I miss this.

My grandmother called you "The Pansies".  I giggled at the image of a man as a pansy, visualizing a head bobbing on a thin stem, surrounded by purple petals.

My giggles encouraged her to continue her act by flapping her wrists loosely in the air, making me laugh harder.  I knew that my grandmother was being naughty, as she was given to being, when she wasn't drunk and mean.  I was grateful to have the silly and conspiratorial grandmother right then.


I didn't know what a "pansy" was, other than a man who was girly.  As a girl, i understood that being girly was something weak and foolish, something my grandmother was not.

She was most decidedly not girly, this woman who could shoot and hunt and drink and fight and cuss.  In her presence, i shoved down the very little girly parts that were in me, knowing they were weak.

Goodbye.

I know there are very few of you still out there, but i still feel the need to say goodbye.  This is not a safe place for me anymore.  My daughter found me here, by googling the names of my cats, and although i doubt she is interested enough to check in, she might.  I have things to say that i don't want her knowing.

Plus i foolishly gave the address to a few real life friends, one of whom keeps asking me if my therapist considers it "normal" for me to be taking this long to "get over it."

I don't know where i will go, but i need to be able to write without censoring myself.  

Except for the occasional troll, i have treasured each of your comments.  You have no idea what this blog has meant to me.

Okay, maybe you do.

Peace, courage, love and safe travels.

Is this a poem?

I won't compete for attention.  Not for very long anyway.

You ask me a question, and then, when i start to answer, you interrupt me and talk about yourself.

Okay, i get it.  You didn't really want to know what i had to say, you just wanted to talk some more about yourself.  

Okay.  

But i won't beg, and i won't return to my point after you interrupt, unless you insist.  Which you rarely do.  

I will withdraw.  My silence is my defense.

And you notice my silence, subconsciously.  It makes you talk more.  I wonder, is silence an anathema to you?  

I kind of like silence.  It would leave me space to love you.

Same Old Shit

I cried today, in the grocery store, and then in the car on the way home.  It's been a while since i cried, but apparently i am not done grieving.

I had a random memory:

The time he came home after going out "for a drive" and rushed back to his closet to change his shirt before he greeted me.  When i asked WTF? he told me that he had smoked a cigarette and didn't want me to know.  He was trying to quit smoking at the time, so i bought it.  I bought it.  I believed him.

As we now know, this was a lie.

And in remembering it, i was infused with rage.  How could he look me in the eye and tell me that bullshit?  How DARE he?  I want to go back in time and crush his skull with my bare hands.  (If you think i am exaggerating, you are wrong.) This overwhelming feeling of helpless rage is awful.  What do i do with this rage?  How will i ever get rid of it?  I do not know.

And so i cried.

me me me me me me me ME

It's my business.  And it's my writing, as pathetic/inspiring/cliche/mundane/honest/trite as it may seem.  I did it.  I own it.  If it's trite, like you said in your e-mail, that's okay.  I own it.  I am trite.  I have no illusions that i am unique.  BTW, neither are you.

On My Own

Life is continual change, at least in my case.  I once thought it was static, but i was wrong.

Learning to live with another person in the house, one who sweetly asks my permission to 1) go to dinner with her dad, 2) Spend the night at a friend's house.

Of course, she being 22 (WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN????) does not need to ask my "permission". It is just a sweet way of letting me know what she is doing.

I think less and less of him, but still too much.  I mean, i think very little of him, but i think of him too often.  Heh.

Today's pleasures:

Farm fresh eggs, with chicken shit still on them.
Dogs, i loves them
Hugs
Mojito
Manhattan
Dinner with Em
Sun
A spectacular hike this weekend to look forward to.
A late rising
Reading
Doing it for myself
Friends

I'm okay, You're okay.

I feel a little bit like i should explain.  

This is my venting place, where i can express things that are better left unsaid in the real world.  I am not bitter and unhappy all the time.  In fact, much of the time i am okay.  Sometimes i am even happy.  And sometimes i get mad and have ugly emotions. That's when you are likely to hear from me, which gives a skewed view of my life and mind.

It's just taking some time for me to adjust to....everything.  Being single after 35 years of couplehood is difficult, and interesting, and crushing and freeing.  I feel no need to rush in to another relationship.  Perhaps i'll never have another one, perhaps i will.  Truthfully, i hope i do.  But it is hard for me to imagine a man that will like me that i will like back.  But stranger things have happened.  I know how it's done these days, online.  I'm just not ready to go there. Yet.

Deb asked me what made me happy today.  Here's a list:

• I have a job, three days a week.  Not for the money (although money is nice), but for a reason to get out of bed and be somewhere.  I like my job.  I feel valued and helpful and it's interesting and flexible.
• Tonight's sunset is truly amazing.
• Em is here, living with me.  She makes me laugh. Out loud.
• My cat is old, but healthy. 
• Some nights dinner is cereal, or crackers and cheese and apples.  And no one cares.
• Some nights dinner is cookies.
• I have some really wonderful and diverse friends. I want to expand on this because friends are the best.  Never forget that.
• Pharmaceuticals.
• Marijuana is legal in Washington.
• Sleep.
• Summer.
• Real farm fresh eggs.
• Basil.
• I got 4 hugs today.
• Tapering off pharmaceuticals.
• The internet.
• Did i mention friends?
• A sign at a gas station today that read "YOUR ON VIDEO"  So clueless.

Knife to the heart. Plus stitches.

What made me sad today?  

Sharpening a knife.

When we bought the knife and the block and the sharpener (many years ago), we agreed that only one person would sharpen the knives, because of the angle of sharpening or some such.  So he always sharpened the knives, proudly, when i asked, as if it required some special skill.

What made me...angry today?

Remembering the first time when he wanted to leave me, 20 years ago, when he rejected my naked body, because i was being punished.  As if it were defective, which it is not. The embarrassment is what i remember.

A thing i heard today that i needed to hear:

Don't believe everything you think.

Amusing title

Tomorrow i am heading off at ass o'clock to fly to New York to help Em pack up her shit and then move back to the Northwest to live with me.

How did this happen?  Well, she tried living in NY and it wasn't for her.  And she tried having a job in NY in her field of interest and it wasn't for her. And so she's coming home to regroup and try again.  At least she will never look back at her life and say, "I wish i'd tried living in NY."

The Ex continues to confuse me.  He is very recently re-married, and yet he continues to contact me.  We actually met face-to face for the first time in over a year last weekend.  For me, it was awful.  The Eagles song "Lying Eyes" spontaneously erupted in my head.  I left abruptly and then devolved into tears, scaring my neighbors in the elevator on my way to my apartment.

He then sent me an email offering to come over and help me with the complicated electronic sound/video system.  I sent back a very blunt email saying that it was not good for me to see him and i preferred to interact through email only.  I was thinking he might be offended enough to stop contacting me, but nope.

I am ashamed to admit that it both comforts me (he still cares!!!) and makes me ill.  Because really, he doesn't care, he just wants to feel like an okay guy.

Which he isn't.

Incel

I learned a new word this week.  Incel.  It's an interwebs word for "Involuntary Celibacy".  

Yeah.  Look it up.

I have been referring  to myself as a Born Again Virgin.

I miss sex.  I know exactly the time i last had sex.  It was in Hawaii.  Over two years ago. It was good.  But, i guess, maybe only for me.  I didn't know at the time that it was the last time i would be having sex for a long time.

Two weeks later my not-yet-ex husband left me.  Two weeks without sex.  He was distant and uninterested.  I let it go because....tolerance.  But now i know why.

Yes, i suppose i could go out and get laid.  But i don't work that way.  I need to know a person in order to have sex with him.  (Yeah, sadly, i am heterosexual.)

Someday i hope to begin again.  Maybe sooner rather than later.

Etiquette Question

On Friday, i met Jackson for coffee.

What is the protocol for meeting with the man who is the ex-husband of the woman for whom your husband left you?  The woman who left him for your (now) ex-husband? Do you shake hands?  How does the conversation start?  Will the outcome be what we want? Is the meeting just an exercise in pricking open a barely healing wound?  Will there be copious bleeding?  Will i be sorry?  Will he be sorry?  Who THE FUCK knows?  Miss Manners never wrote about how to deal with this situation.

We talked for an hour and a half.  This is a man that i do not really know, but with whom i share an incredibly intimate experience.  I learned a lot about what happened.  Details of the extensive lying and cheating.  Things i had only suspected.  About how little regard either of the two cheaters had for past attachments, and for either of us.

I like knowing the truth, even if it hurts.

Meanwhile, my ex and Jackson's ex are off on their extensive, expensive honeymoon.  I wish them hell.

I'm glad i went.  And Jackson sent me a very nice email, thanking me for the meeting and saying that it had been helpful for him.  I will not likely see him again, but it's nice to know he's out there.

So much sadness and hurt because of two selfish, reckless people.

Unbelievable

Last Friday night, the night before my ex-husband got married to the woman he left me for, i went to a concert with a friend.  Before the concert, we went to the Wild Ginger in Seattle for dinner.  No reservations.  Friday night.  We ended up sandwiched in at the bar.

Normally i would never do such a thing, but because we were practically thigh to thigh, i said something to the people sitting next to us.  You know, something like, "That drink looks good, what's in it?"

We continued chatting sporadically through the meal.  They were going to the same concert.  I offered my opinion on the house Manhattan (delicious!).  At the end of the meal, we were presented with a bill, which my friend and i paid.  Then we were presented with a second bill.  WTF? Turns out that the bar dude, in all the confusion, had given us the bill of the people we had been chatting with.

Hilarity ensued. They "Thanked" us for paying their bill, since their bill was more expensive.   While the bill issue was being sorted out, I made a comment that i had wanted to go hiking that day, but it had been too rainy.  Then i said "I am hoping for a plague of locusts tomorrow because my ex-husband is getting married."  (I had had two of the house Manhattans (delicious!).)

The man looks and me and says "Meno?"  I gaped at him.  He says "I am (the ex-husband's soon to be new wife)'s ex-husband."

"Jackson?"  i say.  I hadn't recognized him.

OMG!

Of all the gin joints in all the towns......  What are the chances?

We talked some more after that, much more seriously,  and he gave me his contact information.

I don't believe in karma, or fate, but this might change my mind.

It will never happen

I want an apology.

I want you to apologize for lying to me, after promising several times that you would NEVER lie to me again, after being caught lying.

I want you to apologize for having sex with me, after having sex with someone else, such that i had to get tested for STDs.

I want you to apologize for that vacation in Hawaii, where you were lying the whole time, and planning your escape.  You retroactively ruined that vacation for both me and Em. where i had thought we had a good time.

I want you to apologize for lying to me, even when you were leaving.I don't want you to apologize for leaving, as i know you think you have found your Soul Mate, but for the way you left, making it easy for you, and the hardest for me.  You owed me more than that.

You are a coward.

Complete Misunderstanding

When I was much younger I used to be “hot” sexually speaking, tall, long hair, pretty face, thin.  I know that now, I didn’t know it then.  I am now too old to be “hot”. Which, as a natural product of time, is fine with me.

But, as a “hot”, but naïve young woman, people, men, used to yell at me on the street.  From “Hey baby!” to “Wanna fuck?”

I learned, quite quickly, to completely ignore these assaults (And I do mean assaults), pretending to be oblivious. 

Once, a friend of mine, a gay man who lived in the same apartment complex as me, and also worked with me, yelled at me on the street.  And I, not knowing that this was someone I knew who was being playful, ignored him.

When he caught up with me, he asked me why I was so “stuck up”.

Did he not understand that being yelled at on the street does not feel like a compliment? You would think he would have known better.

This was in the early 80s, does that make a difference?

Pity, party of one

*
 Grief is a lonely emotion.

Grief is burning out my insides and making room for something new to grow.


I feel like i have something to tell you, but i keep typing words and then deleting them as too pathetic.


I am lonesome.  I've never lived alone before.  I find i don't much like it. 


This process i am going through feels endless.  I am told that it will get better, but i don't know when.  And besides, how can anyone know if it will get better?

To be honest, i am better, some of the time.  Em was home for a month and left early yesterday morning and i am missing her.  So that's why i am blue.  But hey, the two of us are going to Hawaii in less than two months. I'll try to keep that in mind.

Bonding and waiting

.

My baby girl turned 21 a month ago.  It's been a time for bonding moments.  I bought her her first legal drink (it was a martini!), and today we had our first mother-daughter trip to the liquor store.

It was so beautiful.

*sniffle*

In other news:


I am waiting.  Waiting to feel a reduction in anxiety, waiting to feel free.  I realize it's a long process, but dammit all, i wish it would hurry.  So wanting to avoid writing the same old thing, i don't write at all.


I should be divorced by the end of January.  I just never saw myself as someone who would be divorced.  I know people who have has two and three (and sometimes more) spouses and i always felt (i hate to admit this, but i will) slightly superior.  And then fate came along to kick me right in my smug ass.

Peace to you all.

phone phool

Do you ever find yourself sounding like a dithering idiot on the phone?  I'm not an idiot, but man, today i sounded like one on the phone while trying to say "No, you can't come and be a volunteer here because we've got nothing for you to do." in a really nice, thank-you-for calling sort of way.

It's hard to say "No" in a positive way.  I guess i must think that the more words i use to say it, the nicer it will sound, thus the idiotic babbling.

Did you know that there's a support group for families of people who talk too much?  It's called On-and-on Anon.

Still Alive

Hi y'all.


I'm still alive.  I have one foot in hell and the other in purgatory, which counts as progress.


Still fighting anxiety and depression and loneliness and hurt feelings.  I think i'm winning though some days it's hard to tell.


Not divorced yet, but proceeding along that line.  So sad.  So, so sad.


Keeping very busy, that's my method for dealing with the feelings.  My therapist says i need to do more grieving and crying.  Perhaps. Perhaps.


What do i really have to tell you?  There's a long period of slowly moving onwards, slowly getting on with accepting the new normal.  My problem is that i just don't see how my loneliness will ever end.  Will anyone ever love me again?  Will i ever have another life partner?  I hope i do because i don't like being alone. The feeling that no one has my back makes me feel intensely vulnerable.  But what are the chances that a 54 year old woman will find true love?  Not high.


I really want to be able to look back over this time in my life and have it come out okay in the end.  I secretly want this story to have an uplifting ending.

A connection

 *
In my family, as kids, my brothers and i were encouraged to make fun of each other.  Ganging up on whomever was the current odd man out, whomever had done something stupid (as kids often do) or whomever was being ridiculous (as kids often are).

When it was me being ridiculed, i hated it, and it felt like there was no escape, no safe place to go and collect myself.  When it was not me, i participated gladly, thankful that it wasn't me.


The maddest i get as an adult is when i feel stupid.  That's when i lose my shit and start throwing things. 

At the time of this temper losing, i feel unable to stop, like i am under attack and have to defend myself.  My brain time travels back to that stupid-feeling child and becomes her again.


This is not an unimportant observation.

I want to have a tantrum

I hate to whine some more, but i'm going to do it anyway.


I don't want to do this anymore.  I am tired of being strong and making it through the day.  I want to lie on the floor and pound my fists and kick my feet and scream.  But of course, that will not change anything, other than to give me sore fists and feet and scare the cat.

I've lost my capacity for spending long periods of time alone.  It makes me anxious because it feels like maybe it will never end.  I wonder if i will get used to it eventually.  I hope so.  I find myself scrambling to find things to do with people.  It's not in my nature to call people up, but i am doing it.  I'm kind of proud of myself for that.

So instead of having a tantrum, i went hiking today with a friend.  We even went swimming in the mountain lake that was the hiking destination, much to the astonishment of our fellow hikers.