Hello....

CHICAGO!

yes, YOU! at the University of Chicago! I know you're reading :-) Drop me an email, willya?

Understanding the Rhythms of Life--Clearing away the block

So, I'm looking for a recipe for a lemon vinaigrette salad dressing, and in the middle of the page I see an ad for the new Wet 'n Wild makeup site. I'd noticed that Wet 'n Wild--a brand I'd known for 20 plus years--wasn't as ubiquitous in drug stores as it had been, so I explored the site a bit...but it was really the picture of the girl in the ad that got me.....

Not because she was particularly pretty or anything like that. It had more to do with the makeup she was wearing that was so reminiscent of disco-era makeup..

When I was a young person.

I got to thinking more of that. How being a young person is so much about planning your life, making yourself beautiful to find a mate (although most of us are beautiful without any makeup) thinking and dreaming about the families we will have....

And that there was so much about life that never got explained to me.

This makes me so very sad--how I never saw how beautiful I was, never understood the love I had with my young husband, never understood the love and caring that other people were showing me.

Those kinds of things only happen when you are young. And if you have a harpy and an ogre for parents--screaming and yelling all the time--and a sibling that is happy to humiliate and degrade you, then it's hard to feel good about yourself and to appreciate the wonderful things that others are giving to you.

I'm joining a board of a local arts organization. It's the first group I've been around in awhile where I felt comfortable, where the people were down to earth, not pretentious, there to help the organization get things done and keep growing.

And I thought more about the blocks I have to clear away in my life to move forward.

I called two churches yesterday. One of the things that came up in Life Coaching last week was how much a spiritual life means to me. It was the one thing that held me together when I was dealing with academics and a divorce and an unsupportive family and psycho housemates. It's something I have to get back to. I've decided to talk with the pastors--as these are new denominations--and find out more about the belief systems, just to see if they fit with my personal beliefs. That's one of the reasons I don't want to go back to Catholicism--there are things with it that just do not resonate with me anymore.

I'm also going to try to do some online dating--just to start going out with other guys. Last night, S.E. "joked" about my looking for a spiritual home, and that didn't make me happy. It's one more thing that reminds me that we're not really suited to one another. But also it's time to get moving anyway. The longer I stay with just him, the more hopeless I'll feel about being attractive and about getting my butt out there again.

Like spring cleaning, I want to throw open the doors to my life and do new things, meet new people, be out there, involved in the community and in life. Sure, there are moments when I'm quiet and like to be safe and cozy (as I like to call it) but I don't want to be isolated and in my own little private Idaho all the time. That's just not healthy for me.

I played a little with a baby the other day. It's been a very long time since babies were in my life--mostly from changing my life so much with school and all. The baby made my heart ache, and I remembered being young and babysitting all the time. How , at 25, I wanted to take my niece away from my sister because I knew she was neglecting her and didn't want her. And that I wanted children, but was so afraid that if I did, I'd turn into my mother--who, sadly, personified the Wicked Witch. Everything about marriage and family was poison. Nothing good could come of it if I settled down. If I had children, she wouldn't help me--I'd be alone. Or worse, my child would get hurt. Marriage was enough.

But my first marrriage couldn't stand the stress and interferrance of our parents. And my second marriage couldn't stand the dysfunction and my illnesses.

Funny, I'm not ill now. Sure, there are "things" but nowhere near the amount of illness that I had more than 10 years ago.

There are days where I feel like I'm coming out of a long, bad dream. I stand around going "what happened to my life?" and remember the dysfunction that I tried to understand, how I didn't do the best job of balancing life and work. I simply didn't know how to do any of it.

When I turned 21, I felt like my life was over. I never realized that, what was really happening, was that my life was just starting (when your mother, daily, screams at you about not being married, you begin to wonder what's wrong with who you are...) And now, at 47, I hope I can still have a life with things that are important to me. I hope I'm not careening uncontrollably into old age, and should be buying that burial plot. I know I'm in "middle age" but what does that mean for my life?

I don't know....I just see the things I've missed and I wonder...what is *this* life about?

Maybe it was never me....

I spent years beating the crap out of myself, trying to figure out what was *wrong* with me...when, the thing is, there never was anything wrong with me...

Last week, while I was tracking down information on borderline personality disorder, I came across Surviving a Borderline Parent by Kimberlee Roth and Freda B. Friedman. Once I started reading, everything began to make sense...

Now, the book is not perfect, but, honestly, there's much in that book that helped explain much of what I went through, what's gone wrong, and how things can change...

I'd really like to write more, but I've discovered that it is not safe for me to be writing anything personal in such an open forum any longer. From a business perspective, I'm far too vulnerable....

I am considering shuttering this blog again. It's not enough that my readership is low and that I'm out of search. Business concerns make it important that I hide this part of myself even more. So, In a month, I will shutter things again. if you have been reading, and would like to continue reading, please email me and let me know so that I can add your email addy to the list of people who will be allowed to read what I write

I feel bad about this. I enjoy writing and I know that my best writing happens at this level of self-discovery writing. But I can't risk it any more.

At the end of May, everything here will be behind a wall. If you're been reading, you can send me an email and I will add you as someone who has permission to read

Maybe I'm being paranoid--maybe not. But I know I'd feel safer with a better boundary. The vulnerability isn't good for me anymore.

So, you've got a month :-)

A Fateful Decision

As the general academic year rolls to a close, I'm reminded that, 10 years ago, I made a fateful decision to go to Smith College...

Families on both sides, my husband's mother and my parents, got very angry with me. I didn't understand why.

Three days after I made that decision, in June, my husband left me. And confessed he'd been having an affair since November.

Hindsight being 20/20, I now see that the parents got angry because, in their eyes, I wasn't going to get an education--I was leaving my husband.

In my husband's eyes, I was probably leaving him, too.

I was 37. I didn't have children. I was afraid to. Even though my husband's family had died out from under him in less than 2 years. He never told me how this bothered him and he wanted family. Or at least we never sat down and had a real talk about it.

It would have been nice if we did. Things might have been different.

And I'm now understanding further, that I made the decision because I really wanted the education. To everyone else, I made the decision to abandon family. They felt that way because women aren't supposed to go off to school.

Women aren't supposed to go off anywhere. They're supposed to follow the men. Whither thou goest, I go. That's from the Story of Ruth, in the Old Testament. Once we marry, our decision making on some matters is over. We are supposed to follow. And to be with the mother-in-law if necessary.

Education was a dream of mine. Within that dream was a husband who wanted me to be just as smart as him, who wanted to come with me. A husband who would support my dreams as much as I supported his. But, when it comes to children and family, that's not the case. Perhaps it was being 37 and not having been pregnant that was freaking everyone out. I wasn't freaked. I figured I'd finish my education in 2 years and have a kid at 40.....

But when he left--admitted to that affair (lord knows if he'd had others, when I didn't)--all my dreams for the future left me.

It's taken me 10 years to get back some kinds of dreams for the future. Now, again, there's no one to share them with. Steady Eddie is still around, but he chafes. He cares but not about the future. He watches over me, like the protector, and I make him laugh and make him happy. But he doesn't want anything for the future that involves family or other people. I dont' know what his problem is with that--maybe hurt from his last marriage. I can't change that. I can't change someone else's issues....

It's hard to look back over 10 years and see how hurt I was, how I just couldn't dream because all the dreams and plans I'd made were obliterated when my husband left.

It's hard not to feel that I've been punished by Fate or God or Whatever in the Universe because I made the decision to get an education over the decision to follow my husband and make a family.

Or have I been the one punishing me? I don't know. That's a distinct possibility.

I've been reading more on Borderline Personality Disorder because I've been very concerned about patterns of behavior in my life. These patters were things that I learned from my mother and father. They are not me. I had to adapt a lot of me to be with them. I've always had to adapt me to fit with other people--and my decisions about my life have always been punished one way or another.

I don't know if my ex-husband's reaction to my leaving--his abandonment fears--were out of BPD or if they were the fears any man might have who'd lost almost all his family members in a short period of time and then had his wife going off to school. As I begin to see that I lack the Intestinal Fortitude to balance a number of things in my life, perhaps he didn't have it within him to balance those things either.

That's something else I've come to acknowledge about myself recently: that I can't do it all at the same time. When everything in life is in upheaval--friends, family and job--it's just about impossible for me to try to take care of all of those things at the same time. I never learned how to handle these things without anger, screaming-and-yelling, recriminations of others, etc.-never learned how to handle them in a constructive manner. I see now how all those things have to be taken one step at a time, and time has to be made for them. Carve it out. Do little things to make them happen. Sitting like Cinderella waiting for the Fairy Godmother won't help. Screaming and yelling and getting pissed off and blaming everyone else won't help either.

When I'm in times like this, it hits me the damage of growing up with parents who were very damaged people. They were so hurt and neglected as children that they had no choice in how they turned out. But I'm different. I'm aware of things more than they were.

I can change these negative patters if I have some help.

I've decided to see a life coach to help me focus on the future--making plans, taking action. Therapy isn't the answer any more. Therapy ends up devolving into a blame game and looking at the past. Right now, doing that only brings regrets. I know what happened, and I know why. There's no one to blame, but I do regret things (esp. my first husband. there is no love like the love between two young people.) And I regret them because what I want for the future seems to be unattainable. Those things feel unattainable because I'm balancing too many changes and it's way too much for me to try to do all those things at the same time, all by myself, with no support (that's always been the case--no wonder I've cracked up a time or two.) So, I need a rudder, someone to help me keep focus and to move forward in a constructive manner--not burn bridges out of self-loathing.

And to stop the self-loathing. But I can only stop that when I can see what I'm doing, what I've done, how things are changing, where they could go.

These are the things that good, normal parents (or even grandparents--didn't have those) help a child learn to do. When your parents don't teach you how to plan for the future and make right decisions, then it's hard to do that stuff as an adult. When you hate yourself too much, you can't plan anything either.

When I graduated college in '01, I was so full of self-loathing that I couldn't see nor plan a good future for myself. I lost some opportunities--and, actually, I think I wanted to die. But I didn't. I've managed to make other opportunities. But I'm not getting any younger here. There might not be too many chances to make those chameleon-like changes that I've managed to do most of my life, sometimes making those changes just for the heck of it. I know I can get a grip on things, but I need help and support--something I've never really had (except for my business coach-who was wonderful and very helpful.) I don't need wallowing in examination of the past self.

So maybe choosing a life coach, like choosing a college, is another of those fateful decision. Maybe this will help stop the destructive momentum I feel has been gathering, maybe this will help me turn a number of things around for the positive.

I hope so.

Oh no! You're Over 40 and Single! Now What?!?

First: Don't Panic

Second: You're Not Alone....

Believe it or not, being over 40 and single isn't such a rare thing anymore. According to a recent survey conducted by AARP Services and Focalyist, only one in four over 40 folks is married w/children...Which leaves a goodly portion of us--about 1/3 according to the survey--as single (and probably w/out children.)

That still doesn't stop me from panicking. Oh, it's not the hot-sweat, wringing-my-hands, sturm und drang type of panic that I went through in my late 20's. It's now more of a quiet, hyper-vigilant, heebie-jeebie type of panic: one minute I'm okay, and the next minute I'm screaming "I've squandered away my childbearing years on an education and a dubious career on the Internet!"

Or something to that effect.

Yet, there are more days than not when I realize that panicking isn't going to help me. Then, I take a few, long, yogic, deep breaths, slow myself down and remember how I got here....

Seven years ago I found myself being handed the gold-sealed papers of my second divorce, with no means of employment, and trying to complete an honors thesis in order to graduate from a tony New England women's college. Honestly, that was something I never thought I'd do, and something nobody in my family ever expected.

It certainly wasn't anything that anyone in my family would ever consider supporting. My lot was meant to be married and baby-bearing--anything else would make me too smart to be of any use to an "honest" employer or "good" man.

With all that familial conditioning, is it any wonder that I panic about being single and over 40?

Even if your situation is nothing like mine, it's still ok to have that occasional panic attack about being over 40 and single. Regardless of what the survey says, it often feels like we're our own Private Idahos...

Some of that, I think, has to do with changing social patters in middle age. We don't "hang out" like we did in our 20's. There are stricter social rules to follow, mores to adhere to, niches that must be cultivated. Our workdays sometimes end with a laundry list of to-be-accomplished responsibilities--which leave less free time to just wander around and take in the social scene.

Even if we have the free time, many of our peers might not. We wander--they ponder. Never the 'twain shall meet...

When I was in my know-it-all 30's, I had this over-40 friend who often complained that she wasn't meeting anybody. "Well, Marge," I advised "you're not going to meet anyone sitting at home every night in your pink fuzzy slippers watching the Yankee game with your cats! You've got to get out of the house if you want to meet somebody!"

I find myself taking my own good advice these days...esp. since the ending of a long relationship that was secure the way that a button-down hair shirt might also be secure...

It's not that he was a Bad Guy. It's that, by his nature, he's pretty much the Wrong Guy. ..for me...(more on this to come.)

So, all you single, over 40 women out there--don't panic, remember you're not alone, and try to do something to get yourself out of those comfy pink fuzzy slippers and into a nice pair of high heels for a change....

I've got much more to share on the subject of being over 40 and single. I hope some of you will join me and speak your mind, advice, and experiences too :-)

(Cross-posted from my blog at BlogHer.org)

What Goes Around, Comes Around

When the movie Almost Famous came out, my rock-star friend Marc said to me "you've *got* to see this movie! It's you!" We'd had a conversation at one point about muses, or those girls who are an artist/writer/musician/intellectual's inspirations. He'd had many in his life, and he'd picked up on that energy from me, even through our online correspondence...

And it's true that a lot of my younger years were given over to being some man's inspiration (or the inspiration to many men) There were times when it bothered me quite a bit. I would wonder if that was the purpose of my life.

I finally watched Almost Famous a year or two ago, and there was indeed something about the character of Penny Lane that was, indeed, a young me--living in a world of men and creativity, giving my creative energy to them.

Creative energy can be such a confusing thing when we're young. If we're around creative men, we tend to give it to them beacause we can't seem to know what to do with it. If we meet a guy who desires children, then it becomes directed (yes, I'm about to say some feminist heracies here, but, I'm sorry, this is kind of the way it is when we're young women...) As much as we think we settle men down, men--the right men--settle some of us down too...

If we never meet those men, we have to forge our creativity into something of our own. We have to create for ourselves--and we have to create our Selves. Nobody's going to do that for us....

Yesterday, I had a card reading--it went quite well. There are some blocks now, but it's up to me to push them out of the way. Then, things will go very well! The most telling thing in the reading was the Queen of Wands--with the Queen indicating that I'm coming into my own....

This got me thinking again about my life as it relates to the lives of men--of all that creative energy--and of the burst of creative energy I've been feeling lately. It's an energy I haven't felt in a long time. At least not like this. This is new, different....

Because I'm beginning to see some of that creativity that I gave out so long ago come back to me!

It's been coming slowly--and at first it was rather scary. I wasn't all that ready for it, and I'd spent way too much time in the upside-down world of feminist thinking that kept telling me that men and women can't be friends, and that women should stick only to women...

Well, maybe some women stick only to dealing with other women, but my world's always been one of balance, with men contributing a great deal to my world.

Without them, my world is pretty much monochromatic--uncreative--boring.

They add spice, life, color and...of all things..

Inspiration...

That wonderful creative inspiration that I gave so freely (sometimes just by my presence) is coming back in so many positive ways. New clients who want to feed my creativity. The guy who gave me a makeover yesterday--which I just have an odd feeling will lead to an additional career path. Or at least something new, creative, fun that feeds a part of me that doesn't get fed in my work online because it requires more than just words on a screen...

I've always said, there's just so much of us that can be put online--and there's just so much of our lives that some of us can live online.

So much of my life happens off-line.

I can only create on line when I have real f2f energy feeding me IRL. This space doesn't quite feed me the way that interacting with people will feed me...

And the way in which I see the wonderful energy of men feeding my life right now.

It's as if all that creative spark and energy that I couldn't deal with when I was young, and that I freely gave to so many men who I encountered--is coming back to me. This seems to be a special, magical time. And I'm ready for it, too. I understand what's going on and I really don't fear it. If I have to learn new things, I can learn them. If I have to travel somewhere I can do that too. If I have to meet bunches of people, that's cool too...

I am fascinated by the ways that men are showing up in my life as friends and helpers and inspirations. And I understand something I never would have if you'd told me when I was younger: that having given creative energy and inspiration generously and freely when I didn't know what to do with it, could come back to me now when I'm ready for it and open to its possibility....

In Praise of Guy Friends

I got off the phone with a friend, who happens to be a guy, this afternoon and realized, once again in my life, I have guy friends.

There was a long period of time when I didn't have guy friends. I felt I either wasn't allowed or wasn't supposed to or that it was inappropriate or it was one of those "men and women can't be friends" kind of things (which I never believed in anyway--my life isn't right without guy friends.)

Some of that was the result of my marriage--where many of my guy friends fell away due to the changes in our lives. We all, I think, were having a tough time adjusting to what adulthood, and adult friendships were supposed to be.

For me, this has always been a struggle. My parents never had friends--I never saw them make friends or do anything social other than with family members. My mother would sometimes fight with her sisters--esp. after my grandmother's death--and some she reconciled with while others, like her one brother, she never reconciled with (not really, anyway. She did go to see him in the hospital when he was dying...)

So, I always think that it's hard to plot the trajectory of what adulthood's going to be like if you don't see adulthood as a kid. There are lots of things that seem really foreign to me--lots of things I'm just learning to negotiate....

But I think, too, as things fall away with Steady Eddie (yes, no more delusions that we might move in together or settle down--we simply have too many incompatabilities)
I am seeing guy friends in my life again.

It's rather comforting, actually. They're very nice. Like big brothers and younger brothers....

The really nice thing is that, since my hormones are (more than likely) slowing down, there's no attraction.

Then again, maybe the hormones are still there, but my emotions are more engaged,or my boundaries are better, and I'm not seeking to find that special One in the next AnyGuy who comes my way...

Guy friends are one thing. Guys I date are another. Guys I date might become guy friends. But I think this particular group of guy friends aren't going to be guys I end up dating. Just doesn't feel that way.

They're just...well...guys I know and like hanging out with when I get to hang out with them. Like partying buddies....

...but not boyfriends.


I'm spending time looking in the local papers, finding things to do on the weekends. Without Steady Eddie, I can plan to do things on my own, not worry about whether or not he wants to go with me. There's a psychic fair on saturday, a Japanese movie in Amherst on Sunday, followed by a Trivia night on sunday evening....a talk on wild birds of the wetlands on tuesday, and then the symphony on saturday.

Yes, it's nowhere near as exciting as the clubbing I did when I was younger, and none of it has that super-charge I still get when I go dancing (and that hasn't been in quite a while) but it all constitutes Getting Out of the House, and has nothing to do with going somewhere where I'll be drinking or trying to fit in with people old enough to be my kids.

Maybe this is a step towards being something of an adult. I don't know.

What is nice, though, is having guy friends again--something that I didn't have for many years for many dysfunctional reasons. And for many years life felt out of balance because they weren't there. I've always learned from my guyfriends, and there seemed to be some lacking in life experience without them. Now, things are a bit better, more balanced, more normal feeling.

I hope I don't have to give them up again.