Panic Years A Survival Guide to Getting Through Them and Getting on Your Married Way

Chapter 1 Confessions of a Panicker Anointing myself the Panic Years Pioneer brings with it great responsibility. To panic in solitude is a lonely cause. But in truth, I panic not in solitude but in solidarity! I walk among you every day without you even knowing it. I sit next to you-eyes averted-on the subway, and stand next to you clawing through the Bloomingdales sales racks. I look like you and I talk like you. You'd never know there was a Potential Fiance (PF) predator among you, but if you look closely, you'll see a stunning little blonde looking into the middle distance, looking for her PF. My cool girl-about-town exterior belies my true inner panic, churning furiously, restlessly, internally. Something has dealt a mighty blow to my happiness-and that something is other people's happiness. The detestable kind of happiness that only newly minted married friends can spew. You know the type-those friends who are married for five minutes and will exult during the salad course, "You have to try this! Marriage is the best feeling in the world!" in perpetual self-celebration. A Self-Pitying Spinster's sanity is but a flickering ember, and the mountain of wedding invitations from her "best friends" is the mighty wind that threatens to blow it out. And so this is where my Panic Memoir-or Panoir-begins. My name is Doree Samantha Lewak and I'm a reformed panicker of the highest order. My journey through the highs and lows of the Panic Years has been a rocky one-inadvertently taking down a few PF pawns along the way-but I can proudly declare myself panic-free, and with this book I want to help you get there too. Allow me to fill in some of the gaps in my panic saga. I'm single and I just turned twenty-seven, which is really just a nice way of saying thirty. Damn euphemisms-let's call a spade a spade, or in this case, a spinster a spinster. I know what I am (just the teensiest bit self- obsessed, but with high cheekbones and even higher hopes to nail down that investment banker) and I know what I'm not (married, or at least sporting a garish, if not killer, 2.1-carat round solitaire that's as blinding as it is show-stopping). I know that I had a boyfriend, who, coincidentally or not, recently booked a one-way ticket to the Middle East and is trying- unsuccessfully, though I must applaud his efforts-to convince me that I'd never be able to handle the unforgiving heat. The poor guy actually thinks the 112-degree days in the shade will dilute my determination to get a proposal out of him. I haven't doggedly practiced saying, "Honey, you know this dry heat really isn't that bad!" for two months only to quit five minutes before the matrimonial miracle. I know that in certain dim light and standing next to a haggard thirty-three-year-old, I can easily pass for twenty-two. I know that perfunctorily going on a blind date with Eccentric Eye Patch Guy-no pun intended-is not helping me keep the panic at bay. And I know-the way you just know when a force greater than you has penetrated the depths of your soul-that the Panic Years have gripped me. It was late 2002, when I was but a twenty-two-year-old effervescent innocent ready to make her mark, that the term "Panic Years" first entered my vernacular. It was a Saturday night and I'd piggybacked onto my sister and her married friends, who had dinner plans (never a good sign). But I was only twenty-two, after all, and not remotely concerned with my romantic status: what was the rush to date, let alone date seriously? I still got away with posing as a high school student to get a discount on haircuts, why would I hurry to settle down when I had the world on a golden string? So when the Settled and Pious (SAP) Mark asked if I was dating anyone, I quickly shrugged him off and joked, "Well, you're off the market, so what else is there to look forward to out there in the dating pool?Lewak, Doree is the author of 'Panic Years A Survival Guide to Getting Through Them and Getting on Your Married Way', published 2008 under ISBN 9780767925990 and ISBN 0767925998.