Illness and Strength…or the Lack Thereof

When an illness knocks you on your ass, you should stay down and relax for a while before trying to get back up.  ~Candea Core-Starke

Ever get the feeling you’ve just been benched in life?  It could be through a job layoff, a breakup, and illness, a divorce, or financial difficulties? Where things seemed to be rolling along smoothly and there seemed to be some really forward motion in your life toward a better tomorrow or a brighter future or a more solid financial picture, now you are suddenly in this surreal place of motionless float. It is as if the video tape of your life was running at normal speed and then someone slowed it to a fraction of the normal speed and now your motions are like moving through quicksand.

I feel like someone pushed the pause button on the video of my life. 

I was cruising along at a pretty nice little clip and then suddenly “sccccrreeeeeeech!!!!” and silence. No motion, no sound, nothing.

Life slowing way down.

That’s what pain does I think.

Yeah.  Pain.  Sadness, Grief.  Loss.  Regret.  Stress. The Common Cold.

All these things, especially when experienced without let up over time, can have this numbing effect. (And I’m a week and a half into this “cold”/flu thing I’ve got going on.)

As a single parent completely responsible for four children (well, three now, since one is mostly out of the house at college) getting sick is nearly a death knell.  In fact, most of us single parents really don’t get that luxury unless we have an excellent support system or family close by.

I have a great support system, but they are mostly single parents as well and certainly not folks I can call on if I get sick and need help with my children or my home responsibilities. 

So, I muddle through on my own, hoping I don’t catch anything.  Hoping I don’t get sick.  After all, if I did, how would I even possibly get well?  I still have to get my kids into school.  I still have to cook for them.  I still have to…

I’ve been fortunate.  I haven’t been really sick, like flat on my back I can’t move sick (and thank God, no serious diseases or illnesses) since the divorce three years ago.

That is, until last week.

It is like the stress, the fatigue of holding it all together, of making all the pieces fit and everything work, hit me.  My body simply gave up and got sick.

I was out all of last week and after two days back at work it is draining every last vestige of energy from me.  I can feel the energy dissipating rapidly by noon. I’m pretty useless after leaving work, and I’m out cold by 8:00 in the evenings these days.

I feel like this year has kind of knocked me on my ass in more ways that one, in fact, maybe it’s the culmination of the last three years.  There are other things too.  Mostly the unfairness of the legal system to ethical and responsible people who end up picking up the pieces and cleaning up the messes after hedonistic, irresponsible and unethical people.

I wish I could just stay down and relax but I can’t.  I still have taxiing to do, bills to pay, income to try to increase in order to reduce debt, meals to prepare and serve, a home to maintain, and children to tend to. Staying down when you are sick is sometimes a luxury the single parent cannot afford.  I simply don’t have the luxury right now. 

I’m not complaining.  I’m just stating the hard, cold, stark truth.  I’m sick and I can’t really rest enough to kick it.  I have far too many plates spinning in the air and if I stop to take a nap several of them will come crashing down.

At times like these, I wonder…

What do other single parents do?  How do they cope?

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Tickled…Tickled Pink…Actually!

Not sure quite why I chose that particular title for this post…. 

I haven’t done a Google Ad Words search on it to see if it is SEO or anything.

In fact, over the last several weeks, what with the exit of the Oz and all, I’ve kind of done some thinking.  Amazing what you can get accomplished when you aren’t spending your time texting or talking to  or IMing someone on the other side of the world.

Here’s what I’ve accomplished with all the extra freed up time:

I’ve done some thinking, as I mentioned.  More about this later.

I have cleaned my house (not that it was dirty to begin with, but I actually can see the bottom of the laundry pile now…in fact…there is no laundry pile).

I’ve cleaned out my refrigerators.  Oh, and they really needed it!

I’ve gotten myself sick. Yeah, that’s what happens when you try to be the single mom of four kids and hold down not one, not two but three jobs to make ends meet.

I’ve read two whole books in the last week.  Amazing what you can do when you are sick…and can’t really read but you can’t sleep either so…what else do you do other than just stare at the ceiling and let your thoughts make you crazy.

I’ve actually folded and hung all my clothes from the laundry (j/k…I do that anyway).

I’ve gotten caught up on some work projects, na, scratch that.  I haven’t.

I’ve done some thinking. (Here it comes…really…it’s nothing really monumental or anything!)

I’ve made some decisions.

I decided, I’m not going to write unless I want to…meaning…writing under pressure (unless it is fun pressure) is so not for me. Well, at least not until I get a book deal (hahahahahahaha!) and then I will write, I will sign autographs and books, I will talk under pressure no problem…but until then…it’s going to be all about what catches my writing fancy.  So there!

This also means, I’ve decided that I’m going to focus less here on how many search terms might be in my blog posts and just write what I love and do the best at that, that I can do.  Hopefully the masses, or a few of them, will like it enough to tell someone else to come visit.  I know this is probably the death knell to the blogger who wants a book deal and a movie deal out of it, but face it…I’m just not Julia and Julia right now.  Even so, I hope some of you will decide to comment, because that’s where I get my best ideas for further writing.

I’ve also decided that while I am really super sad that things with the Oz and I didn’t work out and I am super sad for my part in the demise of the whole thing, I am not going to let this make me even more bitter and untrusting…and for me…that wouldn’t be a hard thing to accomplish because I could go there.  But I won’t.  Instead of shutting myself down (which I might do at times to just sort stuff out but not forever) I’m going to work on really taking this opportunity to refocus. 

Some quotes that have helped me lately:

To the Oz….

Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night.  I miss you like hell.  ~Edna St. Vincent Millay

To The Wild Mind…

[A] final comfort that is small, but not cold:  The heart is the only broken instrument that works.  ~T.E. Kalem

To Everyone Out There…

Sometimes, when one person is missing, the whole world seems depopulated.  ~Lamartine

And again To Everyone Out There…

In the arithmetic of love, one plus one equals everything, and two minus one equals nothing.  ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic’s Notebook, 1966

To The Wild Mind and To Everyone Else Out There With A Broken Heart….

Love is like a puzzle.  When you’re in love, all the pieces fit but when your heart gets broken, it takes a while to get everything back together.  ~Author Unknown

And this…

Don’t worry about losing.  If it is right, it happens – The Main thing is not to hurry.  Nothing good gets away.  ~John Steinbeck, 10 November 1958

And for all who would, like The Wild Mind, attempt love, fail and dare to try again…these words…

“Better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing flawlessly.” — Robert H. Schuller

I’m not a Robert Schuller fan per se, but if the shoe fits….

Anyway, I’m tickled pink that I’m not sick, tickled pink to be returning to work tomorrow although it will not be easy after being out sick for a week, and I’m tickled pink that, well, it just isn’t worse than it is.  Seriously.  As a friend recently told me, “Chin up, girl.  You own your own home, your bills are paid, you have food on the table, transportation to work and a job to go to…in fact…more than one of them!  And…you’re an intelligent woman…you can actually learn to cook!  How bad can life be?”

Okay, yeah, that from a guy who is happily married and gets it whenever he wants but, okay, we’ll go with the intent there.

Anyway…can’t really put a finger on it, but I’m just feeling a little tickled pink and I kinda don’t really have any reason to be except that I’m alive and healthy and, well, I guess I’m grateful for all that and considering that Thanksgiving is just around the corner I guess that’s a good thing.

So, given that every ending is the opportunity for a new beginning….that when a relationship ends it can be a great opportunity for reinventing oneself, I have these questions for peeps out there…

What have  you done that helped you overcome a breakup?

Breakups aside, have you ever gotten to the place where you felt you wanted to reinvent yourself?  Did you?  How is it going?

Oz and The Wild Mind Dissolve in The Wicked Witch’s Broiling Cauldron of Relational Malaise

So…if you’ve followed this blog for any length of time you know that sometime earlier this year I took up with The Great and Powerful Oz. You can read earlier posts here and here to find out some more about how great things were in the beginning. It truly was an amazing little love story.  You’ll probably read all about it in my book deal, if and when that ever does happen.  I mean, I’m going to totally have to invent the ending to make it a happy one, but for now, just trust me, it was filled with romance that had all my girlfriends sighing and crying in their drinks. Now, I’m the one sighing and crying in my drink. Well, not really, but it kinda sounded good right there.

Of course, since I’m writing this all in past tense, you being an intelligent reader, have already figured out that the relationship is now past tense.  If so, then you are a smart cookie!  It’s true, The Oz and The Wild Mind could not survive The Broiling Cauldron of Relational Malaise.

As we all know, if we’ve seen the movie, The Great and Powerful Oz is ultimately exposed for being a pretty average guy with really good intentions.  However, a great deal of what he did was behind a smokescreen. (That totally does not come into play in the Wild Mind’s real life version except for the incredible distance between Oz and me.) In the end, he provides all of Dorothy’s friends with the gifts they seek, and offers to escort Dorothy home himself.  A mishap occurs and The Oz takes off leaving Dorothy stranded, fearful and in a panic.

It is sometimes amazing how stories, concoctions of pure fantasy, can parallel real life.  Hmmm, makes you wonder doesn’t it? 

This story, The Wizard of Oz, ironically paralleled the real life story of the Wizard and The Wild Mind. Not perfectly, but close enough.  It was a wonderful journey of adventure and anticipation.  It was a glorious time in the Emerald City (aka SFO) and The Wizard and the Wild Mind hit it off so well it appeared that travelling home by hot air balloon would be the least of our worries. 

But then The Oz had to return to the land Down Under (that nasty screen of distance and digital communication) and The Wild Mind to her Dorothy-esque existence (the parallel more accurate than she likes to admit here).  Problem is, the balloon began taking off before Dorothy was quite in it and this put Dorothy in a bit of a panic. Long distance relationships being what they are (technologically dependent and expensive) and communication being what it is (fragile and prone to go unexpectedly sideways on occasion)  things began to unravel.  

An aside: I feel an explanation is warranted after all the digital space allowed to the relationship in the first place, but I also don’t want to malign a person that I’ve grown to love and admire and trust (he’d laugh at that) either. I do not in any way see this situation as being his fault nor do I view him as the bad guy.  If anything, I see myself as an equal partner in the demise of the thing. It was a shared failure. While I use the title The Great And Powerful Oz a bit tongue-in-cheek, he was an amazing individual and I learned a great deal from knowing him and I’ll always be grateful for that.  I’m disappointed as all get out that it unraveled.  I’m really unhappy with myself for my part in it.  I’m disappointed with him for his part in it. I’m disappointed in both of us that we couldn’t somehow sort it out better, earlier, more effectively than we did. The interesting thing about it all is that while I don’t agree with his conclusions, I completely understand why he’s come to them. I believe I understand exactly where he’s at with it all and why. No hard feelings there.  He was into me.  He didn’t go silent.  He made good on his word and has every time.  But we just didn’t make it through this last miscommunique. 

In the end, here’s what it boils down to:

1. Long distance relationships are really hard and they can be very expensive.

2. Relationships, period, can be hard if the two people involved don’t have a positive process for dealing with misunderstandings as they arise. And by positive, I don’t mean Facebook chat, IM or email or any method that is perceived by one or both of the parties as a “step back” in the relationship.

Add number 1 and 2 together and you are almost certainly guaranteed a communication failure of some sort which, if not handled quickly and deftly can spiral into a relational collapse leaving both people wondering, “WTF?”.

Add to the mix that “my stuff” collided quite unfortunately with “his stuff” in a way that was not the most beneficial to our communication process and, well, all either of us can now say is “it is what it is” or more aptly “WTF?”.  Add into all that broiling brew some more misunderstandings and misperceptions on both sides that only become intensified with distance and silence and you’ve got a boiling cauldron popping and sizzling with downed communication and a quickly disintegrating relationship.  At some point, one or the other decides this is going to cost too much, I can’t do it. Or maybe they think, this isn’t fun anymore.  Maybe it’s both things. Maybe they both decide it.  Who knows? If even one person in the twosome thinks it’s irreparably broken, then it’s broken and there’s just no fixing it once it gets to that place.

So it occurred with The Oz from Down Under and his North American Dorothy.

The demise actually began the 20th of October.  It’s pretty much a done deal now.

I kept writing here for a bit until I just couldn’t any more.  I didn’t want to spill pain and angst and hurt onto the page uncontrollably. Well, I did, just not here.  I also didn’t want to malign a person that I do still care very, very much for because he’s not the only bad guy here…if there even is a bad guy. 

It pains me greatly not to connect with him and interact with him on a daily basis.  Figuring out how to address the void in my life and my heart as the result of his absence is going to take a bit of doing, but I’ll make it.  Helping my kids heal is going to take some effort and some time and whole heap of togetherness.  My youngest is having a bit of a time with it, because she really connected with him, as did my son.  Figuring out what to do with my own stuff which kinda got ripped open and rummaged through (not unlike going through customs) and left lying exposed is the task at hand. I’m not in any way implying that this was his fault, it’s just how ending a relationship is.  Things happen, they affect you you see that you have issues where you didn’t think you really did before. Sorting all that out is going to take a bit of time and thoughtful deliberation.  I intend to do the work. I’m certain it won’t feel great at points, but it the end, it will be worth it and I will make it.

Because, you see, in spite of Dorothy’s alarm and panic, she comes to realize through the help of Glenda, The Good Witch, (aka friends, family, other support  systems, and other single parent bloggers even) that she had the power within her (or rather at her feet) to reach her destination, to achieve her dreams all along.

So it was with Dorothy, so it will be with me.  I just think it is going to take a bit more than clicking my heels together three times and repeating “There’s no place like home”…but who knows?  Stranger things have happened.  I know.  I’ve experienced them. 

If You’re Like Me

If you’re like me then you are a reader. 

You’re a reader of articles, of stories, of books and blogs. 

And…if  you’re like me…you don’t just read those articles, stories, books and blogs and cast them aside. No “out of sight out of mind” for you. 

If you’re like me you connect with those stories, articles and books, or, at least the ones you love, the ones that resonated with you, the ones that made you think, the ones you gave up moments of your life to pause and listen through the written word, to the voice of another. For a moment, if you’re like me, you enter the world by invitation of the author and you become one with that world.

If you’re like me you think about the characters.  No, you do more than think about them. With the help of the author you create them, breathe life into them, worry about them when you’re not reading them and you wonder about them as if the story could continue beyond the printed words the author wrote as if in some Inkspell-ish sort of way…if you’re like me. 

If you’re like me, you speculate about the people behind the pen.  Those creators of characters, those wielder of words, those visionaries who craft fantasy the way carpenters craft homes and artists their sculptures with such precision and intricate care.  You meditate after a fashion on these people who communicate so clearly and so deftly so invisibly. You think about them, about their lives, their loves, their sorrows, their existence, even if only for a fleeting moment and you wonder.  What kind of person would it take to write something like that?

If you’re like me you become, in a word, or maybe after many words attached to the invisible artists who’ve helped you create worlds, travel distances and experience lives you might never have known.  Or maybe, you do know the life of which they speak and you are all the more drawn to them because the existence they share is your existence as well.  You know it.  You feel it.  You live it.  And someone chose the words to express it that you yourself could not and you are grateful. 

If you’re like me, then in  a small way, you may even come to love those invisible craftsmen who work their art in black on white, creating entire galaxies where only blank, dead, white space existed before.

If you’re like me,  you wonder what happens when suddenly nothing is heard from them again.  The end of a series of books, the last of the articles, a blog abandoned.  You wonder what happened in the life of that person that ended their existence in print so suddenly…if you’re like me.

If you’re like me, in those respects, and you’ve been reading along here at The Wild Mind  maybe you’ve noticed that where there used to be an almost daily account of distraction, there has been a strange and unusual (at least it has to be for The Wild Mind because look how long her posts usually are!) silence of late. If you’re like me, you would wonder what happened in the real world to shut down the digital world of the person you’d grown somewhat attached to and were reading every so often. 

You would appreciate an explanation…if you are like me.  And you would hope that that explanation did not contain news of abandonment, because if you are like me abandonment in all its many forms never goes over well.  If you’re like me you even hate it when your favorite TV series gets cancelled.  You hated it when you finally finished the Harry Potter Series and you hated it when the Lord of the Rings movies were done. You knew it was the end of the story but somehow you wondered, was it also the end of the author?

You might wonder these things…if you’re like me.

How Rushing A Sorority Is Like Online Dating

I’ve recently come to realize how many things in life are analogous to many other things in life.  One pretty benign, or so it seems, event turns out to represent what happens in another completely unrelated area of life. 

So it is with the sorority rush process and online dating.  I know, I know.  It seems like a real leap here, but go with me for a minute.

Way back in the day, when I was even more naive and wide-eyed than I am now, I had the opportunity to go through sorority rush, bid night, pledge a sorority and eventually be initiated. At the time it intrigued me, but over the years, I’ve often thought it a fairly efficient way of sorting through a vast number of potential prospects in a short amount of time in order to make an important decision effectively and quickly. And for many women the need to sort through a vast amount of emails to determine which contacts to spend time meeting and which to never bother with is imperative.

The sorority rush system is actually a highly developed matching system called the preferential bidding system and you can read about it here.  In sorority rush, the organizations are matched with prospective members in a manner that gradually narrows the options based on stated preferences of the participants. The result is the prospective new member is eventually matched with an organization where she will live, interact, socialize, study, network, for the rest of her years at the university. It is also a lifetime membership to a national organization.  In other words, we’re not just signing a 30-day month-to-month rental agreement, here, folks. The decision bears some thoughtful, considered deliberation.  So it is with dating, that is, if you are doing anything that remotely resembles seeking out a partner you could build a relationship and a life with.

Enter the world of online dating, which I did nearly three years ago.  I spent some time on that Online Dating Planet for a bit and I noticed some things.  First off, all the things they say about men doing the pursuing and women the selecting were true for the most part.  Really.  I no sooner posted my feeble attempt at a profile, a few recent and accurate pictures, and I was bombarded with emails and winks from prospective suitors.  I recently read an article here where some women have thousands of emails to sort through.  I never had quite that problem, but then again, I also don’t exactly live in the biggest metropolitan area and I limited the distance of my contacts.  Whatever.  The point I am trying to make here is that sorting through all those prospective romantic interests is not unlike the Greek organization sorting through thousands of prospective members in order to meet their membership quotas for the year.  It is impossible to think of responding to every single one individually and meeting them all?  Well, there just isn’t time in a life to do it.

My inbox was inundated.  At first, I spent hours, days, weeks attempting to reply to every wink or email I received.  It wasn’t long before I realized that was simply ineffective.  I had to put some systems in place for sorting.  Now the systems and criteria I implemented might be different for another woman, but they worked for me.  The same is true in sorority rush.  Some house won’t take those rushing as a sophomore, they only want freshmen.  Since I was a sophomore when I rushed, this instantly eliminated me from a number of quality organizations.  Nothing personal.  It was just reality.  Did I cry about it?  No.  I just went with the remaining options which were also very fine organizations. 

When we date, there are priorities and preferences that we have that provide the basis for our own sorting systems.  For me I eventually determined that I was not going to waste time with a guy who winked or only presented me with a message that said something like “nice smile”, “great profile”, and so on.  If a guy couldn’t take the time to create, at minimum, a brief thoughtfully worded message of interest, I wasn’t interested. (And, yes, guys…we can tell when you cut and paste messages! I deleted those too!) This reduced my inbox to a far more manageable number.  The remaining people made it through to the next round of eliminations. 

At this stage, I put in place some more discriminating criteria.  No picture, no consideration.  No words in the profile, no consideration.  If he was a smoker it was a no.  If he’d never been married or was way too young or too old, it had to be a no. These folks usually received a nice, courteous “no thanks”.

After this, I had to consider interests and potential for compatibility.  This is often difficult to determine just based on a digital p rofile on a dating site, but I did find that there were certain means to eliminate those contenders who would probably eventually opt out anyway in the end.  For example, the spirituality of the person is important.  If he’s out there in religious Looneyville where keeping up an image of doing the right stuff is more important than actually being an authentic, decent individual then we’ll rub and quickly.  Why even meet up for coffee to find that out?  Save time, energy and coffee money.  Just say, “no thanks”. 

If he’s a guy who spent all his time out and about with no indication that he occasionally stayed home to rejuvenate and maintain his household, then I was out.  That’s a lifestyle that I can’t sustain with a time commitment that would destroy my ability to maintain my own home and my career, let alone keep my kids in clean clothing.  I’m wise to politely decline, no matter how attractive he might otherwise be.  Our differing preferences in how we spend time will ultimately create problems unless one or the other of us is willing to change and expecting one party to change in order to sustain a relationship (even before a relationship has been established) is not a good sign.  It would have been like me saying, “Yeah, I want to pledge that house but only if they will completely redesign their organization to suit me.”  So not going to happen!

So, you see how the process of matching by criteria and gradually eliminating the prospects is an efficient decision making tool? 

When I was looking to pledge a sorority there were certain things that were important to me: reputation of the organization, involvement on campus, leadership of members, social life, priority placed on academics, philanthropy, networking potential and so on.  Of course, the actual architecture of the house and its interior were important to me, but these were minor in comparison to the things that really created the organizations “soul”.

When dating, we all have our own ideas of what we are looking for in relationship.  Tall, fit, active, handy, homeowner, non-smoker, spiritual, not spiritual, conversationalist, education, income, etc.  All these facets determine what we think will be a good fit for us.  It is not a bad idea to have these priorities or preferences.  It is actually a good thing and can prevent us from wasting valuable time and energy on relationships or individuals who are not a good fit.  If the organization I am looking at has no room for sophomores in their organization, then as a sophomore, I would have been wasting time and emotional energy hoping I could pledge that house and I may have missed the opportunity to become a member of an organization that would have been even more suitable for me.  On the other hand, spending so much time about what a guy looks like and how much he makes (having a job is good! Making six figures, not required) is a bit like obsessing about the structure aesthetics of the sorority house instead of paying attention to the quality of life that goes on within that house.

All this effort before even deciding to meet with someone?  Yes, pretty much.  Oh, sure.  There were occasions when I made exceptions.  100% of those exceptions never made it past the first date.  Once I began putting some more systematic thought into the dating process, I found I was going out on dates that were more enjoyable and I was actually having more than one or two dates with a person.  I wasn’t dreading the proverbial coffee date and more and more of those coffee dates led to something more. Even after the something more, the process continued to be a two-sided matching process as my dates and I continued to get to know each other. Dating is like sorority rush and that’s not a bad thing!

What I’d like to hear from others is what kind of criteria do you use to eliminate people you don’t think will be a good fit for you?  Is it looks, income, personality, education, values (if values what values are important)? 

What’s your criteria when involved in the two-sided matching process of dating?

Goodbyes

The song, Porcelain,  by Moby is haunting me these days.  Actually, it’s haunted me on and off for the last two years. Here’s the story behind this song for me. 

Shortly after leaving my second ex, I wasted no time getting into the dating scene.  Well, wait.  That’s not totally true. I gave it about 4 months, then tentatively decided to test the dating waters, before my divorce was completely final, but well after I knew it was going to be a done deal.  Having dealt with so much angst and drama during the marriage, I was quite certain I’d dealt with all the “stuff” and was emotionally available enough to begin dating.  Yeah.  Right.  I so was not. 

However, had I not dated, I would never have realized this.

Dating, forcing myself to engage and relate with others, even if it meant it wouldn’t be a serious and life altering, till death do us part proposition, showed me who I was at that time.  I learned more about me through the process of dating than I ever would have had I chosen to sit home and lick my post-marriage wounds.  But with every encounter there is eventually a good-bye and that’s not always the greatest emotion for most of us to face especially for the girl with some mild attachment/separation stuff in play.  

OMG! Those poor men I dated.  LOL!

It was during this time that I signed up on some dating site and it was during this certain period that I had a rash of men from locations far and wide wanting to travel to meet me, wine me, dine me, admittedly sleep with me and well, find out if we had what it took to make a serious relationship work (ha! or so I believed at that time). I met few of them, but I did meet some of them.  Most of them wisely opted for something offering closer proximity than I could.  One such individual traveled four hours to meet me.  He interested me online with wonderfully well written words and reasonable pictures.  He met me in person with a gift: a small antique book. I have it still.  He left me with this song one night, a week or two after our meet up.  He IM’d me, shared this song over IM, while sipping Absinthe.  It was the first I’d heard of Moby.  It was the first I learned of Absinthe. It was the most unusual and haunting goodbye I’ve ever experienced.

Porcelain

by Moby

Hey, Hey, Hey, Woman, it’s alright.
Hey, Hey, Hey, Woman, it’s alright.
In my dreams I’m dying all the time
When I wake its kaleidoscopic mind
I never meant to hurt you
I never meant to lie
So this is goodbye
This is goodbye
Hey, Hey, Hey, Woman, it’s alright.
Hey, Hey, Hey, Woman, it’s alright.
Tell the truth you never wanted me
Tell me…
In my dreams I’m jealous all the time
Then I wake I’m going out of my mind
Going out of my mind
Hey, Hey, Hey, Woman, it’s alright.(x4)

Two years later, some significant relationships later, and this song still haunts me.  The sound is amazing, but the lyrics….wow!  What is he really saying?  He doesn’t want her, he’s leaving her before she dumps him, it isn’t working because he’s more into her than she is into him? He thinks she’s not that into him so he ditching her? What?

Two years later, having faced inexplicable and just as confusing circumstances as the song’s lyrics seem to portray, several times over, I find this song as haunting as ever, just as disturbing but somehow cathartic. It is as though I must play it over and over.  It haunts.  It also soothes.  No matter what, I’m going to be okay. This I do know.

Mostly, though, I just want to go down to the neighborhood liquor store and find out what the buzz about Absinthe is!

Heads Up! Seven Up!

I remember it well.  The childhood game where seven children in the class are chosen to go to the front of the room.  On the directive, “Heads down thumbs up”, the seven students travel around the room, one by one touching the thumb of one of their classmates and returning to the front of the room. When all seven are back in their places the invitation, “Heads up, seven up” is issued and those seven students whose thumbs where chosen get to stand and try to guess who picked them.  If guessed accurately, they replace their classmate at the front of the room and then enjoy the privilege of getting to “touch a thumb” during the next round.  If not, the chosen student remains in their seat for another round. In this game, as in many such childhood games, there are the choosers, the chosen and those on the sidelines. 

As a teacher, I am amazed at how much kids still really enjoy this game.  As an adult, I am intrigued with the parallels which exist between this childhood game and life, particularly the life of those who find themselves, for whatever reason, single after 40. 

In Heads Up, Seven Up there are the choosers, the chosen and those who get sidelined.  The choosers in life, as in this childhood game, have the most fun or so it seems.  They are up front, making choices, determining by their decisions who gets to play and who does not.  The chosen, are given an opportunity to get in the game, but if they don’t make an effective choice, a perceptive determination, they remain as chosen or worse, they can be sidelined during the next round of play.  The sideliners are those un-chosen ones deemed by their peers as those who will not participate during a round of play. 

During the dating process, we all play each of these parts.  We can be the chooser, determining who we will select or who we won’t.  We invite some to play and sideline others.  We are confident.  We are in control.  We are choosing and shaping our destinies.  Most of us like this place.

There are times in our lives, however, when the choices of others sideline us.  The partner who goes back on a commitment, the infidelity of a spouse, the unreliability or abandonment of the person you planned to spend the rest of your life with but who ended up choosing someone or something else instead of you.  Being served divorce papers, the death of a spouse, the pain of that precious connection going silent without explanation or, worse, just fizzling.  At these times, we find ourselves sidelined, inactive, unable to play, maybe by our own choice…for a time.  Often because of the choices of others or another who simply did not choose us.

Love and Relationship is one game everyone wants to play.  It is the one game that we all want to be involved in either as the chooser or the chosen.  We all dread the sidelines in the game of Love and Relationship.  We want someone to touch our emotional thumb and say, “I pick you!”  We want someone to tell us they noticed us.  They noticed those things about us that make us special.  They appreciated those unique qualities in us enough to want to be around us and interact with us more often than not.  We want the opportunity to choose and be chosen.  When the words “Heads up, seven up” are called in the game of love we all hope we get to stand at least during one round of play. We hope our guess is right and that we can aptly match the feel of the touch to the owner of the hand.

None of us like the sideline position where we simply watch others play the game that we so deeply desire to be part of ourselves.  This sideline position can be a healthy respite for a time, as we heal from an especially disappointing round of play, but as a permanent state of existence it is simply not ideal.  For some it is even painful. 

Just as in the game Heads Up! Seven Up!  everyone eventually gets to play at least once, so it seems is the case for most people in The Game Of Love.  How long each of us play or how often varies, but it seems that at one time or another we all get the chance to stand on cue and take a whack at making a choice. 

Where are you these days? 

• Are you in the place of choosing? 
• Are you there with your head down and your thumb up, hoping you will be tapped for the next romantic encounter?
• Have you by your choice or the choices of others been sidelined? 
• Where are you?  How do you feel about it?
• If you don’t like your current place in the game, what, if anything, will you do to place yourself so that you are happier with your level of participation?

Procrastinatory Paring and Sharing

So, today, in my usual procrastinatory (is that even a word) I decided to go through each of  the links on my blog roll in an attempt to clarify two things.  First, I wanted to see if the bloggers were even still active.  I mean, no good sending you to someone really cool who hasn’t written anything really cool since last year…or the year before.  I hate that when that happens!  I find a blogger I love reading then realize I’m reading something that happened years ago and this person, for all digital intents and purposes, no longer exists. I usually figure this out after I’ve posted a comment only to realize that the last person that commented commented over a year earlier.  Yeah, doltish, really.  I’d like to spare the handful of readers who do troll silently through my musings here the angst of that experience. 

The other thing I’m trying to do is pare down the blog roll.  When I first started this blog (has it been a year and a half already?), I put people on that were interesting to me then.  I had goals, kinda sorta, in mind for what I wanted this place to be and those people made my blogroll because they seemed to fit the criteria for the kind of resource I wanted to provide my readers.  Yeah, well…things change over time.  Bloggers change, their blogs change, goals change, life changes, we change and I have definitely changed over the last year and a half…I think. Yeah, I have.  I’m still sorting a lot of stuff out and trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up and where I want to be doing it, with whom I want to be doing it, why I want to be doing it are still all up for grabs (well, mostly) but some things have been sorted.  The upshot of the sorting is that I’ve decided that I only want certain folks on my blog roll.  I have reasons for this.

No! No!  It isn’t because I have these elitest, exclusivist or exclusionary tendencies (like some of those really big name blog-for-a-living types that I’m really jealous of because I haven’t made their blogroll yet let alone produced a blog like theirs, but okay!).  It is because I think  it simply reveals WAY TOO MUCH of my ADD tendencies when I have stuff from all over the universe listed that has nothing to do with anything I’m doing here.  Not that I’m doing anything here that is even remotely relevant to the real meaning of life, but it’s sorta fun for me…most of the time.   Even so, I think it is time for this little bloggy to grow up a bit and look a little more…um….what’s the word I’m looking for…respectable?  Ordered?  Thought out?  Put together?  I don’t know…something like that. 

I have a really easy way of determining if I want someone to stay on my blog roll.  If I know them in real life and they are a family member or close friend, they’re automatically in.  Well, unless they request not to be.  That’d tell me something now wouldn’t it?  If  they are just someone out there in the blogosphere then they have to meet two criteria:

• they have to be posting regularly and recently.
• I have to get the “I want to be like that when I grow up!” reaction when I read them.

Oh, wait, there’s a third…

• they have to be on a topic that I perceive my readers (whoever they are because they don’t often identify themselves but I know they are there because my stats say so unless the stats lie!)  would be interested in.  I’m still trying to sort all that out.

Anyway, there you have it.  The reason why some of you might find your names missing on the blog roll and why others will find they’ve been added.  Mostly those who have been deleted so far are folks who aren’t writing anyway and probably don’t care.  If I deleted you and you do care, post a comment.  Everything’s fixable, well, mostly everything.  If you wander in and like what you read, let me know.  If you have a blog and you’d like to be added let me know that too.  I’d be glad to visit your place and take a look around.

Off I go to peruse postings and look at links while avoiding adult responsibilities like laundry, dishes and dealing with other diverse forms of dirt.  I’ve come across a few great bloggers who still rate and need a shout out.  Well, they don’t need it, they are mostly doing fine without my recognition.  I need it, because what they said, how they said it, what they experienced, resonated with me in a way that I feel is worth voicing.  Look for me to share these folks with you in the days to come.  I hope you’ll visit them and find them interesting too!

Consulting: Famine or Feast?

It’s feast or famine isn’t it?  Nothing is more true for anyone than the self-employed freelancer or consultant.  I knew this from others’ reports.  This week, I’m finding it out first hand for myself. 

No, I haven’t quit my day job. I can’t do that quite yet.  But some good stuff is happening to The Wild Mind in this arena this month. 

I just picked up three additional speaking engagements this last week.  All three of them strategically significant for me and two of them paying gigs.  The nice little caveat is that throughout the course of the week, I also found out that I’m being requested for 15 additional engagements during this school year.  Those 15 come with additional opportunities to train additional staff to work with me.  It also is compensated at a rate much nicer than my current day job pays.  And…I don’t have to quit my day job to do any of this either.

As most know who have tried to make the self-employed  consultant switch at some time or another, there can be a time when you have to work two careers until the income from the one is steady and substantial enough to supplant the other.  This can be exceptionally demanding and strenuous depending upon the nature of the work involved and the duration of the transition.   Well, unless you are able to take out loads of money in small business loans, which I can’t do or unless you have loads of extra resources to put to the venture, which I do not  have.  Nope, I simply have to buck up and do it the hard way.  The gradual transition way.  The take-every-speaking-gig-I-can way.  The learn-as-you-go way.  The these-are-the-days-I’ll-look-back-on-fondly way. 

It’s been a tough couple of weeks and I’ve gotten a real taste of what this could be like.  Moving in spurts instead of the steady day in and day out thing.  The income will also move in spurts and that takes a bit of getting used to, I’m told.  Then there are the times, like this evening, when I should be curled up on the couch watching a movie with my littlest munchkin but instead, here I am.  Putting the finishing touches on a reworked presentation, making sure my notes are in order, my presentations, documents and screenprints are aligned, and that my outfit is clean, ironed and perfectly coordinated. 

Instead, I’m going to take a break right now after posting this and chill in the hot tub with The Peanut Munchkin.  Then I’ll cuddle up with her, let her fall asleep to a movie of her choice on the couch in front of the fire with her kittens curled up next to her, get up and return to my fine tuning of tomorrow morning’s presentation.  Tomorrow afternoon and evening are all hers!  And that’s how I suppose it will likely be.  That’s what I’ve been told. That’s how it seems to be shaking down. 

Spurts, seasons, ebbs, flow, famine and feast…life!

Authenticity vs. Cosmetic Surgery: Which One Wins Out in the Battle for Real Love and Lasting Relationship?

I was over at one of my favorite bloggy friends homesites today checking up on what she was thinking about things and she wrote a bit about cosmetic surgery and a better sex life.  Okay, I wanted to comment…but I totally didn’t want to take center stage with it.  Instead, I left some smart ass tongue-in-cheek comment that, hopefully, made people think but didn’t take over the conversation. My response as posted was:

Geez,
All those 80-year-old people in the retirement homes who are getting married these days are sunk without plastic surgery. How can they possibly have a fulfilling, rewarding sex life if they simply just don’t look the part of our plastic, superficial, Hollywood driven, hedonistic, entertainment oriented culture? Sucks to be them I guess!

I was responding more to the other commenters than to BigLittleWolf’s post.  My friend, BigLittleWolf, has some great things to say…and she’s way more diplomatic than I am. She said some really important things here and posed some great questions…in a far more diplomatic way that I would have.  I so wanted to call bullshit on some of the people leaving comments. You’ll just have to go there and read her post and make your own decision.   Her post clearly touched a few nerves with me because here I am, posting a response.

First off the issue of visual stimulation being a male phenomenon was presented.  I wanted to call bullshit on that because nothing could be further from the truth.  I can’t tell you the number of times my panties have gotten wet because the fireman on duty down at Fire Station #4 a block away decided to flex his muscle during a presentation to the school children.  Men don’t have a corner on the visual stimulation market.  They just have better marketing and a bigger market share at this time. Women get turned on my a guy’s good looks too.  If you want me to do the research I can, but, seriously, you can do your own and come to the same conclusions.

Second, the reason women don’t have the reputation for getting turned on by the visual in quite the same way that men do is because it simply takes a bit more for us to jizz in our pants than a pretty smile, some big biceps and a bulging set of boxer briefs. We are, after all, the ones being penetrated and encroached upon.  A deposit is often left and sometimes that deposit develops into an account that requires regular deposits and close supervision until it matures. If Mr. Bulging Boxer Brief decides to take his leave of what is now not just me but us, then who’s going to be left taking the responsibility for this new account?  She is. It behooves us to be extremely picky about those we allow to make deposits in our bank.  Looks simply can’t be the be all end all in relationship…for a woman. We need more than just a nice “vision” to make sex the best it can be.  (Note: how many men are getting penis extensions these days?) We need old school things like trust, connection, intellect, respect, loyalty and responsibility in order to feel safe enough to give up our most vunerable self to another for the long haul.

Finally, the entire cosmetic surgery and the whole recreate yourself from the outside out  trend is conspiring to undo authenticity and relationship in our country. Nothing is real anymore and most of us don’t even have our original teeth let alone our original body parts. This preoccupation with how things appear at the expense of seeing things and people as they really are concerns me.  After all, I still believe what my mama told me, “Beauty is only skin deep.”  I don’t care how big the price tag that beauty has on it.  Ten  years after those implants have been implanted and I’m going to have to be looking at further surgery am I going to be any better person for it?  Will my relationships be better because I have size 38 DD boobs in spite of the fact that I abuse my lover and mistreat the waitresses when we go out?  Will my life be greatly improved over the long haul because my muffin top over my size 3 pants is less that it would be hanging over a size 10 pair of American Eagle jeans?  Do I really need to have that reconstructive foot surgery to make my feet a size 6 from their original size 9.5 just because little feet are prettier?  Really?  Are my smaller feet going to make me more sensual, more considerate, more giving and more kind in bed or anywhere else? 

I don’t know.  The whole preoccupation with our physical appearance at the expense of becoming really quality people worth knowing bothers me just a bit.

Can you tell?