do now. We certainly wouldn’t have all the fantastic memories that we made then.

I’m grateful now that I never had a (serious) boyfriend in university because I wouldn’t then have gotten to experience that special time with Tamara Lee and create all of those special memories with her.

I’m grateful now that I didn’t have a boyfriend right after I graduated because I know how I felt when I first fell in love with Adders and wild horses couldn’t have dragged me away to Europe at that time. So if I had indeed met Adders, would I have still gone away to Europe for five months? Doubtfully. And that makes me so grateful that I was single so that I had no problem with heading off on that amazing adventure with my best friend.

However, I am ready now for the commitment a relationship takes and am so thankful that at last I finally do have a fantastic and special boyfriend. I’m just so happy that he showed up when he was supposed to, not when I him wanted to. Otherwise I would have missed out on my girls.

So Miss Tamara Lee, I just want to say thanks. Not only for putting up with me at my worst these past few months and walking and talking with me for hours about this boyfriend of mine, but thanks for even before that. For being that girlfriend that everyone wants to have in college and for creating with me a friendship that is strong and true, with or without the men in our lives.

As for enjoying the present, I am leaving for Cranbrook today. And I am happy. Right now in this moment, I’m so very happy.