cindy's world

This was written by an 83-year-old woman to her friend. I’d like to think I’m living like this now. I have a dinner planned with my 3 other female cousins in California, who I didn’t always bother to keep up with, but now that we’re all adults, I think we can enjoy each other more. One of these cousins and I are gonna take a cooking class (“Extreme Chocolate”) in September. My oldest girl friend (we met age 6) and I are planning a 3-day cruise in September. We’ve never been on one, and would like to see what all the hype’s about. And of course, the college roommate and I have our week-long Cancun trip in the works for the end of September. I’m also tired of my saved perfume going bad, expensive products expiring, good food molding, pretty candles melting.

Dear Bertha,

I’m reading more and dusting less. I’m sitting in the yard and admiring the
view without fussing about the weeds in the garden. I’m spending more time
with my family and friends and less time working.

Whenever possible, life should be a pattern of experiences to savor, not to
endure. I’m trying to recognize these moments now and cherish them.

I’m not “saving” anything; we use our good china and crystal for every
special event such as losing a pound, getting the sink unstopped, or the
first Amaryllis blossom.

I wear my good blazer to the market. My theory is if I look prosperous, I
can shell out $28.49 for one small bag of groceries. I’m not saving my good
perfume for special parties, but wearing it for clerks in the hardware store
and tellers at the bank.

“Someday” and “one of these days” are losing their grip on my vocabulary. If
it’s worth seeing or hearing or doing, I want to see and hear and do it now.

I’m not sure what others would’ve done had they known they wouldn’t be here
for the tomorrow that we all take for granted. I think they would have
called family members and a few close friends. They might have called a few
former friends to apologize and mend fences for past squabbles. I like to
think they would have gone out for a Chinese dinner or for whatever their
favorite food was.

I’m guessing; I’ll never know.

It’s those little things left undone that would make me angry if I knew my
hours were limited. Angry because I hadn’t written certain letters that I
intended to write one of these days. Angry and sorry that I didn’t tell my
husband and parents often enough how much I truly love them. I’m trying very
hard not to put off, hold back, or save anything that would add laughter and
luster to our lives. And every morning when I open my eyes, tell myself that
it is special.

Every day, every minute, every breath truly is a gift from God.

One of the bloggers who I read frequently wrote a rather empowered post displaying smug satisfaction at having put herself first and done what she needed/wanted to do this past weekend while her boyfriend sat on the sidelines. Which got me thinking about my own behavior with and without a boyfriend.

I posted the comment on her post:
Prioritizing myself above the significant other…*sigh* still working on that one. Sometimes I think the only reason I’m so happy single is because I’m #1 by default. I don’t know that when a new man enters my life that I won’t be a doormat again. This is sad.

I miss someone.

I’m not being deliberately vague; I don’t know much more than what I stated above. I am missing someone badly and I can’t see his face, I don’t know who it is. I don’t know whether I’ve already met him or whether he’s someone I’m meant to be with waiting right around the corner. It feels like someone protective and warm, a tad older (I’m feeling 4 years), he’s got dark coloring, quite a bit taller than me (yeah, who isn’t?), athletic and healthy and open to new things and wholesome activities (read: NOT drinking and partying). What keeps hitting me is the feeling I have when I lean my head against his collar bone and his arms go around me. I feel like he figuratively turns me so that he’s against the wind, the rain, the burning sun, and I would be bathed in just the soft breezes and moonlight and filtered sunshine. He likes putting his hand behind my head to stroke my hair as I press my cheek into his chest. He also likes to pick me up — wait — I just got a highly disturbing image/thought.

…oh, gawd.

…Yeah, I’m going to bed.

There was a bailiff in here earlier talking to my bailiff. The conversation (in which I did not participate) was about whether money makes people happy. My bailiff said he had the house, the family, the life, but the problems and betrayal surrounding his wife made life very difficult and unhappy. The other bailiff said that he’s seen all kinds. He’s seen people who are rich and miserable; poor and happy; poor and suicidal because they can’t get their life together and move up; and rich and happy because they don’t want for anything. “But by far, the category of people I’ve seen who are the most happy,” he said thoughtfully, “are women who don’t need men and are completely content with themselves without having a man around.”

I perked up. That’s been true of both me and my court reporter. We’ve both been miserably hurt in our relationships, and she said (referring to her daughters) once a girl gets to dating age, there is such a world of hurt and disappointment opening to her. My reporter and I don’t need a lot; we’re self-sufficient. We don’t need a man for money or for gifts. We don’t need someone so hot he’d make all our friends jealous. We’d just like someone we get along with whom we can respect and love, and all we ask in return is that he be there for us and not hurt us. And they can’t even do that.

Does life get lonely or boring for me as a single woman? Of course. Sometimes. But now my laughs flow more easily than the tears. My food goes down easier without the lumps in my throat and the dryness in my mouth. The colors are brighter, the small things are more lovely, birds sing louder, music sounds more upbeat, life is more vibrant. My mind is able to expand and be open to things, no longer locked down and smothered by fear, anxiety, and pain.

On the drive back from Orange last nite, I called my friend Andrae and that ended up being a 1+ hour lecture on how I’m too nice and give too much of myself and need to stop it. He’s right. I’m sick of mind games and don’t care to play them, so I didn’t, but what I did wrong was give too much too quickly (what else is new?). There’s a difference between playing manipulative games with someone else’s mind and simply keeping yourself more discreet to maintain some mystique, he said. It’s like bluffing vs. displaying a poker face and keeping y0ur cards closer to yourself. The reason I didn’t put any effort into creating a mystique is because at this point in my life, I’m tired and I don’t care what people think. If my quick response time makes me appear too available, accessible and desperate, then fine, a Potential can go look for a player elsewhere and not complicate my life. To me it’s just courtesy and honesty. I will, however, listen to Andrae in this as it appeals to my present low tolerance for games: I’m just going to stop my efforts and courtesies. If a Potential is interested enough, he can be a man and step up. If he isn’t and doesn’t, then I haven’t lost a damn thing except trouble in the long run. It’s win-win for me. “It’s not your job to pursue, it’s the guy’s,” Andrae said. “You gotta see the value in your time and yourself.” It’s not like there aren’t people around fighting to get their foot in the door the second they see an opening, none of whom I need. It’s nice to just be open to the possibility and not want for an arbitrary relationship on a physical or emotional level.

I knew there’d be a reason this song has been playing nonstop in my car for the past few weeks:

Someone To Call My Lover– Janet Jackson

Back on the road again
Feeling kinda lonely and
Lookin’ for the right guy
To be mine

Friends say I’m crazy ’cause
Easily I fall in love
Gotta do it differently
This time

(chorus:)
Maybe we’ll meet at a bar
He’ll drive a funky car
Maybe we’ll meet at a club
And fall so deeply in love
He’ll tell me I’m the one
And we’ll have so much fun
I’ll be the girl of his dreams, maybe

(bridge:)
Alright maybe gonna find him today
I gotta get someone to call my lover
Yeah baby come on
Alright baby come and
Pass my way
I gotta get someone to call my lover
Yeah baby come on

I spoil them when I’m in love
Givin’ them what they dream of
Sometimes it’s not a good thing
But I’m blind

I love hard with everything
Giving my all more than they
I’ll take my friends’ advice this time
I’ll do it differently

(chorus and bridge)

My my
Looking for a guy guy
I don’t want him too shy
But he’s gotta have the qualities
That I like in a man
Strong, smart, affectionate
He’s gotta be all for me
And I’ll be too
You’ll see happily

(chorus and bridgex2; chorus and bridge)

Is today a productive day? I worked out at lunch, got a haircut after work, paid a bill online when I got home. Turned down another guy from my past who wants to try again. My house is still clean from my efforts last weekend, not even enough laundry to fill one load. No good TV on.

I feel empty.

I hope tomorrow will be better. My jujitsu instructor left me a voice mail today inviting me to go work out with them at another studio in Orange tomorrow. I think I need to go, just to keep myself from going crazy.

While sitting in the mechanic’s empty waiting room/office as my car was getting its screeching brakes replaced, I rifled thru my purse looking for a bar napkin on which I had written the recipe for a Sexy Alligator. I pulled out a wad of square bar napkins, folded collectively in half, from the front pocket of my purse. In the first instant, I recognized them as doodles and notes my ex had drawn and passed to me when we were at a bar with his friends after the first time we’d broken up and were talking about how to work things out. On four napkins he’d written “I miss u”; doodled a few heart balloons with happy faces in them; written a fancy “Pookie2”; drawn a sad face with an arrow going thru it with a broken heart underneath; written the message “I’d rather sit in silence with you, than listen to all the noise with them.” In the next instant, I placed the timeline together that he’d drawn these the night before he and “the boys” went to Vegas in September, 2004, and mere days from the creation of these declarations of love for me, he would be in Vegas, meeting up with his student that he carried on an entire relationship with behind my back (whom he’d sworn up and down throughout the relationship that he was in zero contact with, and then when I found out differently, he yelled at me that “on principle” he can talk to whomever he wants and it’s none of my business since he’s not doing anything wrong), and they would make out in Vegas and she would perform oral sex on him in his car in the parking structure of a Vegas hotel, even as I sat at home and believed his words, sobbed to me through uncountable phone calls that weekend, redeclaring his love for me and his desire to leave Vegas early so that he could come home and be with me.

Less than ten seconds after unfolding these napkins that I used to treasure, I crumbled in tears. I only found out this May that the girl was in Vegas with them on that trip. Knowing what I know now about his betrayals in the relationship, so many treasures and happy memories are now tainted and rancid with the stench of decay and lies. I guess I’m not over it yet.

I woke up feeling pretty crappy, too. On my drive to work, I called the college roommate for some perspective. Talking to someone on the same wavelength as me, who knows everything I’d gone thru and understands how I feel responsively without having to be told and explained to, really makes a difference. I’m still not yippy skippy, but we did laugh heartily and I did come into work with less density in the cumulonimbus clouds hanging over me. I ate a Dove chocolate when I got in just to see what the fortune would tell me. It says “Laugh uncontrollably…it clears the mind.”

All right, I admit it. I’m bummed. And I learned a little something about lasagne, too. Don’t experiment the day you’re gonna serve 15 people, go with the tried and true. Don’t add water. They were nice about it, but I feel like I need to redeem myself.

I was laughing at myself talking on the phone w/my college roommate earlier. I thought I just got off the emotional roller coaster, and now I look around and I’m in the car of a coaster again. How? When? But here I am.

Today, I’ve already ridden over Insecure Hill, did Disappointment Loop, and now I’m just at Angry Plummet.

There I was, relatively unaffected by the people around me and thus in full emotional balance. And then my subconscious decided to go and smack me with another vivid dream. I woke up this morning, bleary-eyed and colored with the faint blush of romance…and realized it was a dream. Oh, come on!