I love summer but apparently, I'm ready for some football.

I'll just start this out by laying it all out on the table: I am not obsessed with dating. I never have been. I'm a holder-oner (that's On-er, not One-r). I find something I like and I stick with it. If it doesn't work, I get through it and until I find something I like just as much, I carry on. I lay low and don't really push to make a change. It's probably the one thing that I truly believe will happen when it happens. Mostly.

Except now, I'm on some sort of odd outgoing streak. I have been flirting with guys and, dare I say, they have been flirting with me. This is very odd for me. It doesn't happen a lot (and I don't mean this in a bleeding-heart sad sort of way, it's just not my life). I have always been told I'm overly friendly but never in the purposeful, flirtatious way. Not in the way that says "Hi, ask me out." That's so not me. I'm trying to do my best with all this but of course, I have to wonder what is up? What's the deal with all this?

The only conclusion I've come to is that the season is changing and things are a little out of whack.

Which brings me to the real point of this post. Today at work, I was in one of those really great work grooves where you're productive and everything is working just as it should and life is good. Because of this, I worked straight through lunch. I left my chair one time in six hours. By hour seven, I crashed. So, I decided it was time for a walk (obsessed? Yes, MUCH) and left the building. As I left the cool, soothing air conditioning and the sunlight and late summer heat hit my face my mind started day dreaming almost immediately. It was like some sort of switch was flipped.

I walked by people on the street with a big grin on my face never realizing that the light -headedness wasn't from the fresh air but rather from the empty stomach. I just waltzed along as if walking around downtown was my greatest task of the day. Here's where it gets crazy because the day dreaming got out of control. I walk by the jewelry store and glance at the rings. I think of getting a ring someday. I walk by the park and see the kids playing and I wonder if I'll take my kids to that park one day. I walk by the ice cream store and think of my favorite treat because ice cream isn't a dream, it's real! I walk by the people eating a late lunch at the sidewalk cafes and think about the day that I'll meet someone for a late lunch and sit at that very table because the light hits it just right where you're not squinting but you're comfortable absorbing the warmth.

I walk by the sports bar that already has the football posters up and think about how one of my favorite things to do in October is go to a football game and certainly there must be someone out there that is as endlessly thrilled by the sights and sounds of football in the Fall as I am. I walk past the skinny guy playing his guitar on the corner and think about how yesterday, I heard a song on the radio that would be the most beautiful wedding song ever. I consider asking the guy if he knows it but realize that every time I've ever walked by him he's playing and singing Dark Side of the Moon and duh! that's why everyone calls him Floyd.

As I turn to head back to the office, I'm suddenly aware that I don't know how I managed to walk eight blocks without remembering a single step. Was I really that far away? Was I really that lost in day dreaming about things I never, and I mean never, dream about? Who am I? Where is this coming from? How crazy.

So that's why all this odd flirting business is happening, I'm crazy and just beginning to realize it. I don't think about rings and I certainly don't think about kids (especially because two days ago my friend's daughter ran up to me and attacked me with sticky popsicle hands and as adorable as she is, all I could think about was washing that off because yuck!)*. I don't pick out songs for events that may or may not occur and I don't imagine dates that have never happened.

So I blame the coming change in seasons. It's the fact that I have to let go of summer and though that time isn't here, I can feel it and that's almost worse. I realize right now, as I type these words, the value of not being able to see into the future. Yet it's happening. A change is coming and I'm both feeling it and denying it with equal effort. And I don't know why it's making me act so strangely. Maybe I need the change, I need to say goodbye to the season and everything that came with it.

Or maybe I'd just really like someone to take me to some football games this year!


*Apparently, this reaction changes when it's your own child. I find that as frightening as I do comforting.