I’ve never been in a relationship over Christmas, so I don’t really get the woe is me singleton holiday stuff…It’s the whole ignorance is bliss and I don’t know what I’m missing situation.  But I do often wonder how a significant other might fit into the rigamarole of the holidays. Since my brother spends every other Christmas with his wife’s family, I am in the business of forging my own traditions with my parents that involve fancy French dinners, Christmas morning hot tub parties with mimosas, jigsaw puzzles, classic children’s books and hot buttered rum (and sometimes tequila shots. Sometimes) And in the midst of all the eating and the drinking, and the puzzling, I sometimes start to wonder “how will another person fit into all of this?” And the answer to that rhetorical question is “flawlessly” because who wouldn’t want to partake in a Christmas morning mimosa hot tub party? (if you just answered “well, I wouldn’t” we probably aren’t soul mates… sorry.)   And then after I have this conversation with myself I start to wonder if my chronic singleness has maybe left me with an unrealistic ideal of who is actually still out there? (Per my friend’s mother, if we don’t get online immediately ALL the men are going to be gone.)  I mean, I’m not exactly a hopeless romantic… but I think sometimes people easily confuse women with high standards, who are confident and know what they are looking for in a partner, with women who are delusional and way too picky with expectations that can never be met… It’s a fine line people, and although I’m pretty sure I’m on the high standards side of things, I do have a few moments when I start to think  “well am I just being too picky?”

And then I realized that regardless of what my perfect daydream ideals are for my future partner in crime/ life/ shenanigans  in reality, it all boils down to Chemistry.  (For the record those daydream ideals involve a guy who is willing to fly across the country to spend my 30th birthday with me eating hot dogs at Fenway park, who is going to help me build a compost bin, and who is equally if not more excited by the fact that I’m planning on planting an entire raised bed of Padron peppers in the back yard. He is also the type of guy who will occasionally take a yoga class with me on Sunday mornings, and though he will not be invited to book club meetings, unless we are hosting and he is making appetizers, he will definitely appreciate the fact that sometimes I have to stop and read him a sentence I just underlined and just swoon over the language…But I digress.) I’m enough of a realist to understand that I might not find exactly all of these qualities in one human man, and its not like I’m going to throw down any ultimatums of “Its Fenway Park or its over” Because, if I’m ever that girl, well then TERROR… and I am totally open to the potential of falling head over heels for someone who doesn’t really care for baseball or gardening or making appetizers for my book club… because like I said, its all about the Chemistry. Chemistry with a capitol C. And though it might be a little unrealistic for me to be holding out for a bulldog tolerating, Red sox loving, yoga doing gardener, I’m not going to settle for anything less than fireworks.

I know… you are probably thinking, how did we get from “Reflection, post-holiday let down, introverted recovery and magic to here?”  (welcome to the inner workings of my mind… grab a map, you might need it) Well, in short, because magic. Because regardless of how many bad dates I go on, how many holidays I spend forging traditions for one, this time of year always reminds me that magic is possible. That epic love stories do exist, that the best lives belong to the quirky and interesting independent souls who are out there doing their own thing. And though I am ending 2014 just as alone as I started it, I’m still everly optimistic that there is an awkward pimento out there to be my counterpart. And in the meantime, I’ve got a bulldog little spoon, a back yard full of garden potential, some amazing friends, and a life that is going to be abundantly full of adventure (and awkwardness).