Very Good Single Chick Stuff

I think I may have discovered a pattern in my life and it's not paisley. 

I started datng The Ex in high school.  We went to prom together for crap sake (everyone say awwwwww).  I dragged him into marriage, homeownership, fatherhood and divorce (he went willingly into none but parenthood).  Before the ink was even dry on my divorce I was in another serious relationship...The Man.  That lasted fve years.  Well the "relationship" really lasted more like three but the cohabitation dragged on.  Two months after his unceremonious departue I was on the phone with Texas (yes he now has a nickname), which lasted four months.  And here I am, eight days later, hearing the tagline in my head (Match? Eharmony? Losers-R-Us?) "It doesn't hurt to look".

But I'm fighting it, because it DOES hurt to look...because looking leads to to dating.  Dating leads to lies and lies lead right back where I am now...so why not just save myself the trip? 

I feel like there's someone out there for me.  Someone honest, with a quick mind, honorable behavior, a caring soul, a career and a good head on his shoulders....and did I mention honest?  Anyway I feel like I need to go find him.

I was in a room of 200 or so Payroll Managers once and the conference leader said "Raise your hand if you're a control freak".  90% of us raised our hands.  I'm convinced the other 10% were there for the free coffee. So it's not surprising that I feel like if I don't GO OUT AND MAKE THIS HAPPEN it will NEVER happen. 

Sigh.............

I mean sure being alone is kind of boring.  And I do HATE HATE HATE yardwork.  But I also really don't like being lied to, or being told that I'm lazy (me with two jobs, a kid, a house, a yard, a more challenging than average workout routine), or treated like I'm stupid, or cleaning up other people's messes, or smelling someone else's morning breath...that all kinda sucks too.  I really enjoy the fact that I can watch whatever I want on TV...in bed...where the whole thing is mine.  I can do ALL of my laundry for the week in two loads, I can get up early or sleep in on the weekend and nobody criticizes me.  Grocery shopping is no longer a major fiscal challenge.  This all very good single-chick stuff.

So why do I....why do WE (as women) continue to put ourselves through this?  Anyone?  Anyone?  Beuller???

I'm honestly not afraid of being alone.  When The Man left I called my friend in hysterical tears, sobbing "I'm all alone". I paced the floors for days feeling like I wasn't attached to anything.  There were no rules and no net. I felt like the astronot whose lifeline got cut.  Just floating.  It scared the nee nee's out of me but I've gotten used to it.  Even during the Texas situation I was alone.  He was there, I was here...unless I was there...but that was just playing house.  That wasn't dealing with life's responsibilites.  And I've pretty much learned to do that on my own.  Every once in a while life throws me a curveball and either I deal with it myself or I get help from a friend, but I'm still standing.  As long as I have The Boy, good friends and a decent paying job I know I'll be fine.  Probably better than fine.  But it would be nice to have someone to come home to who doesn't live there because he's not old enough to get his own place yet.

Then again I lived long enough with people who were only there because it's where their stuff was.  Maybe if I wait for it to be right I'll find someone who is there because I'm there.  Wouldn't that be cool?

Today's lunch...Marie Calendar's Chicken Pot Pie soup and a Panera Oatmeal Raisin cookie.

The soup tasted nothing like pot pie, but was better than most "diet" soups for roughly the same calories (less volume though).  And yes I logged the cookie.

How much of the year do I get?

Well lookee here.  My blog still exists.  Who knew?

The last few months have been crazy.  Cah-ray-zee I tell you.  Busiest time of the year for the day job, trying to get the night job off the ground, traveling to see the (now ex) boyfriend, that whole Jesus' birthday thing, blah blah blah you don't care.  If you do you may want to consider getting a life because seriously it's MY LIFE and I'm tired of hearing about how overwhelmed and busy I am.  So moving on...

For those of you keeping score, men who have lied to me - 3.  Terrie - 0.  Turns out he wasn't who I thought he was.  Or maybe I wasn't who I thought I was when I was thinking I could be with who I thought he was.  Whatevvs.   H20 under the structural overpass so to speak.  Moving on again...

Except I'm NOT moving on.  Remember when The Man left and I decided I was going to stay away from humans posessing penises (peni??) for a while?  Yeah what the hell happened to THAT idea? That was a freaking BRILLIANT idea!!!  The ex boyfriend from 30 years ago is what happened to THAT idea.  So this time I really do want to work on ME for a while.  Maybe if I get my weight down I won't think I have to put up with the crap of any man who will have me.  Maybe if I get my finances in order I can pay someone to do some of that pesky around-the-house dirty-hands-making stuff that I tend to think I need a man for (and therefore put up with his crap).  Maybe if I get MY crap together I will be able to avoid the crap of another.  Maybe?  Hello?  Crickets.....

Well that's my plan and hopefully this time I'm stickin' to it. 

Anyone need any Shakeology? P90X2? Again with the crickets....but it's my blog and I will shamelessly pimp the product if I want to.

So anyway I just came back to say...ahem....ya ready?  I'm back.

And I think I'm going to write about my efforts to make 2012 the year of ME. 

Yesterday I converted my spare bedroom into an exercise room.  It is freaking awesome and I did it for nobody but lil'ol' me.  I can close the heat vent and keep it so cold it snows in there if I want to (and I do).  I don't have to move things or evacuate a room to work out.  My yoga mat lays unrolled across the floor.  Mneh.  MINE!  Somehow this feels decadently, frivelously selfish and yaknow what?  I don't care!!!  It's my house, I pay the bills and I don't want to work out in the living room where I feel like I'm in a fishbowl, crazy dancing lady for everyone to see.  And I don't like to work out in my bedroom because my little TV in there doesn't have the input thingies for my DVD player so I have to use my laptop, which means messy cords all over the place and I can't see from certain angles and why am I making excuses?   I have an exercise room!  Because it is 2012 and it is the year of ME.

Doesn't it just figure I'd pick 2012?  When exactly IS the world supposed to end anyway?  How much of the year do I get?

Now I'm going to go get a haircut I can't afford.  It will not do for me to have hair in my eyes during the year of ME, however long it is.

Still nothing...but....

I have this stat counter that tells me that somoene has been checking in.  And to you, my dear friend, I say I'm sorry.  I am a complete slacker.  I suck as a blogger.

BUT...Allie Brosch did this...and she is AWESOME...so please go there.  She speaks the truth!!!

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2011/10/adventures-in-depression.html

Blowin' the Dust Off

I bought a laptop the other day, and I'm working through the trusty old desktop computer, deleting all of the crap I don't want to keep, transferring all the crap I do.

I came across a document called "p&wmag".  Opened it up and found...well...this. It was apparently something I submitted, under an alias no less, to a magazine (P&W??) back in 2005. 

Since I've been such a slacker lately on the writing front, I figured I'd throw it out here for old time's sake.

When I was about 13 I decided I wanted to be a writer.  Some may have called it “a calling”, though at the time I wouldn’t have painted it with such a mystical brush.  More likely it was the idea that I could get people’s attention, a pursuit in which I had proven myself to be woefully inadequate.  Or, it may have been brought on by the death of my previous dream of becoming Shaun Cassidy’s wife. 

I remember sitting on a concrete step, snuggled in the recessed doorway of the elementary school which I had attended as a small child, shivering against the cold, trying to write in my tiny little spiral pocket notebook.  This doorway was rarely used, a loading door or emergency exit or something of the like.  It smelled of urine, the corners were full of cigarette butts and discarded drug paraphernalia, but it was preferable to the relatively clean but far less peaceful prospect of home.   This is where I always went, in the evenings and on the weekends, to be alone, smoke cigarettes and try to think deeply literate thoughts.  I was successful in all of these endeavors but the last.  My first attempt at a novel was so bad that it was an embarrassment, even though nobody ever saw it but me.

That experience changed my life.  My unhappiness with my story convinced me that I was without talent.  This was an opinion formed firmly in my own head, and given more weight than a statement from God Himself.  It was certainly not up for debate as I thought so little of what I had written that I threw it away.  It was a simple fact.  As much as I wanted to be creative, I was devoid of the imagination, focus and skill that might turn me into a “real writer”.

Shortly after I decided that I was destined for a life of obscurity, with neither the last name of Cassidy nor a Pulitzer Prize, I discovered boys.  Well more aptly they discovered me and I discovered the fleeting sense of power that came with being pursued by the opposite sex.  I grew to depend on the hormonally induced feeling of value, enhanced by drugs and alcohol, generously fertilized by the pile of compliments and sweet words that boys, even at the tender age of 14 or 15, will heap on a girl with the hopes of getting into her pants.  As long as a boy thought I was special, or at least pretended to, I could find reason to doubt how very mediocre I felt.

Through my slutty phase, which has earned its title in my mind more because of my reputation and attitude than by volume of sexual activity, I wrote poetry.  I wrote long rambling poems, most of which rhymed predictably, about love lost, longing and unhappiness.  I mostly wrote when I was heartbroken which means that I turned out poems in abundance. 

I spent my days in school with my best friend, who was also my dealer, floating from class to class with only enough lucidity to remain ambulatory.  I spent most of my evenings alone in my room, wearing giant headphones, Pink Floyd’s The Wall up loud enough to cover the noise of arguing downstairs. 

One night a week I went out with my friends. Usually we went roller-skating, on four wheels, to disco music.  Is it any wonder I was messed up?  These memories are foggy, leaving the roller rink with older boys, beer in hand.  Getting high behind the building.  Searching for acceptance, never finding it.

During the next few years I dated a long line of forgettable young men.  Each relationship had its own story, mind you, but they all ended similarly.  There was the one who I still swear was gay.  There was one who felt it necessary to have two girlfriends.   The one who didn’t appreciate when I had two boyfriends.  There was the one I dated through most of junior year.  He left town to spend the summer between 11^th and 12^th grade with his dad. Of course I waited for him.  Two days after he returned he informed me he had been thinking about breaking up with me all summer, but he wasn’t really SURE until he got back.

Not long after that humiliating break up, an acquaintance invited me to a party.  This was October 22, 1982.  I remember the date because it was my mother’s birthday.  It was a bit odd that this particular acquaintance would invite me, of all people, as we ran in decidedly different circles and seemed to have quite different values.  For example she seemed to prefer to stay conscious during school hours and didn’t feel the need to swap spit with half of the school.  But we had known each other since elementary school, she lived within walking distance of my house and there was to be beer, so I graciously accepted her invitation.

I don’t remember much about the party except that I drank, I may have snuck outside and got high, and I definitely ended up in a car necking with a guy I barely knew.  Somewhat inebriated, I must have wandered home and went to bed.  It’s ironic that I remember so little, because it turns out that I would be reminded of this night for the rest of my life.

A couple of weeks later, the girl who threw the party asked me if I’d like to go to a football game with her.  I had no interest whatsoever in football, though I attended every home game just to get away from my parents for an evening.  I had never been to an away game.  She said a friend was going to drive her and she was sure he would be happy to take me as well.  His name was Don. 

Our high school wasn’t huge.  Everyone knew everyone, if not by name then by face.  I had never met Don, but I knew who he was.  We ran with different crowds, and I didn’t like his.  I had no reason to believe that I was going to be even remotely fond of him, but I thought I could probably stomach his company long enough to get me and my newly rediscovered friend to a football game two towns away. 

He picked my friend up first.  When he came to pick me up, she jumped into the back seat.  This was odd because he drove a big old 1963 Chevy Impala with bench seats that would have probably seated four if necessary.  But I had a Little Kings between my thighs and a cigarette in my hand, I wasn’t at home so all was right with the world.

I don’t know how long it took me to figure out that I had been set up, but when it became clear I was completely blindsided by the revelation.  I was apparently invited to the party weeks before so that Don could get up the nerve to approach me.  By the time he drank enough magic nerve potion, I was out in the car necking with good old What’s His Name.  This trip to the football game was his second chance. 

He was nice to me.  He treated me with respect and dignity.  He was no saint but he wasn’t hell bent on killing every brain cell he had before he was 18 either.  We weren’t all that well suited for each other but I couldn’t find anything WRONG with him except for the fact that he was very much not my type, which is to say that I wasn’t afraid of him and I was relatively sure he wouldn’t cheat on me. 

Normal life as a couple ensued.   Graduation parties gave way to getting jobs, which led to cohabitation, which turned into marriage, which became parenthood.  I am not an easy woman to live with and I tested his patience frequently along the way.  There were bouts of depression and anxiety attacks, obsessive dieting, alternating with compulsive eating.  A basic lack of satisfaction permeated every corner of my life and manifested itself in a laundry list of behaviors that were destructive to us as a couple and to me as a person.  There was definitely something wrong, and no matter how much he tried to make me happy, I didn’t seem to be capable of letting him.  Something was missing.  For twenty years I longed for some elusive, blessed, peaceful fulfillment that drugs, sex, food, love, motherhood and professional success had been unable to provide. 

Then, one day, out of boredom, I decided to start keeping a journal.  I hadn’t written anything more ambitious than memos and procedure manuals in 20 years, but I was told that it could provide insight into some of my more self-destructive behaviors, of which there were many.  It wasn’t illegal and wouldn’t add inches to my hips, so why not?

As I tentatively made my first entry, which started as creatively as “This is my first entry”, I felt a shift in my heart.  That aching dissatisfaction that I had felt, as constant and familiar as the roar of a car motor on a cross-country trip, somehow shifted into a lower gear.  After 25 years of wandering, I found myself back on a familiar path, I can’t say right now where it leads but I see something small and distant, far ahead, and it looks like Hope. 

Initially it was easy to regret my decision to stop writing all those years ago.  If I hadn’t given up so easily would I have gone through all of the fumbling that I did?  Would I have skipped the drugs and gone to college?  Would I have skipped the boys and kept my self-respect?  Would I have skipped What’s His Name and therefore not be teased about it every blessed time my (edit- EX-)husband recalls pursuing me in high school?  Would I have been more at peace with myself, easier to live with, a better wife and mother? 

But then I wonder, if I had been dedicated to an artist’s life instead of being hell-bent on self-destruction would I have gone to a football game with a guy I barely knew just so that I wouldn’t have to be at home?  Would I have had my son?  I can look back at the last quarter-century and think of the great American novel that I may or may not have written, the places I might have traveled and the like-minded, deeply complicated, artistic people I might have met, but it doesn’t compare to the life I’ve led and the people I’ve loved.

Maybe passions, like the most important people in our lives, come to us when we need them and let the luckiest of us go, sweetly and quietly, when we don’t.  Maybe they hang on relentlessly only to the truly tortured souls and set the rest of us free when we need to focus on other things.  I might say that my passion for writing failed me by not giving me the talent or the drive or the belief in myself to continue on to be a great writer, a free spirit, a true artist.  But maybe it just stepped patiently aside to let me do other things.  I may not have been ready to go where writing would have taken me then.  I wonder if I am now.     

Caution...don't trip over the links.

Oh em gee you guys I WANT to write.  I really really do.  But my life is just INSANE right now.


Since I last poked my head  in here (because saying I poke my fingers in here, while technically more accurate, just sounds dirty) I have gone on the adventure of a liftetime, landing me 1300 very scary miles away from my little nest to reconnect with and, as it turns out, fall back in love with the first, best, (hopefully last) love of my life.   Go ahead, get it out of your system...everybody say "awwww".


Of course I then had to come back home, which leaves me in love with a man, and his daughter, who live 1300 miles away.  God really does have a mean-spirited sense of humor when it comes to giving us what we wish for.


Meanwhile I've been trying really hard to dive into this Beach Body thing (it's my blog and I will shamelessly plug my side job if I want to) which, in an effort to not to eff up the day job, has to be done largely at lunch time.  While I'm tempted to change the name of this little ditty to "blogoverwheneverihaveasplitsecond", the URL would be a bit clumsy so we're sticking with what we have for now.


I've lost 8 lbs in the past month which I credit partly to Shakeology, partly to a surprising amount of sweat and, yes, tears while I curse Chalene Johnson, her ancestors and offspring....until I notice the little pre-muscle-like bumps on my arms, the increasing extra room in my pants and my increased energy, at which point I feel just the teeny tinieist little bit guilty for my surly attitude toward her.


And The Boy....let's don't even get me started on The Boy.


And honestly, the fact that I spend more time each day smiling than frowning reassures me over and over and over again that I am EXACTLY where I should be rightthisverysecond.  My nature is to always be either trying to slow down or speed up, endlessly wishing for the past or the future.  But really, right now is pretty darn good....except that lunch is over.


So you're caught up.  Sorry if it feels like I dragged you here by your hair.  There are days I feel that way myself.


Today's lunch:  Giant Eagle salad bar...because it's FREEPING GORGEOUS outside and I just had to get out of the office.

According to Me....

I heard this song the other day and it got me to thinking:

Let's just say it hit a nerve and move on from there.

I was thinking about the old me.  I was fat, lazy, unmotivated, unsuccessful, uninspired, unattractive and unfunny. 

Do you know what has changed?  I am still within the 'obese' category on that Godforsaken BMI Chart.  To what will surely be the shock and dismay of any member of my team who may be reading this (sorry coach) I really would rather nap than exercise.  I have the same job, the same skin, the same hair (basically) and the same sense of humor.   But I am now surrounded by a different group of people.  And these people think I am amazing...and therefore, I am.

If someone would have told me that the biggest change I needed to make was in the company I kept, I would have said that I didn't deserve to be in company better than I was. And, truly, there was nothing WRONG with, well, MOST of the company I was keeping....select few liked to tell me how worthless I was, and by believing it, I became it, and that's probably what I projected even to those who didn't build their own self esteem on the broken pieces of mine.

I thank God on a daily basis that the negative influences are out of my life.  I'd love to say that I woke up one morning and said 'ENOUGH!' and caused this change myself, but I didn't.  It just sort of happened, but I can and do own the fact that I have embraced and continued the momentum.  Now that I know this self-fulfilling circle of  "you think I suck I think I suck you think I'm great I think I'm great", you can bet your bippy that I am surrounding myself with people who see the good in me rather than only the bad.

I'm not saying that we have to entirely base our self-worth on other people's opinions of ourselves, but trying to develop it in the presence of negative people is about like trying to build a skyscraper, on a foundation of toothpicks, in the middle of a hurricane. It's freaking hard.

If you're reading this, I probably know you personally.  And according to me, you are awesome.  Don't argue with me, you will not win.  So if you have someone in your life who makes you feel like you are less than amazing, it is up to you to make that stop.  I can't tell you how to do that (alas my wisdom does have it's limits) but I CAN tell you that if you think you don't deserve any better, you are wrong. 

Think Imma go paint my fingernails purple.  Tootles.

Today's lunch...this awesome veggie bake.  It's a very complicated recipe.  Go to your refrigerator, empty out your veggie drawer, throw away the fuzzy stuff, cut up anything that's left, put it in a casserole dish, drizzle with olive oil. Bake at 350 for an hour.  Add a crapton of mozzarella cheese.  Bake again until melted.  Enjoy with wanton abandon.

The Woo Woo

My blog entries usually kind of write themselves, but this one, even though I've felt it fighting to get out for a few days now, is just not coming so easily, so you'll have to pardon me if the flow is off.

The subject feels new to me, though it’s actually recently rediscovered, from a time I have tried to block out of my memory.  Part of why I've been having such a hard time writing about it is because I can't really explain it in terminology outside of some obscure reference, barely amounting to more than personal shorthand from a long-lost relationship.  Almost a private joke.  But in my head, it is simply The Woo Woo.

It isn't entirely made up.  It's in The Skeptic's Dictionary, though I didn't know that until just now.

adj. concerned with emotions, mysticism, or spiritualism; other than rational or scientific; mysterious; new agey. Also n., a person who has mystical or new age beliefs.

So yeah, I guess it’s not so hard to explain if you're the writer of a dictionary.

Of course!  You know...The Woo Woo

I first began to believe in The Woo Woo back in the fall of 2005.  I thought I had found the man I was SUPPOSED to be with.  He felt it too. A pull.  A sense of rightness.  The Woo Woo.  We both said we didn't believe in it, but sho'nuf there it was.  We were new believers in The Woo Woo.

But The Woo Woo failed me.  He decided that the obstacles to us being together were too great and we parted ways.  And I decided if it had really been "right"...if The Woo Woo existed, he would have moved mountains to be with me.  Once you find The Woo Woo you don't give it up!!!  So clearly it didn't exist. 

Death of The Woo Woo.

Over the following years I tried to focus on the practical things in life.  Yes I fell in love again.  And for a long time it was good.  But it was different.  Less magical.  Less like it was "meant to be".  I decided that there was no one right person for anyone.  "Love is a verb" became my mantra.  If I loved enough, it would work.

It didn't

But The Woo Woo wasn't to blame because, after all, it had gone the way of the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus.  Blaming The Woo Woo for my failed relationship would have been like blaming the Easter Bunny for the five pounds I gain every spring.

So he left.  And I was crushed and terrified and you already know most of that sad story.

And I was sobbing into my bowl of ice cream and telling my woes to a friend via text message and she told me to pray.

Pray?  Fucking seriously?

I didin't. 

And then my mom died.  And I just didn't know how I was going to deal with anything else going wrong.

And again, my friend told me to pray.

This may have been the phenomenon of 'hitting bottom' that people talk about, because honestly I would have done a rain dance in my bloomers in my office parking lot if someone promised me it would make me feel better.  I was terrified.  Irrational as it was, I was just sure that my life was going to continue to be just a series of personal catastrophes that would eventually end in me losing my son, my job and my mind.

So right there, in my little home office, I got down on my knees.  I folded my hands on top of a little two drawer filing cabinet and I asked God to please, please help me.  I just cried and begged for help.

Asking for help does not come easily to me.  I have caused myself physical harm during times of illness rather than ask for help.  I can be a stubborn pain in the ass.  And here I was begging my Higher Power to do something, anything, because I just couldn't deal on my own any more.

I don't know how long I was on my knees, sobbing.  But I haven't had that feeling of hopeless fear since.  I still had to bury my mom.  I'm still broke.  But I'm more at peace than I have ever been.

To some it may not sound like I have "found God" because I can lump this experience in with The Woo Woo, but it is all part of spirituality and a belief in miracles that eluded me until recently.

Faith in the face of failure is the truest faith of all, or some such rot.

Since that afternoon I have been brought into to a group of people who are encouraging me to become better than I ever thought I could be.  Their faith in me makes me believe I can achieve great things just by being true to myself, by working hard and by believing in myself as much as they do.

Since that afternoon I have found an energy and a drive and an enthusiasm beyond anything I've ever experienced before.  I've gone from believing that I would just coast through the second half of my forties, into my fifties, welcoming old age and all of the mediocrity that I believed came with the second half of life.  Now I know that I have only begun to live how I am supposed to live. 

Woo Woo…don’t fail me now.

Today's lunch:  I suppose I should abandon the "today's lunch" portion of Blog Over Lunch.  Until further notice... Chocolate Shakology.