On being an adult.

It's confirmed. Mr. Maybe and I are just friends. No more, no less. I set him up for it - I needed to hear it (or read it, rather) - but it still upset me. Of course we're just friends. We live 8 hours apart and may never live near each other ever again. We dated for a matter of weeks. I got the email at the end of my day. I had been in court for the afternoon, just observing a high-profile trial. I got back at the end of the day and saw his name in my inbox. And when I read his subtle answer to my subtle question, it was clear as day what we were both saying.

I left work and had to go to a local law school to pick up MPRE materials. That was a bigger hassle than it was worth, and I was running late for Tuesday Fun Night, which is supposed to be a weekly gathering of friends to just hang out and touch base. It has fallen off as of late, and I'm only a recent participant, but they are friends whose company I enjoy very much. Fun Night was scheduled for tonight, and I had reluctantly agreed to participate despite a fellowship application due tomorrow and dragged another friend into it. We decided to meet at the liquor store halfway between home and the subway, so he could get wine and we could quickly get on our way. I'm not gonna lie, I was feeling sorry for myself and quite lonely on the subway ride home, and I shed a sorrowful tear or two. When I got to the liquor store, my friend was waiting for me with two bottles of wine. He went into the store to get his keys, which he thought he left on the counter. I went over to his truck and - get this - it was running, and his keys were locked in it. He never does anything like that. He comes out and I indicate the problem to him. We have to wait for a locksmith, we're going to be a little later than planned for Fun Night. I even tried breaking into his truck with a credit card. (Where are my kids when I need them?) So he puts the wine bottles in the brown bags in the bed of his truck, pulls down the gate of his truck, grins, and says, "Wanna have a seat? let's be even more ghetto." I hopped on, kicked my legs and said, "What's even better is that this feels like home." While we waited in the tiny parking lot of the liquor store in the middle of the city with rush hour traffic all around, I told him a story.

Two nights ago, I read my tarot cards. I do that every once in a while when I start to lose my balance. People think different things about tarot cards, which is fine. What I will say about them is that when you read your own, you give your own spin to each of the meanings of the cards. If nothing else, it will indicate to you more clearly what you're feeling and thinking, and where you feel like you're headed. It doesn't necessarily tell you the future. It just tells you what you already know. My tarot cards have never been wrong. I read my cards twice, for different but related questions. The second reading stood out for me more than the first did. Both readings indicated that the center of the question was a smart and skilled woman selflessly offering her help to others. The second reading told me that there was a recently passing phase of lust, and that I'm starting to enter a phase of anxiety about jobs and economic status. There was a card that indicated I was blazing my own path according to my own sense of reality and my own values. There were a few other good cards in there, but the only other one that I remember clearly was the last one - the "answer." In the end of all of this, I will achieve spirital fulfillment, contentment, and bliss. That's what awaits me. What's odd is that I had inquired specifically about the possibility of future romances. Not one card in the entire spread indicated it. Let's review. Selflessly giving to others, spiritual fulfillment, my own little world, no intimate relationships.

All signs point to "nun."

And all I could think about on the way home today, as I felt sorry for myself for losing some really good lust, for having no dates on the horizon, for feeling lonely and unemployed and looking at my 6th consecutive single birthday, was that spiritual contentment card and Bill Murray in Caddyshack: "So I've got that going for me, which is good."

And we swung our feet and talked about the crises in our friends' lives and then the locksmith came and charged an exorbinant amount of money. We proceeded to Fun Night. Dinner was perfect. Excellent chianti. Yummy pasta and garlic bread. Apple pie for dessert. Sprinkled among it all was just good conversation with good friends. Serious conversations but a lot more laughs and stories. An ex who is getting married (and for once, it wasn't mine.) Picking up and moving across the country for a fresh start. Remember when? An adorable black cat sprawled across a lap. Three single women all trying to rid themselves of a recent man, one single gay man, one straight man seriously dating someone, and a married man who was the same person that I remember when we hung out in college. And when I left, walking down the street with two friends to our cars , I said exactly how I felt.

"We're all gonna be ok."