Frustrated Knawing

I am happy to report that I have not gained any weight back in the three months that I have been eating real food.

That being said, I am struggling like I’ve never struggled before. I figured out that I simply cannot behave moderately with sugar. If I allow it, I eat it every day. Perhaps I’m able to control the amount, at least for now, but I’m not able to control my need to consume it, so I’m staying away from it. I’m trying to do the same with refined flour. And fried foods. Because I am keeping sugar and white flour out of my mouth, I’ve been able to maintain my weight.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is that I find myself wanting to eat constantly. I have to fight it. Sometimes I win, sometimes I don’t. When I lose the battle, I eat healthy foods, but five servings of reduced fat triscuits can’t be good for me, can it? Especially when I’m eating beyond the point where my hunger is satisfied. Perhaps that is the problem. My hunger is never satisfied. Last night I realized that my manic eating episodes closely resemble the frustrated knawings of Lexi when she was a puppy.

Lexi chewed everything, EVERYTHING for about six months of her life. She basically ate her way into a new kitchen for me. She chewed my linoleum floor, so I stopped putting off getting ceramic tile and hired a contractor. She chewed the legs of my kitchen table, knawed chucks off the edges, consumed entire back supports of the matching chairs. Then she started chewing on the corners of my walls. My dog was literally eating my kitchen.

I know how she felt. I feel the same way every time I sit down in front of the television. Or sit down anywhere to relax. It seems that I can’t relax unless my mouth is moving, unless my jaws are crackling a satisfying crunch. But nothing satisfies. No matter how much it crunches.

What’s wrong with me?

I think I need sex.

Tit for Tat

Today, I actually got myself ready for work in time to head straight for the office after dropping my youngest son off at school, arriving at the office at 8:35am. I was the first person here. And now, here I am at 9:06pm, still here. I’m not complaining. I’m rather proud of myself. Greg’s girlfriend is cooking dinner because Greg didn’t want to have frozen food. He wanted home cooked food. Like Mom makes. That made me feel good, feel appreciated, but not one bit guilty. I’m here right now so I can pay for Greg to go to the best college he can get into in a few months. It’s good for both of us.

I like this time of year. I don’t get stressed, I just work hard, track and plan my work load, and get it done. I like being busy, knowing what I have on my plate, and having a way to get it accomplished. I also like knowing what I’m doing, and during busy season, it is mostly cookie cutter stuff. The complicated audits are usually at other times of the year.

Feeling productive is a drug, I think, which is why there are workaholics. The adrenaline rush from accomplishment is intoxicating, as intoxicating, in my case, as a weekend rush from a new love interest. Both are important in my life…I need romance and I need productivity. It’s just that sometimes the pursuit of one puts limits on the pursuit of the other. Finding a balance is key, and I find it so much easier to do so when I’m working hard. The other just naturally gets kept in perspective.

Wicked is tomorrow. I’m looking forward to it. We have a staff meeting, so it won’t be a super long day. I will bring my dressy clothes to work with me and change here before Chemistry Guy picks me up at 5:15.

He called me twice on Monday, to find out what I wanted him to wear. I asked him to wear a tie, because I’m dressing up and I’ve never seen him dressed up. He agreed…but then he asked me to wear stockings…not panty hose, but stockings with a garter belt, because he is going through the discomfort of a tie. Hmmm.

He hasn’t called me or emailed me since.

I can’t figure the guy out.

Busy Season

I'm too exhausted to write much. Busy season is really kicking in, and I've been getting up early, going to the gym, showering and getting dressed before driving Kevin to school. So much to occupy my time and my thoughts. Oldest son still drives me crazy. So does Chemistry Guy. We are going to see Wicked on Thursday and were going to dinner at Nicolas. I have a gift card, so the entire evening is on me.

That feels kinda weird. I'll get over it, but part of me wishes I was going with my son just to avoid the weirdness I'm feeling. If he doesn't appreciate the evening, or spends the whole time talking about his ex wives or why it won't work between the two of us, I will be really pissed. If I was going with my boys...sigh...well, I'd probably just find something else to be pissed about.

I think I'm being hormonal. Must be it.

How am I possibly going to get through an entire year of posting every day?

Remind me to talk about food issues tomorrow.

Monday

I saw two movies yesterday, with my sons as my companions. I saw “Juno” with Kevin, which I found to be a beautiful story without the traditional “Press Here for Tears” button that are found in so many features of more lighthearted fare. I cried, nonetheless, although they were tears for my own memories as much as for anything up on the screen. It made me think about when I was nineteen, unmarried and pregnant, and of course, it made me think about now, as an unmarried mother. If I had known that I was going to raise my children by myself later in life, I might not have been so quick to decline the job when I was nineteen. Hell, it ain’t so bad.

The second movie was “There Will Be Blood” which I saw with Greg and his girlfriend. Sarah and I hated it, Greg loved it, but maybe he said he liked it just to incite a discussion, which of course, ensued during the drive home. My contention was that if a movie leaves you feeling bad, it’s a bad movie. Greg’s contention is that if a movie makes you feel, regardless of the direction of that feeling, then it has done it’s job. I’m sorry, but if I feel loathing of the characters and disgust of the images presented to me on the screen, I don’t think that makes it a good movie, evening if those feelings are quite strong.

This posting every day is tough. There is so much I want to talk about, but can’t. Too many people read the blog, there’s the watchful eye of BIG BROTHER for the next few months until a judge makes a decision one way or another, and of course, there are the romantic interests causing a less that revelatory tone.

Sigh.

I may have to start writing in my diary afterall.

Although, if the words came out right, I’d just want to post them here anyway.

Quaker

I wrote the following, sitting in my Quaker meeting today. I have no idea what I was thinking, all I know is that I couldn’t stop the pen from flowing over the page.

Quake me
Shake my soul
Let me believe
The virtues you extol
Reside in my heart.

Make me
Mold inside
The transformative power
Of who I hope to be
Colliding in my heart.

Who do I want to be, other than myself? No one, quite frankly. I don’t want to be the incarnation of my romantic interest’s ideal. I don’t want to be what my neighbors value. I don’t want to be even the virtuous being described in the books I read. I want to be me. I want to be my true self. I want to know and love and accept the Betty that has been, that has blossomed within this body over the past five decades. I don’t want to be who my children wish I was, who my ex husband would like to control. I have no remote with multicolored buttons to stop and start at anyone’s whim. I am Betty. I am only Betty, meaning singular, not minimal. Accept me as I am or leave me in your dust, it matters not. I will not change for you. I will only change as a manifestation of my own soul’s growth, not as a hopeful reply to an expressed or implied desire of yours.

I will not cut my hair for you or change its color. I will not wear more makeup or shave parts of me where God gave me hair. I will not change my housekeeping habits or give my son a bedtime he doesn’t need. I will treat my employees fairly eve if you think I could make more money by simply following the rules. I make my own rules when it comes to my life.

I am me and I will not change for you, not for anyone.

Get used to it.

Or get out.

Metamorphous

I watch these gangly boys, cavorting across the basketball court, encouraged by the solid bodied voices of their fathers, sitting in the bleachers, coaching from the sidelines. My son plays on a team which exemplifies the spectrum of hormonal influence on adolescent boys. Some of the boys, like my son, are all bones and jutting chins and protruding kneecaps and elbows and awkward. The older boys, and by older, I mean nine months to a year, are replicas of their fathers, broad shoulders, tight hips, bulky muscles cushioning the burgeoning bones of their speedily growing bodies.

They are seventh and eighth grade boys, all of them; the bridge from boyhood to being a man. The Jewish folks have it right to celebrate this maturation process with a ceremony as significant as life, death, and marriage.

I’ve watched this happen twice before, and still I am awed; awed by the transformative power of nature, turning my boy into a butterfly.

Like My Mother

“Eeew. What is that foul smell?”

I walk into the kitchen, my face contorted as the sour smell becomes more prevalent. My mother is standing at the kitchen sink, scrubbing long orange carrots with a wire brush. We don’t peel carrots in our house, we just scrub them, to keep the vitamins intact.

“What foul smell?” My mother asks innocently, not stopping in her scrubbing ritual.

“The foul smell coming from under the sink!” I reply in exasperation, as my nose leads me to the source.

I open the door to the cupboard beneath the sink and see an old plastic milk carton, a hole cut into the top, half full of rotting potatoe peelings from the Thanksgiving feast a week before, the only time we ever peel the potatoes for mashing.

“Mom! You said you wouldn’t do this anymore!” I wail in frustration and a bit of angry resentment. “You know how bad that shit smells, and I told you that I didn’t want you doing this anymore. How can I even think to spontaneously invite someone over if you keep stinking garbage under the sink?”

My mom hangs her head in shame, a slow pink blush rising up her face. “I’m sorry, Betty, I know that this is your house and you get to make the rules, that I’m just a visitor, but it seems so wasteful to throw this stuff away when it could make such good fertilizer.”

I sigh and walk over to put my hand on my mother’s arm. “You’re not just a visitor. You live here, you have rights, too, and I value your opinion, but Mom! It’s garbage! And it stinks! If you could empty it every day and bury it, then I’d have no problem with it. But you don’t. You have good intentions, but you forget, and the garbage rots under my sink for who knows how long until the smell tells us it’s there. That’s not good! Please don’t do this anymore!”

“Ok, Betty Jeanne” my mother sighs softly.

I remember this scene this morning as I dump my coffee grounds into an old plastic milk carton with a hole cut into the top. Already in the milk carton are the banana peelings accumulated over the past four days, broccoli cuttings from three days ago, tangerine peelings from God knows when and rotting leftover lettuce plucked from the crisper of my refrigerator at least a week ago. I’m planning on burying this garbage in my compost heap, really I am, I just haven’t gotten around to it since the weather has been so cold, and the ground is probably frozen.

I have mentioned many times that I have no fear, no fear of heights, of the dark, of spiders or snakes or worms or wasps. I have no fear of tight spaces or big crowds. I love riding in airplanes and could play in the water for hours. My only acknowledged fear, like many women, is turning into my mother.

And here I am, dumping another day’s worth of coffee grounds into a practically identical milk carton as the one I chastised my mother about two decades prior. Farmer blood runs deep, dark red in my veins, as it did in my mother’s. It’s about the only thing we truly have in common, other than sharing a name, a sweet disposition and a genetic history.

We are otherwise as different as night and day.

My mother thinks about things she’d like to do, I do them. My mother worries about mundane matters, I fix them. My mother is still waiting for happiness to knock on her door, I’m out searching, calling it’s name. My mother cowers at the door of life, I challenge life, get up in it’s face, demand attention.

My mother was a victim. I’m a survivor.

So, why am I so afraid of ending up like my mother? My mother was 46 when my sisters and I forced her to leave my asshole father so that he would stop raping us girls. Even then, she didn’t leave of her own accord, we made her. She never actually divorced my father, either. He divorced her over a year later, when he started dating a woman that wouldn’t have sex with him until he was divorced. The legal reason for their divorce is mental cruelty…her cruelty to him.

What a farce.

My mother has been divorced for 33 years. She has been on a grand total of 3 dates since she left my father. Her fear kept her from putting herself out in the line of fire, figuring that if she was meant to meet someone, he’d have to go looking for her. I guess he never did.

On the other hand, I’ve been single for 8 years, have been on (counting in my head, ok, I confess, I had to pull out a calculator) 113 first dates in those eight years. I’ve broken hearts and had my heart broken. I’ve been wined and dined and swept off my feet.

And yet, here I am, puttering in my kitchen by myself, saving garbage in my meager attempt to save the world. In the end, I’m very much like my mother was when she was 48.

Alone.

And that scares me.

Sneezing-Part II

A gentleman sat down in his aisle seat on a cross country flight from Cincinnati to Los Angeles. He had brought along his newspaper for company, and was rummaging for one of those tiny airline pillows when he noticed the woman sitting next to him, sneezing in rapid succession. He halted his hunt, concerned for this neighboring stranger.

“Are you ok?” he queried, during a lull in the sneezing sequence.

“I’m fine” she replied with a grateful glance in his direction. “I have a rather rare medical malady. Every time I sneeze, I have an orgasm.” She lowered her lashes in embarrassment.

“Oh, my” the man exclaimed. “What do you take for that?!”

She brightened considerably at that question and unabashedly responded, “Pepper.”

Almost

She felt the tickle stirring down deep in her middle and she leaned into it, smiling a little. Coils of tension made a call to arms to her muscles and they quickly marched into formation. Recruiting heavily, the wave of tightening swarmed up her body like army ants ready for battle. Pulling tightly, tightly in places she forgot she had, the shudders started before she could even pause to consider them. Opening her eyes wide at the onset, now she closed them in anticipation. Her breath came in short gasps . Almost…almost… She took in one last deep breath…

And then she sneezed.

Making Love Like a Porn Star

I’ve discussed this phraseology with a couple people and am astounded by how many differing reactions folks have to “making love like a porn star.” One gentleman asked me aghast, “You watch porn!?” I shook my head vigorously in denial, but my fingers were crossed behind my back. I’ve seen some pornography, actually enjoyed a few bits of it. As long as the actors look sufficiently of age, preferably closer to my own age, as long as there is no violence, coercion or cruelty, as long as there is not degradation or name calling, I can actually find some redeeming qualities to some of the films I’ve seen.

Ok, so perhaps I’ve only seen the collection I confiscated from my son, and perhaps it was conspicuously vanilla (much to my relief) and perhaps I am being naïve, but I think there could be a market for well done porn targeted towards middle aged horny women, seeing as we are hitting our sexual peaks. Most of the porn, at least the stuff I confiscated from my son, seemed to be targeted to….well…post pubescent teenage boys, like my son, who are also at their sexual peak. Perhaps the porn targeted towards my age group and gender exists, I just have never been exposed to it.

Anyway, when I first heard the phrase “make love like a porn star”, and sadly, it is not a phrase I coined, but rather one I borrowed from one of my dear writing friends, I thought, “make love with passion, abandon and imagination”. I did not think “make love with multiple partners while high on illegal substances in between hooking johns”. My friend who had that imagery thought perhaps I should use “make love like the romance book heroine”, but that doesn’t really mean what I was thinking. The heroines in romance novels usually take a passive role in the lovemaking, as the hero is usually rescuing them from something, then exacting their due, at least in the beginning. That is directly counter to the thinking of this middle aged sex goddess. Making love at my age is never something that is done to me, it is something I am very actively involved in making happen.

I stand by my assertion that I have made love like a porn star, meaning with passion, with abandon, with imagination. Come on, people. Some of my best ideas of what painfree, humiliation free, audience free position to try next have come from watching movies, not from romance novels.

Quiet and Cold

Quiet day today, spent cleaning my closet and reading. I had a long telephone conversation with Chemistry Guy, but nothing has changed. Every time I talk to him, I yearn for him, and every time he talks to me, he is flabbergasted that I can’t believe that he cares for me simply because he says he does. I watched parts of the football games with my youngest son, but while I enjoy a few minutes of watching perfect male bodies in tight pants, after a while, even that gets old. I went grocery shopping and visited my mother and corresponded with a couple of other potential suitors. Never underestimate the time commitment required to find your soul mate.

You Gotta Stop Wearing Your Wishbone Where Your Backbone Oughtta Be

I’m still reading Eat, Pray, Love, (Elizabeth Gilbert) and I’m in the section about India. The author is experiencing a physical longing for her ex-boyfriend, and can’t concentrate her mediation because she is so immersed in thoughts about her lost love. Her friend, Richard from Texas, says to her, “You gotta stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone oughtta be.” I found the statement to be very profound.

How many times have I let my wishbone replace my backbone? After virtually every heartache in my life, after a period of abject mourning, I have spent at least a year in a fevered frenzy to replace the lost love, while at the same time, wishing every guy I smiled at over a Café Mocha at Barnes & Noble was the long lost love. Of course, I put on a brave face to the instigator of my rejection pain, never confronting them for the damage they did to me, never even faulting them for their treatment of me. I guess I always felt that somehow I only deserved whatever crumbs they threw my way, and that in the end, when the crumbs were finally swept off the table for good, I deserved that as well for not standing up and demanding the whole fucking piece of chocolate cake.

I wore my wishbone where my backbone oughtta been.

I do the same thing with my writing. I have resisted trying to get published, have resisted even entering contests because my writing is just a hobby. I never write anything anyone else would be remotely interested in reading, much less pay money to read. Oh, I wish I could get published. I wish some editor would just happen across my blog, discover the diamonds hidden in the rough of my words, and beg me to hermit myself away and write for a year while they took care of my mortgage and my accounting firm. Again, that old wishbone is somewhere it doesn’t belong.

Well, y’all will be happy to know that on the 15th, as I promised myself in my NY resolution, I submitted my story “The Sanctuary” to Inktank’s annual writing contest. I could win $200, get my story published in Citybeat, Cincinnati’s Urban free newspaper, and read my story at Inktank’s annual dinner. It could happen.
I’m already thinking about what I can send to whom for next month, but I will need some backbone to actually make anything happen.

I think the same thing can be said about my dating life. I need more backbone. I need to figure out how to stand up and say “this is what I need” and risk my partner walking away because he can’t meet the need. What’s the worst that can happen? If my needs aren’t being met with him, then I’m no worse off without him.

The temperatures have dipped down low again and gone are any hopeful yearnings for an amazingly early spring. The waterfall silenced with the first freeze of winter. I considered turning it back on with the warm weather front from the past two weeks, but I hesitated and now it’s too late. I’ll have to wait until March to turn it back on, most likely.

The weekend looms without much in the way of concrete plans. Kevin heads for his dad’s tonight and the older boys are talking about joining them for dinner on Saturday. I have a coffee date tonight, another one of those first meetups to check out each others’ ass. He’s a CPA and we know several accounting folks in common. He’s funny and smart. It should be fun.

Saturday will start with my support group at 8:15am, then my Sun Magazine discussion group, then shopping at Findlay Market with two writing friends. The rest of the weekend looms unplanned. I’ll probably work a little, finish my closet project and start painting the trim in the hallway. I want to stay busy. I do so much better inside my head when I’m busy.

I’m wanting to write some fiction. Anybody out there got a good idea that I could spin into a yarn? Leave ‘em in the comments and if I write a story from one of your ideas, I’ll dedicate the story to you.

Tired

Too tired to write much today. I wanted to write about my weight management, discuss some of the side effects and how much I enjoy having my eyelashes back. I wanted to write a little more about the book I’m reading. I wanted to mention the woman at the gym in full make up. I wanted to say something about the conversation I had with Chemistry guy yesterday, but like I said, I’m too tired.
Maybe tomorrow…

Why Did I Have Children

But before we get to that, let me update you on Chemistry Guy. He called me on Monday, we had a nice chat, and then he forwarded to me two funny emails. Taking heart, I asked him if he was ready to taste my cooking, and if he was, then he should let me know which evening might be convenient for him. The next day, he answered “OK”. That was it. Just OK. I replied to his email that I thought perhaps I could bring him dinner to his house, seeing as I didn’t think either of us was ready to experience my homemade cooking and my children at the same time. I then went on to tell him that I was busy Thursday, Friday and Saturday, but that Wednesday or Sunday would work. He emailed me back this morning suggesting that we do it sometime next week, as the football championships are this weekend. Please keep in mind that I haven’t seen him since January 4, almost two weeks ago.

I wrote back to him. I said, “After carefully reviewing my schedule, I think that the day that works best for me is Never. I’d like to cook dinner for you Never. After dinner, perhaps we could make mad passionate love Never as well. I look forward to seeing you again Never. Does Never work for you?”

Actually, I only wish I had replied as such. Instead, I sent a wimpy email suggesting that perhaps he just face up to the fact that I’m not the woman for him and allow us both to move on. I noted that not being able to find time for each other more than once every two or three weeks was pretty telling. I also noted that I understood that I was doing him a favor by writing the email in order to spare him the burden of hurting my feelings, but he should be assured that my feelings were hurt, nonetheless.

I’m such a wimp. But at least it’s done.

Here’s the rub. I really liked him. Despite our political and spiritual differences. Despite his comments about calling my kids baggage (in all fairness, he apologized later). Despite his frequently disparaging comments about his ex wives. I liked him. He stirred something warm and fuzzy down inside me, and I’m not talking about the weak knees. I liked him and I’m sad that he did not return my affections.

Yesterday, I had lunch with, ok, I’ve got to get a name for this guy. I’ve been out with him four times already and haven’t even French kissed him yet. I have another lunch date with him tomorrow, so probably won’t do anything other than peck him on the lips again. Color Guy (that’s his name, he likes bright colors) is growing on me, though. I very much enjoy our conversations. He has his own business, just like me, he has two boys around the same age as mine, so kids aren’t an issue with him. He loves nature and gardening and flowers and cooking and exotic food, and he works out at the gym three times a week. And you know what? I think he likes me just the way I am. So…things happen for a reason.

On to the topic of why I had children. As I mentioned yesterday, I’m reading Eat, Pray, Love, and on the elliptical this morning, she had a little bit of a discussion on the decision to bear children. It got me to thinking about the things that went through my head when I made those decisions.

When I was safely through college, safely married, safely ensconced in a career and a house, I never questioned having children, I only wondered how many to have.
I did not have children to fulfill anyone’s expectations except my own. I was not keeping up with my peers or showing off for my inlaws, or fulfilling a need of my mother’s. I was not looking for a way to relive my childhood or leave behind the legacy of my poor, white trash gene pool . I do not look at my children as extensions of myself and I do not congratulate myself on their accomplishments, nor beat myself up over their failings. My mother can no more take credit for the success in life of her children than she can bear the guilt of our hazel colored eyes.

So, why did I have children?

I had children because I had this love bubble inside me that would have burst and drowned me, had I not. I had children because not having children was simply not an option. When I look at my children, I would be lying if I didn’t say I felt pride. But it is not the pride of something I have accomplished. It is the same pride I feel when I see the tulips peeking their tiny toes out of the ground in February. It isn’t anything I’ve done other than plant them where I can observe them. I planted my children. I offered them nourishment for their bodies and for their souls, but beyond that, the work has been theirs. Ok, so maybe they look a little like me, but to be honest, they resemble their father even moreso. I had children for much the same reason that I planted my gardens. Something inside my soul told me that I needed to do it. I wanted to share beauty with the world and I hoped that the beauty that grows within me would grow also inside my children. I was certain of it, in fact.

I am not the tidiest of gardeners, nor am I the tidiest of mothers. I don’t hover over them, trying to discern their every need, nor do I ask for any of that kind of attention from them. I did not have children to meet an outside need, but an inner one. I physically ached when I would leave them for work when they were babies, and would sigh in relief when I could finally hold them in my arms upon my return home. This lasted long after breast feeding, long after toilet training, long after naps were abandoned and school took the place of playtime. Sometimes, I still feel it, that invisible tug in my chest area when Kevin has been at his dad’s for the weekend, or when Greg works and plays elsewhere for a couple days. When Scott was in Alaska, I had such high hopes for an adventure for him, countered by the dull ache of longing I felt to see him, to touch his hair and know that he was ok.

Now that they are almost grown, my job as their mother has changed. I still have to tend the home fires, but my job is more ethereal than their physical needs. Now I have to assure them of a safe place to roost when they try their wings. I have to debate the presidential contenders with Greg to assure him that his arguments are worthy and his logic is sound. I have to attempt Guitar Hero with Kevin, and read his Literature Class novels to assure him that his endeavors are worthy and attainable. My job is that of cheerleader and security guard and not a whole lot more.

I’m fine with that. I don’t have, nor do I want, to run their lives and schedule their lives. I have taught them, the younger two anyway, to make good decisions and to finish what they start. Both of them are self motivated. The older one, while I anguish over him, is his own man and has to find his own way. I can’t do it for him, and refuse that responsibility. I struggle with how best to guide him, the path of least resistance not always being the path to the greater good.

I had children because the love I felt for the universe and the world could not be contained within my own self. I had children because I knew I was capable of mothering them, despite not having been mothered much myself. I had children because I knew that my children would draw other children to them and I could mother them as well. Perhaps I was repaying a debt from a past life, but I’m grateful to repay that debt than to create a new one.

I had children and I am so glad that I did.

Everyday.

All of them.

Things I Have Made-Part Two

My bed every morning, which takes me 30 seconds because I sleep alone
Breakfast for my sons
Mistakes aplenty
More money than I ever dreamed of as a child, which really isn’t very much
Myself sick with worry, although only on rare occasions
My mother proud
Flowers grow all the way around my house
Love like a porn star
Out for two hours on a second date in the parking lot of a movie theater at the grand old age of 47
24 different kinds of Christmas cookies
Christmas ornaments by hand
Friends, many of them, sharing intimacies I wouldn’t tell my therapist
Doctor, dentist, therapy, car repair, appliance repair, home repair, hair, nail and massage appointments
A home for my three sons
A family friendly/people friendly work environment for my staff and myself
A difference in the lives of not enough people
Dates with hundreds of men, kissed some of them, slept with almost none.
Time for myself, but only after the divorce
My health, physical, spiritual and emotional, a priority in my life
Lots of lists, enjoying the process of crossing off my accomplishments
It a point to not be fearful
My courage a badge of honor
It to church on time on only a handful of occasions
It my life’s work to find a way through bitterness and disappointment to a joyful place
A blog to share my journey with others
A fool of myself over a man who wasn’t mine
Amends

Things I Have Made

Temperate and warm, January crooks her fingers at me as invitingly as a seasoned seductress, tempting me away from woolen socks and buttoned up coats. I planted tulips in defiance of the calendar, hoping that the hibernating groundhog residing under my shed would sleep right on through. I worked in my yard without a coat, and threw off my down comforter and flannel jimmies, relaxing back into bare skin under thin cotton sheets. This morning, my sandals called to me and my toes twitched in response.

I’m ready for spring. My logical mind eyes the almanac and shakes her head sadly, knowing many cold days lie ahead, but also knowing that the world revolves, the seasons change, and someday soon, the warmth will be back to stay, at least for a little while, until the calendar turns again.

I had lunch with two of my writing friends, as I mentioned last night. I am writing a poem called Things I Made. Here is what I have so far:

Things I Have Made

Promises I haven’t kept
Beds in which I haven’t slept
Flowers grow and long ago
I made my father go
To prison.

People happy with my words
And though it sounds absurd
I’m being sued for that endeavor
By the man who forever
Once loved me.

Decisions I regret
Which now I can’t forget
Leaving lonely nights
And distant sights
Behind me.

Three sons within my womb
Now I watch them bloom
With each rising sun
The closer they come
To leaving.

My mother happy
Regardless of how sappy
This sounds, I still like
To say into the mike
I love her.

A difference in the world
As the calendar unfurled
Over fifteen years of service
As an accounting novice
Please don’t tell.

I’m sure there’s other stuff
Right now it feels like fluff
This sum up of my life
Could come off as rather trite
Don’t be fooled.


Ok, off to clean the kitchen, visit my mother, and have dinner with a friend. A handsome friend. Sadly, just a friend. But how lucky for me to have such a friend!

In the Nick of Time

It is perhaps after midnight, but still before bedtime for me, so as far as I'm concerned, it still counts as a post for January 12, 2008. Not much to say, though. I did the stuff I said I had to do in yesterday's post. Still no car for Greg. Got a poem working in my head...Things that I have made...inspired by a woman from my writing group.

Watched Kiterunner on SAHD-Guy's bed with his girlfriend, now there's some fodder for the gossip mill. I loved the movie, but loved the book better, naturally. I always enjoy seeing movies based on books I've read. Hope it gets nominated for an academy award.

More tomorrow on the Friday night date.

Guilty as Charged

The furnace man is here to clean my heating equipment. I’m feeling guilty because I know that the furnace filters have not been cleaned since he was here last, six months ago. Isn’t that sad? The things we feel guilty about. After all, he would have to clean them, regardless of how long ago I had cleaned them, and I know that it is part of his job. Even more importantly, the person I’m hurting by not cleaning the furnace filters is myself, because that just means that the air I breathe, and my children breathe, is not as clean as it could be. Why should I feel guilty because the furnace guy saw my dirty air filters?

Makes no sense.

I have plenty of other things to feel guilty about besides the damn furnace filters.

The weekend looms in front of me and I am pleased to say that my calendar is not stuffed with extra curricular activities. I have a date tonight, a meeting tomorrow morning, Kevin’s game at noon, and I promised to take Greg car shopping sometime, probably Saturday afternoon. That leaves a nice chunk of time to clean the house, hang my kitchen curtains, assemble my new coat trees, move the coats from my closet to the coat trees and clean my closet. Next weekend, I’ll either work or paint my hallway. The next weekend, I’ll either work or paint my kitchen closets. The next weekend, I’ll either work or start getting Kevin’s room ready to paint. I have plenty of projects to keep me busy around the house. Who needs Chemistry Guy, anyway? And for heaven’s sake, why do I miss him so much? I wish I could figure out why I always like the ones who really don’t seem to like me.

Yesterday was my ex’s birthday. Kevin baked him a cake, decorated it, and I dropped it off at his office. I reminded both of the other boys that it was their dad’s birthday, but I don’t know if they called him. I hope they did. They both had dinner with him last weekend, which is, hopefully, the start of something that might happen regularly. I know that the relationship between my boys and their father is just that, their relationship, but I can still stand at the sidelines and cheer.

And not feel guilty at all.

The Savages

Daylight trickles in my bedroom window. A lone sparrow chirps outside as I sit with my morning coffee nestled into my chest. It is Wednesday. A full day looms ahead of me. My youngest is munching on breakfast and watching Nickelodeon. My middle son is long gone to high school. Those tiny moments between breakfast and cleanup and don’t forget to feed the dog, before rushing to take my youngest to school, then off to the gym and to work and to the rest of my day, I sit here, typing on an expanse of white. I’ve already checked my email, read my comments from the day before, smiled at the notes from my latest suitors. This crazy life I live, caught between adolescent passion and adult responsibility, how do I capture it on paper?

I saw a movie with SAHD-Guy and my movie group last night, called The Savages, about a brother and sister dealing with their abusive father’s slide into dementia and eventual death. I didn’t like it. Other’s in my movie group can look at movies from a more objective standpoint, can see the film making itself, can appreciate the beauty of a movie well directed, well acted, well edited, and all I can see is the story. All I can see is the portrayal of human life, of human frailty, and the only question I ask at the end of the movie is “How did this movie make me feel?” I rate the movie accordingly.

I didn’t like the Savages. The bond, the incredible bond that glued my siblings and I together in the face of our abusive childhoods, was not portrayed in the relationship between the two main characters. The pain of their distorted psyches was accurate, but the compensating camaraderie that I experienced was not evident. I realize that in many ways, I was lucky growing up, to have escaped the dissident views of their upbringing that some abused siblings suffer, and to have my siblings affirm the horror we all experienced, is a blessing; a blessing so profound it almost compensates for the suffering we endured. But nonetheless, to see such anger, to see purposeful infliction of pain between siblings especially, is difficult for me and I don’t like it. I gave the movie a 2.5, despite adoring Laura Linney and Philip Seymore Hoffman, and absolutely loving the final scene.

Rambling

Still can’t seem to drag myself out of bed at 5:30. Slept til 7:00, my normal time to get up when the kids are in school. I was in bed by 10:30, so getting up at 5:30 should not have been a stretch for me. The dog woke me up at 2:00am, whining to be let into the family room because my oldest son was outside on the patio with our neighbor, smoking a cigarette. I scolded him for having friends over on a school night. I let the dog out and admonished him to be certain that the dog came back in with him. The dog then woke me up at 4:30 barking outside my window. I got up to let her back in, and woke up my son, sleeping on the couch.

So, no wonder 5:30 was too early for me.

I lay in my bed, slapping the alarm for over an hour on mornings such as this. The bed seems so safe, the rest of the world so cold and unfamiliar. It’s not, really. I have a charmed life, for the most part. There are no evil people in residence in my sphere of influence. Because I am self-employed, I get to choose my employees and my clients, and I am fortunate to not have anyone in my family that I don’t thoroughly enjoy being with. Is that not really the definition of a charmed life? A life unfettered by unpleasant people?

I have a lunch date today with the guy from my lunch date on Saturday. Guess he couldn’t wait til Friday to see me, so he asked me out for lunch today or Thursday. I picked today. Funny, I was thinking the same thing, that Friday was a long way away and wouldn’t it be nice if he was free for lunch during the week. But I would never have asked him. My motis operendi has changed so much over the past three years. I almost never call, and never initiate contact. Too risky. And I call myself a feminist….sigh.

I’m going to have to decide fairly soon who I will invite to see Wicked with me. I still have a few weeks, but I should make up my mind so that he can make dinner reservations. I’m hoping that whomever I invite will spring for a nice dinner, seeing as the tickets were so expensive.

Strange Topics

I made a NYE resolution to get up earlier, so that I can go to the gym and shower before I take Kevin to school, arriving at the office before nine instead of before noon. Today is the first day the boys go back to school after the Winter Break, and was the real test of whether or not I could do it.

I failed.

I dutifully set the alarm, but I didn’t climb into bed until after 11:00pm, and I know that at least for the first week or so, I need to be in bed before 10:00 if I want to get up by 5:30am.

I’ll try again tomorrow. I did get out of bed earlier than I had been, but with not enough time to get done what I needed to get done before time to drive Kevin to school. So, instead, I have some extra time on my hands this morning.

Sigh.

That wasn’t the plan.

I washed my car yesterday, did laundry, put away all of the Christmas stuff. I was the first person on my street to haul the dead carcass of my Christmas tree out to the street last Wednesday, now the remnants of the holiday season are packed away for yet another year. I enjoyed Christmas, really I did, but I was more than ready for it to be over.

I planted tulips yesterday; eighteen of them. I planted ten crocus and six hyacinths. The soil was damp, but not wet and still loose and loamy. I planted the tulips by the fish pond, hoping that the residential groundhog was still asleep and would not find them until after they had already bloomed. I trickled bone meal and blood meal into the soil and mixed it in nicely, so the bulbs will have lots of natural nutrients to enhance their color and vigor in a few months.

I want to be bone meal and blood meal for flower bulbs when I die. I don’t want to go up in smoke, nor do I want to be useless and embalmed, lying in a sterile casket. I want to be fertilizer. I want to bring out the beauty of flowers for those who can still appreciate them. I wonder how I could make that happen…or rather, how my children could make that happen, because I doubt if I’ll be able to do much about it after I’m gone.

Whew. Didn’t see that subject coming. And all from tulip planting.

Who Gets Me?

I’m on a dating site and have just gotten to the email stage with a guy, someone I’ve seen before on dating sites, someone I’ve never corresponded with before, but I know he’s been single awhile, and I’m guessing he knows the same about me. I waited for him to send the first email. I don’t know why, usually I just whip off something light and witty as soon as the I get the proverbial email green light, but for this guy, and two others, I waited. It’s been a week. I haven’t heard from the other two, but today I received an email from him asking me how I know that a guy “gets me”, and adding to his inquiry the supposition that simply laughing at my jokes would not be sufficient evidence. You may recall that in the essay part of my profile, I say that I’m looking for a guy who gets me, who laughs at my jokes and tells a few good ones of his own.

I’m more concerned about the last part of the request rather than the first, especially with this particular guy, as he seems to be much more of a deep thinker than a hearty laugher, but I digress. How do I decide if a guy “gets” me? SAHD-Guy gets me, so does MWR-Guy, as did my ex husband.

This is what I have come up with:

The guy who “gets” me always brings a book to read for a scheduled appointment because he knows, accepts and understands with a wry shake of his head and a knowing smile that I will most likely be late.

The guy who “gets” me smacks his lips in anticipation of the culinary creation I will set before him when I invite him to my house for dinner, and won’t care if there are cat paw prints on the counter. He will offer to do the dishes afterwards suggesting that I relax with a glass of wine while he does so and will insist on helping me when I politely decline.

The guy who “gets” me will feel his heart warm when my eyes well up with tears as I discuss the latest antics of my three sons, both the triumphs and tragedies and will never even think to feel a moment of jealously or resentment of the time I spend with them, or thinking of them.

The guy who “gets” me will not hesitate to stop the car on the side of a country road to help the cat who is still struggling after being hit by a car, and will wait patiently as I comfort the cat in her journey to her next life, even if it causes us to be late for dinner at his very punctual mother’s house, knowing that she will give him the dreaded mother look for being late. He has his priorities straight, though, and knows that to not help a creature struggling to live or struggling to die trumps any time commitment.

The guy who “gets” me is happy to religiously recycle, has concern for the earth and protecting her, is intimately connected to the phrase “waste not, want not” and would never even think of denigrating someone for the color of their skin, their church of choice, their sexual orientation, their country of origin, the size of the intellect or their political beliefs….and would patiently correct me when I slip and say something nasty about Republicans.

The guy who “gets” me would put the toilet seat down, even at his own house, because he knows of my bleary-eyed stumble to the bathroom in the middle of the night. He turns his socks right side out because he appreciates my laundry services. He watches the tears stream down my face as I near the end of my latest novel, kissing me tenderly on the forehead and chuckling softly to himself at this woman who feels things so deeply, grateful that she does, because he knows that the greatest recipient of the deep well of emotion within her, is himself.

Oh, and he laughs at my jokes, and tells a few good ones of his own.

Highs and Lows-2007

I have made NY resolutions for several years. Most of them I have kept. The most important resolution I made was on January 1, 2000…a new millennium resolution. That was the year I decided to start moving my body. I started slowly, walking 30 minutes a day. I increased the amount I walked and the speed in which I walked until I was doing over 3 miles a day. In May of 2002, I started using a treadmill at the gym and started lifting weights. About a year later, I started my deep and meaningful physical relationship with Larry the Elliptical machine, the only physical relationship I’ve been able to maintain on any kind of long term basis. I think self improvement is essential to the ongoing struggle to find our way in the world, and the New Year is the perfect excuse to start something positive. Even if you keep your resolution for only a few weeks, at least it’s something.
I’ve also made a tradition of trying to track the highs and lows of each year, which is the subject of this post. Here is my top ten list of 2007:

Highs

10. Losing 50 pounds and managing to keep it off…so far, so good.

9. My biceps, a direct byproduct of getting my ass to the gym M-F

8. My writing continues to invigorate me. I sent something off to be published. Even though it was rejected via a form letter, at least I had the courage to send it out.

7. Catching two really big fish at my client’s farm in Kentucky, then writing the story mentioned above.

6. Reading books on the elliptical. I bought 14 copies of Water for Elephants for my closest friends. 1000 Splendid Suns still lives with me as a tale of hope and undying determination.

5. Reclaiming my house by taking over cleaning it and by redecorating the kitchen, as well as various other home improvement projects I attempted on my own…with a certain amount of success!

4. Making breakfast for my sons, even if they don’t appreciate it now….someday they will look back and know how much I loved them.

3. MWR-Guy finding true love-This sounds odd to be on my list, but he is so important to me that his happiness ranks as high on my list as if I had found true love of my own.

2. Stay at Home Dad Guy finding true love- Just like MWR-Guy, Stay at Home Dad Guy is the next best thing to having a true love of my own, so if he’s happy, I’m happy.

1. I’m not one to have one night stands. They don’t sit right with me. But a one night stand is what I had in October, although it was a one night stand by his choice, not mine. I will never see him again, but the memory of that evening will live with me for the rest of my life. I wrote a beautiful story about that evening, but I didn’t post it here and I will never publish it. I have the story, and so does he, and whenever I read it, all the memories come flooding back as clear and beautiful as the actual event. I hope he feels the same when he reads the story.

Lows:

10. Another Christmas spent alone, stuffing my own stocking, buying my own presents, not having a sweetheart to lavish with gifts and attention.

9. My physical ailments bothered me for the first year ever in my life. My knee acted up in April and my shoulder continues to cause me grief. I am dismayed that my body is showing signs of aging when my heart still feels so young.

8. My youngest son broke his arm in September, the first broken bone in my family of origin or for my adult family. He’s fine now, but it was a sobering experience for us all.

7. My oldest son struggles to find direction in his life and I struggle in trying to find a way to guide him, to motivate him, to maintain a minimum level of involvement while strictly enforcing major household rules that affect the rest of us. This is the toughest job I’ve had to date.

6. Entering the world of dating again, after the six month hiatus has proven to be a lot of the same old stuff…the sifting through the flea market dating pool, convinced that there are still treasures to be found.

5. Six months of celibacy. That was hell. I am a person who likes to be with people, and who likes to be hugged and kissed and touched and all the other stuff. Turning it off for six months was like trying to breathe underwater. Damn near killed me.

4. The drought this year almost killed my flower beds. I just couldn’t keep up with the watering. It broke my heart to see the trees withering, the flower heads bent in shame, the wilted leaves of my gardens.

3. In the early part of the year, I started gaining weight. It scared me. My knee was hurting, my shoulder was hurting, and I couldn’t go to the gym. My psyche depends on the natural high I get from Larry the Elliptical, and I suffered greatly from that lack of exercise.

2. My acrimonious relationship with the father of my children decayed even further this year.

1. My ex husband sued me for daring to speak my mind about my marriage and my children.

All in all, my highs outweighed my lows, despite the fact that I am so much thinner now than I was this time last year. I am still the eternal optimist, but now, I think I have a ration of cynicism thrown in, which is probably healthier.

New Year's Eve

I went to a party on New Year’s Eve. I went with a girlfriend; I was hoping to play cupid and fix her up with the host of the party. I forgot to tell the host I was doing that, and about half an hour after we arrived, a woman in a purple blouse affixed herself to his side and didn’t leave the rest of the evening. I don’t think it was a pre-arranged thing. I stood next to him for a few minutes and eavesdropped on their party conversation, as one is wont to do at such interminglings, and it was the conversation of two people in the early throes of learning about each other. My friend was a little disappointed because she was interested in him. Although he is a bit portly, he is an attorney, with a certain amount of flare and intelligence and charm, and he threw a lovely party in his very nice house, and my friend…she’s as lonely as I am. Note to self, next time you try to fix someone up, inform both parties.

I didn’t kiss anyone at midnight. There were significantly more women than men at this party, and the one man with which I actually held a decent conversation, revealed that he was moving to New York City on Thursday, and lusted after the 25 year old daughter of a friend of mine. I’m afraid my opened mouthed gaping at him at that statement eliminated any chance I might have had of kissing him at midnight…or of him kissing me.

My friend and I played a game at the party, one that I am not real proud of, but just seemed so apropos of the evening, and of the year 2007 in general. We assessed each of the men there and tried to guess the size of their penises.

I know, I should be ashamed.

I can’t even blame it on the wine, because I didn’t drink very much. I can only blame it on the year, on the six months of celibacy and the bad experiences I’ve had with men since then. It was vengeful and immature. But it was fun. Snicker.

My middle son had a NYE party at my house. I was only gone for a few hours and was home by 12:30, and I knew all of the kids at the party. I went in to have the 17 year old girls assess my NYE attire. I wore an outfit which would be outrageous for me to wear under any other circumstances. I wore black leather ankle high boots with black socks peaking out of them, no stockings, a blue jean mini skirt and a black sequined sweater that just barely held my heaving breasts in safely. I bought that sweater four years ago and wore it once, for about an hour, until embarrassment sent me back to my closet to change. I wore that sweater for the entire evening this year.

The girls said they liked my outfit, especially liked the boots. I asked if the socks looked strange with the boots, peaking out as they were. One girl piped up and said that if you didn’t get real close, the socks looked like they were part of the boots. I set my sexy Mama gaze upon her and said, “But Carolyn, one does not wear a sweater like this unless one is hoping that someone gets close, very close.”

They all laughed heartily. My son was horrified. I figured, my sons will need therapy someday, regardless. I might as well give them a reason to need it.

Day One

I have vowed to begin writing something, anything, everyday. For 2008, I will appear at the blank, white page each and every day. I may write only a sentence. I may write only a word. But I’ll write something….everyday.

I have also promised myself that I will send something in to be published once a month…on the 15th, just to make it official. That will give me two weeks to think about the first piece, maybe even to a bit of editing, although I hate editing.

I already go to the gym five days a week, but I am promising myself that I will get up earlier, get to the gym and back before I wake Kevin, so that I can head to the office after I drop him off instead of the heading to the gym and thus, not appearing in the office until after 10:00.

Lastly, I have promised myself that I will start tracking my finances more accurately. I had kept my personal books in Quicken for years, but got away from it after my divorce. Now it’s time to begin anew.

Those are my resolutions. Wish me luck. See you tomorrow…bright and early.