Day 4

nanny has threatened to leave twice now. i had decided if she ever mentioned it again i would call her on it. monday she threatened. i took the bait. she's set to leave this friday. i'm having palpitations and anxiety attacks. her leaving is now somehow tied up in the whole S w/ estranged wife thing and since friday i've had this cloud of melancholy hanging over my head. i realized tonight that it was that old friend: rejection. regardless of why nanny wants to leave (i'm convinced she doesn't like working, but..) or why s will try again w/ that wackjob of a wife, the point is, the last page of these stories don't have my name in print. even though it feels like I have been rejected: dumped, if you will. they chose a path away from me, but not because of me.

as i sat on the driveway tonight, this little voice whispered into my body: "sometimes rejection has nothing to do with you." it felt so right.

part of this journey through divorce and the crazies that came with it and rebound and rebirth and so on, part of my successful advancement to the next stage is wrapped up in my ability to face and accept rejection: to just walk away. that's always been a struggle, i see that now. it's my latest challenge i suppose to embrace rejection and change the angles of my view so that i can see it as an opportunity for something better, rather than a judgement call on who i am or how people perceive me.

strings of nameless sex partners will give you a headlong plunge into rejection. i think i OD'ed on rejection last year. maybe i was conducting some kind of personal test--albeit sick and twisted and virtually subconscious--to get a double check that i was truly a completely rejectable gal. and i got that confirmation in spades, let me tell you. but look at me. i'm still standing. still smiling. tweaking out a little bit here and there, fighting off the occassional wave of despair and still taking down mental crepe paper from my numerous pity parties, but alive and well all the same.

if i can internalize the idea that i will get rejected, then move on and still succeed, i can see myself moving forward to places i've only fantasized would accept me. this big body is an excuse to rationalize rejection. even tonight as i embarked on what felt like the last squeeze of remorse for the loss of a possible boyfriend in s, i caught myself wondering about his wife. i've met her but i can't remember much about her beyond dark hair and that i was keenly unimpressed w/ her upon first meeting. i wondered if she was sexier than i am. slimmer, fitter: more appealing. now i know that her body (especially vs. mine) had virtually nothing to do with his decision to give her another try. i know it. still, my self-talk says "if you were fitter and tighter, he would've told her to forget it. you're too full of rolls for a man to pick you over someone else--someone with a normal sized body."

i have a degree somewhere. i am an educated, bright and intelligent woman. my brain knows that this self-talk is total and utter bullshit. but is my self-talk keeping me from becoming more fit and healthy because then it would get rid of this easy excuse and leave me with nothing to explain the rejection beyond, "they just don't want you; you are not wantable." man, that hits me just right. i think that's right. i have felt downright unwantable and i've done my damndest to prove it. i'm going to sleep with this one tonight and work it out in the darkness of my mind. but it feels like i'm on to something. something good.

oh, forgot to mention the new mantra that hit me early yesterday AM: "only moving forward. we'll never go back." when it resonates, i picture a two-lane road, with fog sitting just above the pavement; as the words permeate into me with my own meditation on them, the fog lifts and i can see the road, clear and bright, bathed in the emerging sunlight.