How to Date Amazement: Step One: Let him in. Pour him a cup of tea. Ask him about his trip.

I want life to blow the ballet flats off my feet.

I never– ever– want to forget what an insane blessing it is to have Fingers & Toes. Limbs & Ligaments that give me the Great Ability to really plant myself into this earth. Do I have to type here that life is too short? No, I don’t think so. I’m sure we already know it.

Do I take it for granted? Do I take it for granted? Ab. So. Lute. Ly. All the time. More than you know.

But somewhere, somewhere between the same order at Starbucks & the same pencil skirts stacked in a dresser drawer, the same route to work with the same tunes rumbling through the speakers, life–if we are not careful with it–will get “bag o’ cookies left open in the cabinet” stale on us.

We’ll become all sorts of nasty words that Grandma never liked: Frumpy. Mean. Boring. Plain. And dare I say the awful, dreadful “P” word? Predictable. Jeepers, we will become predictable and that is a terrible thing to be in an hour that only gives us 60 measly minutes, in a day where we are only given 24 little hours, in a week where are only give 7 small days.

I am no guru. I won’t teach you the proper etiquette for Eating, Praying or Loving. Me? I’m just a girl who orders a Grande Skim Misto and prefers to shimmy into a black A-line skirt before catching the “must-catch” 7:56am NY bound train while Lil Wayne and Matt Nathanson tag team my eardrums.

And you know what? I am done. Done. Done. Done.

Done with forgetting to look out the window at the sun bowing down behind the hills. Done with being constantly glued to the glow of a computer screen. Done with routine. Done with the “waiting room” kind of life.

I am entering onto the dating scene, people. Yes, yes, this is me stretching on the sidelines, ready to get into the game…

My suitor: Amazement… a suave debonair who skips the choc-o-lates to bring me decadent goodness in the form of leaves crunching beneath my feet and conversations that drift off far into the night.

I have not a clue how to begin dating Amazement. I’m nervous as a prepubescent teenage boy already soaking in sweat before the 6th grade dance because he knows Tracey Bloomingfield will be there and he’s pining to hold her by the waist for just 3 minutes and 23 seconds.

I’m rusty in matters of Amazement. He speaks with a foreign tongue that I’ve long forgotten but I understand him when he tells me that my chances of coming out of this with a broken heart are Skim Latte Slim. I’ll have a fuller heart, he tells me. A heart that is more capable of letting other people in and showing them around.

So I’ll slide my hand down the banister as I walk down the stairs to let Amazement in. I’ll hold out my wrist if he insists on decking the Tiny, Bony Thing with a Silk Ribbon & a few Yellow Roses.

I’ll learn the art of Courtship and Wooing, of falling absolutely in love with life and all its Little Things in second-grader fashion. Making Valentines out of construction paper for fine, fine Amazement. I’ll wear his letterman jacket and wait up by the telephone at night.

He’ll reteach me wonder. Guide me and push me to delight in the things that are often overlooked when there are emails to answer and meetings to get to on time. I’ll begin a new life where glasses are not half full nor half empty. Nothing is overflowing, we all just linked arms, ditched the cups and skipped over to the sprinkler. Sink our knees into the wet grass and let the water spritz into our mouths.

I’ll take it step by step. Day by Day.

Step One: Let Amazement in. Pour him a cup of tea. Ask him about his trip.

He has traveled such a long way, there’s a look of wilderness is his big brown eyes.

Already, I adore him so.