I just sent in my final essay for the upcoming anthology IT'S A WONDERFUL LIE: THE TRUTH ABOUT LIFE IN YOUR TWENTIES. It's being edited by Emily Franklin and will be published by Warner in 2007. Emily asked the contributors to write something that fell into one of the following categories: Romance, Finances (or lack there of), Jobs and Career Plans, Family, and Friendships. Well, I decided to tackle romance. It seemed, in my experience, like it provided the greatest cringe-appeal, had the greatest potential for both honesty, humiliation and humor.


So I had to dredge up a long-term relationship from my twenties, and dredge I did. I remembered every awful moment, every tear, every disillusioned thought I ever had that at such a young age I'd met the one. And, in the course of going through it all, I discovered some ironic little details that were so perfect, I'm sure someone will think I made them up. Like the fact that, at a halloween costume party, my boyfriend and I were dressed as a cat and mouse (even if his was Mighty Mouse, a superhero, I still think my black cat was way more menacing than a rodent donning a cape).


It was funny how, when I looked back, it was like a text-book case of what not to do. I was a walking relationship don't, only without the black bar covering my eyes. Not that a black bar would have helped very much. Everyone seemed to know disaster loomed in our future, but I was eternally optimistic. And, when you're twenty-something years old, I guess that's what you're supposed to be. Hopeful. Even if, years later, you realize how hopeless you actually were.