It seems like everyone these days has written a book. I just never thought I'd be writing mine.

Chick Lit. The newest craze. Started, by either Candace Bushnell or the Bridget Jones' Diary...I'm not sure which. Today, as I was standing in Barnes and Noble, trying to buy a "fun" book for a friend and looking for one which would cause her to say "Oh My God! That's Us!" I realized there isn't one that's us. Or at least me. Often times in the last two years I've read "Chick Lit" or seen shows and thought, "If I wrote a book about my last two years, people would be crying, laughing and trying to figure out Fact or Fiction." However, Bandwagon jumping has never been my forte. I was always one to root for the underdog and then, once I a sufficiantly cheered them on to the brink of victory, I'd jump off the wagon and choose, the underdog. Perhaps it is this exact train of thought that has doomed me from the start. Perhaps it is this pattern in my life that has me sitting down and writing my story, our stories. Somehow I guess, I'm looking for validation in that someone might read this and go, "Oh My God! That's Us!" Then at least my friends and I will know we aren't alone.

I think my biggest reason is to keep women from turning out like me. I, like other friends of mine and possibly lots of women all over, loved to play make-believe growing up. I remember being upstairs with my friends, pretneding I was a successful business woman, with a terrific boyfriend, a great car and a nice apartment. We picked names we wished we'd had, picked famous people to look like, who our boyfriends would be, and how old we were. I was ALWAYS 25. It just seemed old and sophisticated. Sometimes I had kids and was married, some times not. My friends and I would meet at a bar after work. Some how, at 12 or so, that's just always how it played out. We'd catch up and our boyfriends would join us later. Life was wonderful at 25. As least, that's what I thought when I was 12.

As I got older, and approached 25, I began to feel a bit disappointed. I was living in a great townhouse and had a pretty decent job. Not a great car, but I didn't pay for it and it ran. I had a non-boyfriend I couldn't admit to because, even though in hindsight I loved him then, he was still attached to someone else and we hadn't admitted to ourselves that what we were doing really resembled a relationship. It just wasn't completely the way I planned it in my head, when I was 12.

Twenty-five came and went. I began to get over my disappointment because I was happy and in love. It still wasn't perfect, but the only thing that wasn't great was the car. I decided I could live with that.

The thing we forgot to "pretend" when we were 12 was the "boyfriend" you are in love with leaves you for another woman because she's pushier than you are and he has no tolerance for static in his life. We didn't play out scenarios that included packing up a house and quitting a job because you are devestated and it takes every ounce of your being to even get out of bed to pee. Let alone moving back in with your parents and "floundering" in a job for 2 years while falling into a routine less exciting that your grandparents have.

At 12, it didn't occur to us our "closest" friends would not live close enough for a short weekend stay, let alone to meet at the bar every night after work. Or that what we would talk about would be our friends who were divorced or having marital problems, their kids (or lack of and for what reasons) and how our job was just a job and not a passion instead of how fantastic our boyfriends were, when we would marry, our perfect job that just gave us a raise and the fabulous dinner party we should have the following week.

I think I still hold out for my life to play out like a movie. Nice, then crap, then nice again. I wait for Prince Charming, Harry Burns, Edward Lewis, or (just for Kare) my Doug Doresy. For that moment, at the end of the movie, or the end of the book, when the heroine's life - job and love fall into place. I'm willing to work for the evil stepmother, have Joe marry someone else, get slapped by my boyfriend's friend for being a hooker or have my father, coach, and former hockey player turned partner all yelling at each other (after the partner slept with another woman the same night I threw myself at him) because these "turning points" were necessary to get to the Kleenex ending.

What I realized as I was shopping for an "Oh My God!" book, was there are none without a Kleenex ending. Sometimes hookers end up just being hookers, your partner is just that, a partner and you marry the banker because he's comfortable, that some women work for evil stepmothers with no benefits package, 401K, or chance of ever meeting a prince and not once have I heard of a male friend finding you to tell you the little idosyncrases about you are one of 10 million reasons he just realized he's in love with you.

Maybe I shouldn't write a book. Maybe the reasons people don't write books for those of us looking for an "Oh My God!" book we can identify with is that, people don't want to identify with our lives. They want to know that the rough spots will pass. To hold out hope that there is better out there because Disney, Julia, Meg and Moira showed us there is. Maybe people don't want to read about the life someone has lived (unless, of course, you are famous). Maybe only the lives we wish we could live.