Oh, I just realized. . .

Saturday night I got home from a late shift at work, and I felt . . . hmm, how exactly did I feel? I felt like fighting, like partying, like going out for some drinks and dancing until every particle of stress and care had been flung away from me. I felt like listening to angry rock music and taking shots. I felt like grabbing a guy and taking him home. I wanted to feel like the badass I used to be.

Shit.

So I got home, whipped up mixed drinks for my sister and myself, and got ready to go. I was going out partying, damn it all. So I slapped on a coating of makeup, tousled my hair into a sexy mess, threw on jeans and a decent shirt and left to meet my friends at Piere's, a bar here in Fort Wayne that is more a meat market than anything else. During my overnight shifts in the ER, I have seen more gunshots, knifings, sexual assaults, and simply morons - and they've all come from Piere's. Needless to say, my guard goes up. But there's something about walking into a bar and having everyone look at me that I needed Saturday night. I needed to feel sexy, though I wanted no one there to talk to me, or touch me. It's a double standard ; )

So I sauntered up to the bar and ordered a drink. Then I looked around me: women were dressed as absolute sluts. I can't imagine why men would never take them seriously. The men who were there rain in packs, afraid to look uncool walking by themselves, without a posse to flank them. In short, I looked around with sober eyes and thought to myself, "Shit I'm getting old. I'd rather be home blogging."

But maybe it's not just as simple as 'getting old'. Twenty-seven is not old by any means, but there is a certain maturity that I have reached - stop scoffing - and it's certain that I don't belong at a dive like Piere's. I've passed the point of the one night stand, and the idiocracy of trying to meet someone at a bar. That's right up there with spitting into the wind, in my opinion. So I stood there watching the skank parade pass me by. Some girls looked up at me and glanced away immediately; others stared openly as I, 6 feet of Jessie, and my friends, 6'10 and 6'2 respectively, stood by the bar. It's interesting to watch, really. But I decided that I was not one of those girls anymore, those who measure their sex appeal by how many drunk people ogle me in a given night. There's more to me than that, and I left the bar a disappointed and self-assured woman.

I can't explain that last thought, except for this: I'm disappointed that I'm restless enough to try to measure myself by others, and self-assured enough to realize that I don't need it. Interesting realization, Jess. Perhaps a little late coming, but as long as it happens, that's all that matters.