It Sounds Like Joy

Ever notice how we human beings have ways of marking the passage of time? Sure, we have our calendars, our reminders, our clocks and gizmos. I’m talking about the not-so-obvious ways of marking time. The ways that mark time in subtle ways that leave you realizing after the fact how time has passed rather than noting it up front.

I am not a winter person. I like cool weather but I’m really a sunny, summer person. I mark my years mostly by noting the passage of the seasons. The months from January to the end of March are dreadful for me. In the region where I live winters are relatively mild, but temperatures can vary from a balmy 60 degrees one day to snowing and freezing levels the next. I find this pretty tough on my system. I’m always glad when Daylight Saving Time arrives. Even though I lose an hour, I can see that summer is on the way, and with it, some more consistent temperatures.

Invictus…or I Decide My Response To The Darkness

I watched the movie, Invictus, last night…for the second time. No, I’m not going to review the movie, nor am I here to wax political about Nelson Mandela.  The poem, and the movie, resonated with me on deeper levels, more personal levels, for reasons of my own which are far removed from the movie.

Here is the poem:

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

~ William Ernest Henley

Facebook, High School Reunions, Birthdays and Aging

Note or disclaimer or preface or something:  I wrote this article, several months ago, long before the class reunion occurred.  I was going to post it, in advance of the reunion, but I hesitated, intending to go back and edit and re-work it. Call me chicken. Now that I’ve actually attended my class reunion, reacquainted myself with people I’d lost contact with, and heard some of their feelings about our 30-year reunion, I’m posting this, even though it is after the fact.  I looked forward to this reunion with hopeful anticipation, but also with a great deal of dread and anxiety.  I now know I wasn’t entirely alone in that experience.

I do know this for certain, after having attended the reunion:  We are no longer in high school anymore.  I also know my classmates and I have grown and matured into respectful, decent, thoughtful people.  Because of that, I know that my thoughts here will be treated respectfully and sensitively.  It is in celebration of all our successes over the last 30 years that I offer this series of posts as a humble treatise of gratitude for the part each of you have played in making me the person I am today.  Thank you.

My 30-year-high school reunion takes place this summer in a small dusty town in eastern Oregon.  Though there is likely more pavement there now than when I packed my bags and hustled out of there without looking back, the place is still rather small and somewhat dusty in comparison to the lush green venues of Western Oregon and other areas in the Pacific Northwest.  This is not to criticize the place where I spent most of my childhood.  The high desert definitely has a solitary rugged beauty all its own. It is just that I am a mountains, rivers, oceans and trees kind of girl.  I’ll take forest over sagebrush, and beaches over buttes, any day of the week.  Though, admittedly, wild antelope effortlessly bounding across the Oregon outback is certainly a breathtaking sight.  Even so, unable to fully appreciate it at the time that I lived there, I did make haste to get out of that part of Oregon as soon as I could do so and, as I mentioned before, I never looked back.  I subsequently lost all contact with friends and classmates from my high school years.

What’s Up With The Broken Heart?

So, I posted yesterday’s post and a bunch of peeps contacted me today wondering if and why I had a broken heart. 

Just to clarify…no…I am not currently experiencing Broken Heart Syndrome.

Yes, I have experienced it many times in the course of my life, with 2009 being a record-breaking year in the relationship department since being single. Contrary to popular belief, a broken heart doesn’t get easier to deal with as one gets older.  I think it gets worse. I don’t know why this is.

As for last night’s post, I just wrote and what came out is what came out.  Were there any events that triggered that post?  That’s a great question!

In all honesty, I’d have to say yes there were incidents that led up to me writing a post on the broken hearted, but it wasn’t my broken heart that started me down that path. 

Nor was it the sense of any dying dream that I was coming to grips with having to give up. 

In reality, I was just tired.

I was bone weary tired to be exact.  It’s been a long, grueling, exhilarating six weeks.  The adventure of doing new things, the excitement of opportunity, the hope of what can be possible is both energizing and exhausting.  The most difficult element is that when the demanding pace slows, and the seeds that were planted lay momentarily dormant before bursting into full bloom, there is a season of waiting.  This waiting can be somewhat anticlimactic.

I know this because I’ve been there in that place of let down after a great experience.

I am not there now.  I don’t feel any let down or disappointment or anything other than a sense that something really exciting is just around the corner.  Even if the most exciting thing that is around the corner is Spring Break, I still am feeling nowhere near sad, lovelorn or despairing because things somewhere in my life are less than I desire.

The reality is that some things in my life are less than I desire (except where the scale is concerned and then…well…let’s not go there in this post), but I’m not broken up over them.  Well, at least, not today.  The reality is also that some things in my life are better than I ever could have imagined at this point.  It’s also true that there are many, many things in my life that are still unwritten, untold, unimagined.  These are the things yet to be which are not now. It’s life.  It’s my life.  It’s everyone’s life to some degree, I think.  The good, the bad, the becoming, the yet to be. The happy, the sad, the exciting, the disappointing…the ever so daily.

Life is just moving along and I like it…at least most of it, most of the time.

No broken heart here, though I’ve had my share of experiences with the Broken Heart Syndrome.  No thwarted dreams, though I have a few of those too. The reason I wrote what I wrote yesterday is simply because I sat down to write last night and that post is what came out.

I liked it.

I posted it.

That’s all.   

A Broken Heart

 

I know it is an idiom: The idea of a broken heart.  Your heart doesn’t literally break like some glass ornament that can shatter when it falls from the tree. It is merely an expression indicating great pain. Pain usually associated with the loss of a love.

I know this pain.

I know this pain intimately.

For me, this pain, while usually referred to in emotional terms, is one I experience on a physical level as well as on an emotional level. Most often, for me, it has been associated with the loss of a love, the end of a hope of a shared joy, the end of a dream that will never become a reality.  For me, mostly, this broken heart experience occurred when I finally realized that the relationship I thought I had was nothing like what I thought I had.  Broken hearts, for me, represent endings.

It is a very real emotional pain, but I also experience a tangible physical pain. It resides in my chest, just to the right of center and it feels like someone wedged a pick ax in at that particular point and is now trying to pull my heart right out from my body or, at least crush it so that it beats no more.

It is a physical pain as well as an emotional pain.

What I didn’t know, was that sometimes, a broken heart occurs for reasons other than lost, failed, or unrequited love.

A broken heart can occur sans the love between two humans.

A broken heart can occur when a dream that you loved, that you hoped for, that you worked for, dies.

Broken hearts might always be about love, but sometimes they are not about lovers.

Conversations With Men…and Some Women Too

Christmas Day, 6:00 a.m. 

I wake up, stumble through the house turning on the Christmas lights on my way to let the dog out for her morning romp in the back yard.  It is a frosty, cold, foggy 28 degrees in Southern Oregon.  I change the laundry, start another load of the eternal never ending chore and move back into the kitchen automatically, thoughtlessly, still somewhat groggily to begin the task of brewing coffee. 

My house is silent except for the soft sound of heat being forced out through the furnace and the low rumbling purr of my cats who float ethereally in and out of rooms.  Noiseless vapors appearing and disappearing of their own catlike determination. Once the coffee is brewed I pour a cup, add a bit of cream and a touch of the homemade peppermint schnapps a colleague gave me for Christmas.  I pad silently to the living room couch where I plant myself, laptop on lap, facing the tree centered in front of the large picture window which looks out onto my quiet street. My mind and my heart are filled with thoughts and feelings. You would think that these thoughts and feelings would center on the fact that I am alone this Christmas without my children to share in the traditional holiday festivities.  Such is not the case, because I know I am not alone in my being alone on this day.  All over this country there are many men home alone without their children or families with them.  This is the ugly sad side of divorce.

Men are often denounced and disparaged as being focused on sex over relationship.  Women on the other hand place relationship as a higher priority than sex.  These are broad generalizations and there are many exceptions to every rule, but just go with me here.  Men, in general, are often villanized for being so very sexually oriented. 

I’d like to suggest a different idea.  I’d like to suggest the idea that men are every bit as interested in relationship (that deep, emotionally gratifying connected relationship) that women are touted as desiring.  I just think they go about it differently.  I don’t think that the differences in approach necessarily presume a difference in desire or ultimate goal.

I’ve been divorced exactly two years and four days now.  In that time, I’ve had the freedom to meet, have coffee with, have drinks with and converse with many members of the opposite sex.  I’ve had more freedom to engage in these conversations than I would have had I not been single even though many of these conversations have been completely platonic. I’ve learned a lot in these conversations with men.  While most of them have been single, some of these conversations have occurred with men in relationships with other women, while the woman was there of course, and other conversations have occurred with men who are still married but separated (a definite indicator that the relationship will never be anything more than platonic where I am concerned) and still others have been casual encounters at Christmas parties or social gatherings with husbands of my colleagues and friends.  These particular conversations all have one thing in common.  They have at the core of them the question, “What is it that men really want?”

One thing becomes clearer to me, as I have these conversations.  We really do all want the same thing.  Some of us are fortunate, we’ve found it, we enjoy it, we are grateful for it.  Others continue to look and wait and hope that someday we too will experience it or will experience it again.  Still others of us have given up hope that this reality will occur for us and some of us might even now be in the process of giving up hope that we will ever experience anything like it. 

What is it?  What is this thing we all want?  I suspect it is the same for men as for women though the sexes have very different and often opposing ways to go about getting what they want. This thing is love.  This thing is trust.  This thing is relationship.  It is relationship that is deeply, emotionally intimate and fulfilling.  The relationship that continues to be such after time, and change, and aging have taken their toll. 

So as I sip my morning coffee and think about all the conversations I’ve had over the last two years and specifically some of the conversations I’ve had recently I want to extend a big hug to all my dear friends, male and female, married or single who’ve walked part or all of this journey with me these last two years.  Thank you for conversing with me.  Thank you for sharing your lives and your hearts with me. You’ve certainly enriched me.  I wish you all the love you seek and all the joy that comes with that love.  If you’ve found that in your life I wish for you a lifetime of experiencing it with that one special other. May you always be grateful for what you have in each other.  If you still await that experience then I hope, dear friend, that 2010 is your year! 

Merry Christmas!

The Wild Mind

“When the world says give up, hope whispers try it one more time” ~ Author unknown.

Edgar Just Didn’t Get Me There

There’s a little known place in my area, not far from where I live, that is a boon to any avid reader or book lover in the area.  It’s a place where I can get books for free!  Nice books in good condition too!  It’s the local book exchange and it is a wonderful thing for me. Since there’s no established flame in my life at the moment taking up my waking moments, since I’m not exactly one who can stand watching TV all the time, since I’ve definitely decided to stay away from the online dating thing and since my daily life (other than trips to the grocery store) don’t provide much opportunity to meet qualified candidates for a suitable significant other, I’m going to be doing a bunch of reading over the holiday break.  The existence of a book exchange only minutes away from my home while wonderful can be a downer in some respects, especially if you live in a very small home. Generally, I like to keep my books, but lately I’ve picked up and read a few, I don’t think I’ll be hanging on to.

The first of these is The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, by David Wroblewski.  It is beautifully written, very moving and I found myself in tears throughout much of it.  It is a story of a boy, his dog and a relationship.  It is a beautifully crafted and moving story. If descriptive and figurative language is the key to an excellent book, this author definitely has his game on.  It is an excellent book and it even made Oprah’s Book Club in 2008.  (Yes, I know, I’m late to that game too!)

So, if the book is so great, why am I not keeping it on my shelves?  First off, have you seen the size of the book?  The hardbound edition, which is the one I have, takes up nearly three inches of space on my very limited shelf space.  When I was dating the Beau, he told me I needed to get rid of some books. His perfectly minimalist home inspired much of the cleaning out, painting and re-decorating projects I conducted throughout  this year.  Even so, these words come from a man who, I think, has a sum total of 8 books in his house. (That’s not a bad thing, it’s just not me.)  Words which were said to a woman, who if she could, would have an entire room filled floor to ceiling with bookshelves and good books, except for the part of the walls where the windows and the fireplace existed.  The Beau was partly right though.  I don’t need to keep EVERY book I read, just for the sake of keeping it.  To this end, Edgar Sawtelle must move on.  Instead, it will become a gift for my oldest daughter, who turned me onto it in the first place.  She’s not read it yet, so she should enjoy it.

The other reason, Edgar Sawtelle, doesn’t get to stay around, is because as beautifully written and crafted as it is, it is a downer for me. He just didn’t get me to my happy place.  (If you haven’t read the book and you want to, you won’t want to read much further because it might be a spoiler for you.)   I just kept reading, hoping things in the story would get better and it just didn’t.  It was truly a modern day tragedy.  Given that my life of late has been filled with enough of its own tragedy, I prefer to read things that help me focus on hopeful outcomes rather than dire and distressing ones.  I got done reading this late one evening in front of the fire, tears streaming down my face (thank God the kids weren’t home) and I wondered, “What if things don’t ever get better? What if they keep getting worse?”   No.  Definitely not a good place for me to go…and the tears?  No, definitely not a good look.

Another book that won’t be taking up permanent residence here at The Wild Mind household is The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. You can read a review that I pretty much agree with here if you want a fully blown synopsis. (And by the way, check 10Thirty’s blog…she can cook…makes me sick…but she’s a fun read!)  I agree with 10Thirty’s conclusions about the book, though I could never have articulated them quite as well.  I simply don’t care to spend the time!  Like Edgar Sawtelle, while I was intrigued and kept reading on to find out what would happen next, I simply couldn’t stand the ending.  It left me wanting.  Never a good thing to do to The Wild Mind, as Ex #2 can attest!  He looks like this now, because he made that fatal error:

Like, Edgar, The Time Traveler’s Wife left me feeling down and dismal.  I think I’m just at the place right now, where over the last three years, and especially this year, I’ve had enough of my own unhappy endings that I really don’t care to read about any more unhappy and tragic endings.  Part of the reason I read is to escape some of my present reality.  These books somehow didn’t quite reach the Calgon level of taking me away from all that, so they don’t stay on my shelves.

And, now I’m wondering…

Are you a reader and a book lover? 

If so, what do you read and what are your purposes for reading?

If not, what do you do when you need a momentary escape from the less than happy realities you might be facing?

Kicking Off The Holiday Season

I have a friend who firmly believes that Halloween is the holiday that officially kicks off “The Holiday Season”.  Being a person who really knows how to entertain and, yes, even cook very fine meals, she is all about celebrating.  And she is good at it.  Whether you agree with my friend or not, by the time Thanksgiving rolls around, followed immediately by the day now known as “Black Friday”  (only in America and when did that happen anyway?), it is clear The Holiday Season is well underway. 

The Problem

In years past, I was all about Christmas and decorating and making everything festive and, like my friend, I enjoyed celebrating in the company of family and friends.  But somewhere along the line things went horribly wrong and suddenly, The Holidays, have lost their appeal to me.  Or maybe I’ve just become very, very confused about does and does not matter when creating those memorable holiday moments.

Okay, things didn’t really go “horribly wrong”, at least, not all in one big life changing moment.  It was more like a gradual decline and I think I did it to myself.  Too much pressure, expectations for myself and those of others (mostly in-laws), the demands of being a new mom, starting a new demanding career at the same time (oh, yes, I do wish I’d played that card differently), and the gradual erosion and decline of a marriage.  Along the way, The Holidays lost their charm.  They became something to be endured; a source of pain, frustration and immense exhaustion.

After the second divorce, I tried the best I could to make Christmas memorable for my children.  This wasn’t easy, since I was now in the place so many people find themselves in after divorce:  broke…if not bankrupt. I was definitely the former, scrambling to avoid the latter.  Looking back, I don’t even know how I survived that first Christmas because child support hadn’t even kicked in.  The second Christmas was also pulled off with meager finances and the third Christmas, last year, was the first Christmas my children spent away from me.  That was tough! 

  Yes, I am fully aware that in spite of the pretty lights, the happy smiles on people’s faces, the advertisements that boast loving couples, happy families, and joyous, grateful children with lavishly decorated homes where trees are standing amidst a treasure trove of gifts, the cost of which might easily feed a small third world nation somewhere for a year, The Holiday Season for many, is a season of pain, regret, disappointment, sadness and deep loneliness. Many of us, especially those of us who are Singles in a World of Couples dread the advent of the holidays because it means we will be attending yet another office party alone, waking up Christmas morning alone while the kids wake up and open presents elsewhere, eating alone with no one to greet us in the morning or drink a toast with us in the evening.  That awareness can gnaw at us and deprive us of joy, energy, and contentment.

A Solution:

Now, if I let it, that could depress me.  I could spend my time regretting the misused past.  I could spend my time fretting that I am now unable to provide my children with what I’d always wanted and hoped to be able to provide them materially. I could feel badly that I don’t have significant other to share the joys and sorrows (or my hot tub!) with.  I could get weepy that things are not exactly what I wanted or how I planned or imagined.  I could despair that things are not better than they are.  Sometimes I do.  Not for long.  Maybe only about two hours a month…if that.

Solution:  I don’t let it.  I’ve learned to enjoy what I have and be grateful that I have it.  I’ve also learned that things can always be worse.  After all, as one friend recently said to me, “You have a roof over your head, a good job, you are paying your bills haven’t had to foreclose on your home or file bankruptcy, you and your kids are healthy and you have food on the table.  It could be so much worse, so chin up!”

I’ve learned over the last three years to think differently about many things.  I now think differently about my holidays.  I think very differently about the holidays on those years when my kids will be away for Christmas Day.  I’m not so hesitant anymore to ask out that guy friend to my office Christmas Party.  I just make sure it is someone who understands that this is not a Friends With Benefits situation or that I have any illusions about us as a couple.  I’ve given myself permission to be single and to enjoy it.  I’ve given myself permission to take full advantage of the times when the kids are away.  I’ve met enough people and have plenty of friends that if I want a date to an event I can have one.  If I’m sitting home alone on a weekend night it is because I have chosen it, not because I have no other choice.  I’ve learned to be at peace with myself.

I no longer feel that I’m missing life if I stay home…alone…curled up on my couch in my lounge pants and t-shirt…in front of the fire.  Would it be fun to be using my couch differently?  Of course, but I’m not desperately hoping that will happen or thinking that it must happen in order for me to feel validated and alive.

Mostly, I’ve learned that the off times, those times when the kids are away at their other homes is a great time for me to work on the many home improvement tasks I have lined up.  I don’t have to worry about kids wanting to help with the painting or spreading the mess throughout the house. I don’t have to stop mid project to fix a meal and clean it up.  It’s also a wonderful opportunity to catch up with some of my adult friends that I have a more difficult time connecting with when the kids are around. It’s a great opportunity to get caught up on laundry and if all else fails…

…it is a wonderful time to try to learn to cook a new dish! 

Yeah, like that’ll happen anytime soon!

I do have questions though for those of you out there who, like me, have a shared custody or a parenting plan that means your children will be away from you some or all of the holiday season. 

How do you handle the holiday season when you don’t have your children with you to celebrate?

How has divorce changed how you celebrate the holidays?

 

 

Post Breakup Part ‘Em Depression and Booty Calls

“Have you experienced The Insane Weekend yet?”  he asked.  He was a person I’d brushed digital shoulders with some time back, nearly two years now, on a social networking (not dating) site.  While he lives locally, sort of, we’ve never met. We chat online every now and then. this was one of those now-and-then times.  Over the last two years, I’d become his outlet to rant about his latest relationship that didn’t pan out.  Since he’s also an FB friend, he knew something of the demise of the romance between Oz and I. He was trying to be helpful and commiserate.  Seems he’d just broken up with someone he’d intended to marry.  His situation, like my own, began in a gradual downward spiral and ended up plummeting to a disastrous end.

“The Insane Weekend?”  I typed back.  We’ve also never talked on the phone, only IM’d sporadically. 

“Yeah, the weekend where you cry your eyes out, want to die, don’t want the end of the relationship to be reality but it is.  I wept for two days and even prayed on my knees to a God I don’t believe in that He would take this reality from me. You act insane and you feel you’re going out of your mind with pain. You know, the insane weekend.”

I sighed.  Yeah, I thought.  Since 20 of October I’ve had plenty of those. 

“Yeah, I’ve had a few of those, I think,” I messaged.

We went on to talk about the breakup and healing process.  The pain when you finally realize conclusively that the someone you’d painted into your present and your future is erasing themselves out.  Decisively.  Finally. 

The pain that comes in spite of the fact that you also had very real concerns about the other person and their “stick-ability”, especially after the recent events.

The sense of rejection you feel.  The sense of loss.  The very real experiences associated with the death of anything, anyone significant, important, cherished. 

The fear that comes with envisioning a future by yourself, when it only days ago appeared to be filled with incredibly fulfilling companionship, love and hope.

The realization and the sickening dread that your current loneliness may well be your lot in life.

All these feelings we IM’d about and shared. 

He related the pain and confusion of breakup sex and the back and forth situation he was still dealing with. 

I was grateful that option is not possible for me, especially not now, since, as suspected The Wizard magically disappeared in a way that is convenient to do when you are 12,000 miles away and can simply unfriend a person, delete a contact and refuse to answer any email.  At least I am not in the place where the breakup sex and the subsequent delay of the inevitable is possible. I’m realizing, as I usually do in situations like this, that things are working out, or they eventually will, for the better.  In the meantime I’ve learned a lot about myself.  Good to know. The Insane Weekends are over.  Moving on.

Eventually, the IMing evolved to texting, since I had to get off the computer.  Still battling a cold/flu and feeling very weak after my first week back to work I really could only take so much sitting up and squinting at the small computer print.

By this time our conversation had turned from dealing with what we regretted and had lost, to thinking about the present and the future.  We both recognize that though our pain now seems to overwhelm us at points, it is not a permanent thing.  We began bantering about his upcoming plans to spend some time eating sushi on his brother’s dime the next weekend.  The conversation was gradually tapering to an end.

In the midst of this, I received a booty call. Well, it really was a booty text.

“You still up?”  the text said.

“Yeah, just heading to bed.”  It was almost nine o’clock.

“I’m not one to beat around the bush,” the Booty Texter replied.  “Want company?”

I almost laughed out loud. 

“I think I just got a booty text”, I texted to my other friend.

“I am in my pj’s, look like bat guano and can’t breathe.  I won’t be great company,” I texted Booty Texter.  “Wait!”  I went on, “Was that a booty call and I just missed it?”

Booty Texter didn’t deny it and he wasn’t giving up that easily.  He went on to mention that he was was also in his p.j.’s and could just slip on his slippers and come over.  He then mentioned his CPR skills. 

Really?!  Are you kidding me?!  What part of any of this is supposed to make me feel special, desirable and like he’s really into me? (None of it, that’s my point!) This also from a guy in earlier exchanges who said “he really liked me, but didn’t know about getting involved with someone with kids”.  Yeah, he should have just said, “Let’s be f*** buddies”, after all, he wasn’t “one to beat around the bush”.   As far as Booty Texter is concerned all I can say is, “Good to know his real intentions now rather than later”.  He’s clearly into no one but himself.  Good to know.

This booty call strategy must work for guys because they try it.  Apparently they’re getting rewarded for it enough to make it worth the effort.  Seems like a completely degrading place to go for a few seconds of gratification…if you could call it that.

The guy had to be totally desperate to want to get it on with an ill, snot oozing, barely breathing babe like me.  Add to this that I’d already refused to go out with him once that evening when he invited me “over to his place for dinner”.  Right.  He was hard up enough to take rejection twice from the same person?  And don’t even tell me any of that is because “maybe he really likes you”.  Excuse me while the tears from my recent breakup turn into gales of hilarious laughter. 

This is my future?  I wondered. Wasting time with freaks like this to find out what?  They hope to get something for nothing? 

“Yep” I texted to my first friend.  “It’s a booty call and he’s not giving up easily.”

I texted a firm no to Booty Texter and he, like all the others before him, who’ve tried the same futile tact, ended the conversation in a huff but not before he’d put in his last “you’re really missing out” digs.

I’m pretty sure I’ll never hear from him again. 

I’m pretty sure I don’t care.

I let my friend know that the booty text episode had ended and shortly after that we concluded our own lighthearted and delightfully non-sexual banter and said our own good-byes, encouraging each other to keep our proverbial relational chins up.

It is times like these, that I am grateful, for the humor of life.  It is these times that make me wonder what I was so worried about a future alone for?  It is times like these that sitting at home alone by the fire with my one guard dog and two cats is really all I want or need.  No demands.  No pressure.  No pain.  Just lots of good old fashioned contentment mixed in with a bit of joy because I know I’m going to be okay, come what may. It is also at these times, interestingly enough, that my own internal focus and vision for my future become much clearer and more defined.

I’m done with The Insane Weekends. I’m done with online dating. I’m actually even feeling like I might be done with being sick. That’s the best part. 

I might even be done with “dating” per se for a while.  I just am really tired of the games, the dance, the eventual disappointment.  Not that there would always be a disappointment, but quite honestly, more and more I’m becoming convinced that if I just go about my life…if there even is someone out there for me…then he’ll appear when the time is right.  It will be more authentic and less artificial and staged.  I’m not saying I won’t ever date, but I’m not going to worry about filling my weekend social calendar either.  It somehow seems to do that anyway without much effort on my part. 

In the meantime, I have better things to do with my emotional energy than waste my sorrows on those who clearly are uninterested and unworthy.  I have far better things to with my time than sort through Booty Call Boys and Disappearing Acts in the hopes of finding Prince Charming. 

After all, in every scenario, Prince Charming went seeking Cinderella, not the other way around. 

Cinderella mourned the loss of her shoe but went on dusting in her rags till the dude showed up. And if he hadn’t shown up, something else interesting and magnificent would have happened to Cinderella. I’m certain of it. 

I have far more interesting things to do than read fake profiles, go out for coffee only to find it’s a no, go back to the drawing board again, and so on. 

Besides, it is far more likely I’m probably going to  bump into him at one of those classes I’ll be taking at The Home Depot on how to install sprinkler systems, lay tile, concrete walkways, or prune my trees because that is where I’m going to be spending my time anyway. 

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?