Lonely and Tired

Travels with Steel

There were times when I wished I had more to my wardrobe than what could easily be packed down to fit a rolling bag that converted into a back pack. This was one of them. A wardrobe comprising of jeans both black and denim, a few assorted black, white and striped long and short sleeved t-shirts and tank tops, a couple of pairs of shorts, leggings, a grey t-shirt dress, a couple of eye-wateringly bright kaftans, two bikinis, one black stretchy skirt, one black sleeveless stretchy dress, a pink soft knit wrap top, a wide lightweight grey, black and blue scarf, a beanie, my expedition grade hoody, a down jacket that packed down into a roll that could double as a pillow, one pair of black ankle boots, one pair of black converse, one pair of black ballet flats, a pair of sandals and a pair of flip flops may have taken me across the globe in all weather conditions but it was not going to cut it for a barbecue with Brian's friends.

I felt like an unstylish lump and the relentlessly self-critical part of me whispered that it was no wonder Eli had decided that being tied down to a thirty year old wasn't the best option in a world filled with nubile twenty year olds who somehow managed to pull outfits worthy of a fashion shoot from the depths of their back packs.

I gave myself a mental shake. It was not a date. I didn't have to look desirable or hot. I needed to look presentable and fortunately for me that was the prime function of my limited, and yes boring, wardrobe. Presentation and comfort.

My decision to focus on presentation over stylishness didn't mean that I just wrapped an elastic around my hair to form a ponytail. No, I pushed myself to the very limit of my very limited hairstyling skills with a braid that edged around my hairline to finish behind my right ear. I'd met a Swedish girl in Munich who'd devoted the hours we'd not spent in beerhalls teaching me that braid. Inge I'm forever grateful. I also slapped on a little bit of make-up, a very little bit not Eli's new girlfriend Ashlee levels of make-up because frankly spending two hours a day applying make-up would have sucked all the will to live from my body.

I sat nervously on the sofa nervously jiggling my leg as I waited for Brian to pick me up. My tendency to fidget may have been one of the secrets to what Cathy referred to as my lucky metabolism. I was just glad I didn't have to think about my weight unless I was indulging in a pity party over me ex-husband taking up with a girl who'd still been in primary school when I'd first met him.

However it wasn't Eli I was thinking about as I flicked my way through the notifications on my phone, it was Brian.

He'd laughed long and hard at my discomfort at not realising that I was a fan of his band, although calling me a fan may have been stretching things a bit. I liked his music definitely but I'd learned my lesson at fifteen when it came to fangirling and watching music videos when, yes Cathy was correct, I'd managed to record a late night music video show over my parents wedding video. I'd hoped to catch the latest video for some band that I'd had a ridiculous crush on. It wasn't long after that when Ryan's first band had actually been offered gigs in places other than my dad's back shed and I'd decided that the girls lusting after him and his friends were idiots. Ryan and his mates hadn't thought so and proceeded to behave exactly how you'd expect hormone filled teenage boys too when presented with a buffet of eager scantily clad girls. Fifteen year old me decided that fancying musicians led to bad decisions and that while the music might be special, the boys in the band most definitely weren't. From then on I only knew what the guys in a band looked like or what their names were if I knew them personally or if they were so well known they made the nightly news.

Brian had laughed and I'd glared. When he finally stopped laughing he'd invited me to a barbecue with his friends the following night. I'd instantly declined in a huff. He brought out the worst in me and his hotness was making me remember his game show hostess hands from all those years ago and regret that I hadn't partaken of 'all this'. And those kind of thoughts were a very bad idea. For some reason he'd decided that he liked me, probably because I was Ryan's sister and he felt sorry for me. After all my interaction with him at the cemetery hadn't exactly established me as the kind of person who had their shit together. Still he'd been persistent about the barbecue.