Since I was a child I was always searching for that thing - that thing that would make me happy, complete, loved, electric - searching for it outside of myself, and outside of what I already knew. I find myself searching still, even when somehow I know it’s not going to be found out there, but in here in me. The grass isn’t greener. It’s just more grass.

I was the mascot for my parent’s company coed softball team. I was happy. I was special. I was 6. I was among the adults, in territory that seemed so mysterious with its coded adult language, there were no elucidations to make me, a child, understand, and yet I felt like I understood. This was what I thought I wanted—to feel like I belonged where no one else my age, like me, belonged.

My first real boyfriend lived fifty minutes away. He was a year older. He wasn’t like any of the boys I’d known my entire life—the ones who knew me when I kissed Cory under the mistle-toe in 2nd grade, who knew me from grade school, who knew me from my very awkward adolescence. I was 16 and still seeking out my identity, my future. There was that distance over which our words traveled more than our bodies and the phone receiver that craddled new love, as much as a phone call could hold. Those conversations were my joy. I was happy. I was special. This was what I thought I wanted, because I had something that no one I knew had.

Then there were those words from another boy trying to be a man. Later. They made me happy. “I need you. I want you. I love you.” I felt special. Two months and it was over. Those words, all of his words, were repeated to someone else, and would be said over and over to other women. He just couldn’t help himself. He fell in love so easily, so quickly. And I could always forgive, but I didn’t feel special. I was one name on a list of names.

There was that year I stopped dating, took time for myself. I felt empowered. I made a decision, a healthy decision and didn’t waver… well, except for the guy in the hottub after a friend’s wedding, but not much happened, and it wasn’t a date. I was still desirable, and I didn’t need to be, didn’t need to force it. That felt good.

The first vacation with my husband, before we got married, was a road trip to northern California. We swam to the center of the lake where the wooden platform floated, and we sunned--wet, laughing, in love. It was someplace we hadn’t been before, but a place that had been before our coming and would keep on being after we were long gone. I felt special. I was happy. This was something no one else at that moment had.

I look at where I am today, and I want something else, someplace else. I long for the unknown. The possibilities waiting to be discovered in the getting-to-know.

Is this common? Does everyone feel this at one time or another? I’m not sure, but I have this strange suspicion that I’m just like everyone else. But like that child I was, I want to feel special. I want to be happy.