One is the magic number

You sit and remember reading The Sound and the Fury all those years ago. You think of Benjy suddenly remembering Caddie from all those years prior because he smelled some flowers that reminded him of her. At the time you read something else that said that smell memories are the strongest. Perhaps. For you it's always been about music. Long before "Ally McBeal" you believed that life needed a soundtrack. You hear a song and instantly remember a person or place. The soundtrack is the one thing you never doubted, questioned.

As you planned your life, the most frequent question that arose was, "Why?" You asked this in high school as you sat around on a Saturday night playing solitaire while watching "The Love Boat" and "Fantasy Island" and in the back of your head "At Seventeen" played. Later when your carefully made plans went astray, you asked, "Why?" Somewhere along the way you just stopped asking. Sometimes things just are.

This is what you tell yourself every time someone asks you why you've never married. Well, aren't you dating now? And what about kids? You can't go down that road because that just opens up that whole can of whys.

Part of the price of blocking these questions is putting up your guard. Living on the defensive. But you've had way too many years of practice at this and are quite adept. Frankly sometimes you occasionally allow yourself the thought that this is why you are single. Your guardedness. And you remember how it all started, a form of survival. But then you shove it back into that place where all things about which you do not want to think -- or at least not for that moment -- are kept. Besides that's a tale of its own.

And really? Most days you like your life. You like not having to answer to anyone else. You like being able to pack your bag on a whim and leave town on some new adventure. And you realize that this is what gets you past the whys and turn the Jill Scott up a smidge more.