Paradise Lost. . . or My Vivid Imagination

Last week I was in paradise. Literally. Heaven on earth. Maui. It’s beautiful and I loved it. I was there for a legal conference, so my sightseeing was rather limited. However, what sights I saw, I fell in love with. More on that later, and possibly with pictures.

I wrote a whole blog about the bane of my Hawaiian existence. However, upon review, I decided that jumping into such a description without describing or giving equal time to the majority of my trip – that was wonderful – would be to present a skewed perspective. And I’m all about being fair and balanced. Okay, that’s not true, but it sounded too cranky. So let’s just go with this: bald/shaved-head men with goatees and ubiquitous Hawaiian shirts who walk up to me, nudge my arm, and say, “Hey Good-Lookin’” present in me a fight or flight response and set off my creepy radar. Enough on that. I could go on, but I won’t.

On the brighter side, I got to hang out with Pitbull, Leo, KK and T-Money. And various other of my favorite Blackstone people who showed up in Hawaii. What were we doing there? Recovering the rule of law. My new favorite rock stars? Wayne Grudem (why religion and politics absolutely should mix), Paul Clement, and Elizabeth Batha, to name a few. Seriously. Rock. Stars.

This trip was an interesting experience for me. Usually when I travel, I travel with other people. While I knew several people who were going to be at the conference, I travelled and made arrangements on my own. I’m not going to lie and say that I never was lonely, but I generally was not. I am slowly (and by slowly, I mean glacially slowly), learning happiness right where I am, and in who God made me. It helps that, the older I get, the funnier I get. My point? I went looking to get my CLE credits, see my friends, and enjoy myself. I was not “on the prowl,” as I believe they called it in 1982.

Imagine my surprise, then, when on Day 2 of approximately 6, I locked eyes with a contributor to the conference, and felt that electric shock. I had to force myself to stop staring at him. In my mind’s eye, his response was the same, and he had to force himself to not look at me while he was talking, so as not to get distracted. But every once in a while, our eyes would meet, and it was electric. Or. . . I have a very vivid imagination and I had been locked up in a conference room in close proximity to the Annoyer for far too long. And he didn’t look at me because he couldn’t figure out why I had a half-dazed, drooly face going on. One or the other.

If I were a normal person, this is the part in the story where I explain how I couldn’t wait until the session ended so that I could introduce myself, we would immediately be smitten, and love would be in the air. I’m not a normal person.

Did I introduce myself? No. Ever? No. In retrospect, it seems silly. I could have introduced myself in a very professional manner (despite my penchant for being barefoot, I am capable of professionalism in short bursts), and then just moved on. But that’s not how I roll. Part of me just didn’t want to go there. Not that I didn’t want to meet him, but I wasn’t there to be all giggly and preoccupied. And he was there to do his job.

And here’s the real crux of the matter. A lot of people at this conference were married. And if you think women are in the minority in the legal profession, try being a single female attorney allied with a Christian legal organization. There just ain’t that many of us. It’s not that they’re sexist, the women just tend to get married and have babies. And that’s not bad, it’s just not my story. And I’m good with that.

I’m happy where I am, and with who I am - possibly for the first time. Am I content to be in the same place forever? No. But right here, right now (wherever that is), I choose happiness with where I am. And running around following some guy like it’s church camp just isn’t going to work with cultivating contentment. I was even talking to Kam’s fiancée about how, yes, I do want to be married, but it’s not the idea of marriage that I’m after, it’s the relationship that ultimately makes me serve God better that I want.

So you think I’m going to tell you that I never really saw him again after he spoke, and how I’ll always cherish those few electric moments. To the contrary, he seemed to sit at an adjacent or nearby table at every group meal for the rest of the conference. And what’s more, he spoke to the people next to me at the end of the final banquet. By then, I was at least going to introduce myself, but it was one of those things where they kept talking so long, and I wasn’t in the conversation, and it would have been awkward to wait around. And I had other people (who I actually knew) to talk to and say goodbye to. So it didn’t happen.

Opportunity lost? Maybe, maybe not. But I’ll tell you this: I don’t regret my time in Hawaii. Not one minute. Okay. Maybe that minute where I was car sick. Violently. But other than that, not one. But the next time I run into him, I’ll at least introduce myself. It’s really the only polite thing to do.