open letter to a favorite bedmate

dear hank,

i'm writing to get the things out of my head that i want to say to you.

i feel guilty that our contact is built on random occassions of sex over the last two years. several times i've tried to assuage that guilt by reaching out to create a friendship with you. i thought that if i knew you and could count you as a friend, then i wouldn't feel guilty about having sex with you. but that never worked out; i don't know if you really never found me attractive, were absolutely repelled by my sexual aggressiveness, or if you were just scared that i could become someone permanent in your life. regardless; i feel guilty that i have used you when i needed someone and i've tried to make that right, but i see now that i can't.

you and i don't know each other. you don't know my kids' names. i don't know your siblings' names. i don't know where you work, or really what you do. the first few times i saw you, i thought your name was hank, even though i used to call you robbie. and all the other cloak and dagger details of those first encounters. a bit twisted now that i look at it.

anyway, i need to say i'm sorry. i owe you an apology. i owe myself an apology. because regardless of who you've known me to be, that is not me. the conflict of it has bothered me every time, but moreso since this last time, because i've walked away from the life that i was tied up in when i first "met" you. the divorce crazies are in my past now, but you seem to have held on in my heart, or at least in my libido.

i still wish that we had cultivated a real friendship. i find myself wanting new people around me that i can really care about, but not having the motivation or the time to pour myself into it to make it worthwhile. but we didn't. and now a new year is closing in and i am assessing myself and finding that there are words unsaid that i need to get out so that i can move into 2007 with clarity.

i used to think that i could be with you for real. especially in my drunken moments when i waited for you, i had fleeting thoughts that this could be the time we followed through and the next morning we would carry on without a broken connection to meet the sunshine. it was delusional, i think. it was an attempt to rationalize what i was doing and i'm sure you sense that which is why you are not returning my texts. or maybe you've found someone real and want to forget the dirtiness of our relationship and if so, i commend you on it. i hope you find love, real love. and i hope i do too.

happy christmas. happy new year. happiness always.
maybe i'll see you around sometime.
jewels

Response - Ability

the other night at dinner my seven year old said, "i've been working on responsibility." impressed, i told her, "that's great. responsibility is a really hard thing to learn. I've been working on it too."
"Yeah," she said, "people tell me it's hard, but i've been practicing and i think i've got it."
"well," in my mom voice, "i've been working on responsibility my whole life, it's something you just keep learning more about. No matter how old i am i'll still be working on responsibility."
"I don't know why everybody says it's so hard, i've just about got it." "R-E-S-P..."

my daughter was working on SPELLING responsibility.

my kids teach me so much about how God loves me and how he teaches me things. When i go to him and ask for wisdom, i mean to just give it to me the easy way: just teach me how to spell it. Because the lessons i have to go through to actually be Wise are pretty tough and i'm finding that it takes a strong backbone to get through it.

i think about how many times i tell my kids to do the same thing. i have to tell them every day to brush their teeth. they know to do it, but they won't unless they're told. i'm that way with God. i know i'm supposed to spend time with him, to dedicate myself to serving. but i have to reminded like every day to do it.

i'll bet God looks at us just like i look at my girls. i get so irritated with them when i have to keep teaching them the same lesson, but at the same time i love them and understand in a way, that it takes a lot of repetition to get it.

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.

as usual, i know i'm right

i refuse to believe that i will go through this life without someone who adores me. and who i can love. i don't believe it and i won't believe it. there is someone in this world for me. there is someone in this state for me. in some ways, i try to convince myself that there is someone in this city-this suburb-for me. i was thinking tonight, sitting at the bar: why i am here alone? i love to go out. love to be in the crowd. i am cute. i am so funny, witty and let's be real here: i am so smart. men love smart. i was not meant to spend the rest of this life on my own just because i chose to marry a shithead. there is anotnement. i will not have to pay for this divorce with life-long singleness. that is not how is meant to be. i know that. there is someone for me.

but for now, i can't find any reason to substantiate these beliefs. i am lonely. as much i enjoy alone-ness. lately, i have been lonely. and it's not about sex. it's not about just having someone there anymore. it's about really wanting someone THERE for me. someone who just likes to be around. like a super-friend. my uber-friend. and i know i'm right.

god i feel pathetic. looking in on this, i see how ridulous it's been to watch. everything i have never been in my life, was suddenly the central definition of my choices and behavior. and the worst part is: i love this life. it is so enticing. so easily forgotten, forgiven, rationalized. but lately i have tried to remember the me i used to be. way before tony, before sean, even before the heartbreak that was my own daddy. i understood conviction of the soul. i understood choices being made just because it was the right choice to make. but you know, i had never also had the balls to venture out of the zone and break the rules, make the wrong choice. but now i have. i get it now. god protected me with safety through all of these bad choices. and like a parent, he's hoping the best for me, expecting the worst and all the while resting in the comfort that he knows i have what it takes to figure this out. and i am. but it's a slow progress.

Here i go again

a nice weekend. not great . not bad . nice.

i dreamed about funerals twice last week. not the same funeral. nothing ominous or scary. both dreams were interesting in that although i recognized the event as a funeral, there was nothing funereal about it. not in a church. no casket. no rows of chairs. i found a dream dictionary online and from what i can tell, these dreams denote an unconsious or unrecognized desire or need to bury a past event or circumstance. reading about it actually made me feel more sane than i have in two years. finally, my psyche is going toward the light, maybe soon it will catch up with my logic. i know everything is okay. but i feel like nothing is right.

today was chill. did a little housekeeping. moved all my stuff around. have you ever heard george carlin's whole "stuff" routine? it's the greatest ...here it is ... i feel this way lately more and more. i am managed and made healthy or mad by my stuff. there is stuff everywhere. all the time i think about, "i've gotta organize all this stuff." so i take an afternoon, as i did today, and move all the stuff around. i clear off the back desk, clear the dresser (which is full of clothes and unclassified crap that i never wear or use, stuffstuffstuff)... so i move the stuff around where i can't see it as readily. i squeeze it into drawers (filing), or i hang it on a wall (decorating) or i shove it to a new space where it seems not so offensive (procrastinating) and for a few days i'll look around and not see the stuff that i cleared away, and i'll feel good. i'll feel better.... but then in a week or two or a month i'll start to notice that same stuff in other spots around the house and i'll think "i've gotta organize this stuff."

i've been thinking. i don't need to organize any of this shit. i need to dump it. if all i ever use it for is to organize it in a different spot: why the hell do i have it? there is a link between your living space and your mental well being. it's why prisoners are ornery. (well, one reason why.) i'm starting to notice that my space is crammed with crap that no one in this house really wants; doesn't use and doesn't even like the sight of. why do i keep all this fucking stuff? why can't i just toss it? put it all on the curb one night and if someone doesn't come pick it up, let the garbage men have it. i don't know why i can't. i've gotta clear out my space. i'm going to dump this stuff.clear out my space and free up my life.

the front room looks like i'm preparing the opening of a thrift store. it's my "garage sale" pile. it's been there about seven months. i still haven't had the elusive garage sale. dining room table: covered with boxes of movie films sister brought over with mom's old movie projector. i did set it up one night, but couldn't get the ancient thing to stop eating the reels. so there it sits since that night, i guess it was last may. baby's crib is taken apart and sitting up against the dining room wall, which is sheetrock bare from the night i decided to peel off all the wallpaper...about two/half years ago. kitchen cabs are crammed with all imaginable mechanized gadgets, including a never opened ravioli maker and a full set of silver wine goblets, tarnished to disbelief, but wrapped in celophane. i have three sets of tablewear, although i'm not sure if any of them are complete. i could go on, but it's pointless. the point is: i'm sick of stuff. i have too much of it and it's got to move up on my to do list.

once again i'm trying like hell to push myself in front of a mirror and stop trying to see my reflection in someone else's eyes. i want to focus the spotlight-and the magnifying glass-on me, not on the next him. so, as is my usual way, i have a game plan. of course it's easy now; i've 'made a new start' so many damn times that i have a collection of game plans and goals to cut and paste from to create my new timeline. the list is always the same: stick to a weekly schedule, two drink max, no cigarettes, no one-nighters, lose 20 lbs., exercise every day, read your bible, clear out the house-crap, landscape the backyard, yadayadayada....

i may not be where i should be, i'm certainly not close to where i'll end up, but at least i'm not where i was. ... i mean, that's good, right?

Mid Life Mediocrity or Why i Date old men

what is it with single men between 35 - 42? there's more of them out there than you might expect. Generally, these guys have progressed little from their second year in college, even those handful that actually did get a degree. for the most part, they've never been married, but have one really long relationship in their past, which they still pine over at drunk moments and somewhere inside they believe for fleeting seconds that they've let the one chance for love slip away, down the aisle with another man. and then they take a shot of tequila or a hit from the bong and go back to making bedroom eyes at some poor chick in a bar on a Wednesday night.

these are men that never call after you give them your number--in fact they'd rather have you call them. these are the men who are constantly trying to scrape up enough money to keep their cell phone turned on, yet seem to find plenty of money to pour into their distraction de jour, whether it be a weekly bag of weed, home brewing, motorcycle repair, music or everyone's personal favorite: drinking!

i am fed up and annoyed with the self-help dating books that tell me to hold men to a higher standard. if they don't call: then hey baby, he's just not that into you. well, i've come to think that maybe these men are not that into anyone except THEMSELVES. they fear commitment like women fear breast cancer. the minute they get that weak in the knees feeling when they lock with a set of gorgeous green eyes (or blue, hazel, brown whatever) they ball up like a doodle bug on a toddler's finger and roll away. am i really expected to believe that one of these guys will venture out and follow through with a woman if he's finally SO INTO HER? not bloody likely. these guys don't recognize good women. these are men who are either looking for a young sweetie that won't harp them for a ring or an older chick who's willing to pick up the tab, fuck them three times in a night and plan all events.

and you wonder why i'm bitter?! fuck yeah i'm bitter. i'm sick and tired of meeting you in a bar or my office building or my friend's barbecue/party/wedding and having you be personable, funny, approachable and we share all these cool vibes and then it all falls flat when it's time to settle up with the digits. invariably, i am the one who has to suggest "we should hang out sometime," and you jump at it, in your own sexy, but mediocre way: "yeah, let me give you my number." i don't want your number buddy. i'm old school in some ways and besides, i know myself well enough to know that this bitterness has birthed a bunny-boiler crazy chick deep inside of me and giving me your number is like permission to drunk dial you next thursday night and then obsess on why your number never appears in my missed call log. You call me. do not even give me your number. i can't handle the responsibility.

so let's take a purely hypothetical example that one of these mediocre men, who by the way generally are absolutely brimming with potential for greatness (and i'm all about potential, having already married and divorced a mediocre man myself), let's assume that one of these guys actually does call. A few times. and let's assume that this guy and i set up an allbeit casual but definately planned meeting (which some might have construed as a DATE, but that would make him scatter to the winds like frat boys from a fat chick), so it's not a DATE, but a simple dinner planned between friends.

so the appointed time comes, then goes. mr. mediocre doesn't call, doesn't show doesn't even have his phone turned on. (i recognize straight-to-voicemail. you're lucky i don't let that fatal attraction chick come out and stalk your fucking ass) and 24 hours later, i still haven't heard from him. no response to my breezily casual, although anger-laced message of last night. no nothing. fuck yeah i'm bitter.

this is why i date older men (or as my friends say, "old men.") over 45. they love cute chicks in their mid thirties with a bright brain, a straightforward opinion and penchant for all-night lovemaking. naturally, these are not men that are potential second husbands for me. i have no intention of bringing home a new grandpa for my two kids. but for now, i'm content to bide my time with the AARP sect and give all the good guys who are my age time to let their marriage deteriorate and in the next ten years or so, they'll be ready to start over with a great woman in her early 40s who knows men and appreciates a good one when she finds one.