The post where I get labelled a Hater.

I have mentioned the blog, His Giant Mistake. This woman's husband cheated on her and she's kicking his sorry ass to the curb and moving on in spectacular ways, which include climbing mountains and swimming in the bay and dating lots of men. I can't decide if I hate her or I want to be her. Where are the worries about money? Health care insurance? Jobs? The future?

(RANT ALERT. Skip ahead to the next paragraph if you don't want to stain your soul. I fucking hate this woman's self-righteousness, as if her high and mighty judgmental attitudes had nothing to do with the demise of her marriage, as if she did nothing wrong. She signs off every post with "love yourself," which isn't a bad thing. I agree that we should all love ourselves, but can we do it too much?)

I guess she's too busy hiking, swimming, meeting men, and loving herself to worry about such things. I wish she'd struggle more. She makes divorce look easy.

I was rummaging around my bookshelf yesterday looking for a blank journal to write in. I found one that was mostly blank, I'd filled the first three pages way back in 1991, right after I got engaged. Eerily, in the last entry I was questioning what love was/is and if I loved Ex and whether we were right for each other or if I was just marrying him because we were so alike: self conscious and introverted. Then nothingness. I suppose I got wrapped up in the whole wedding pageantry. Not that I have anything against weddings. I went to a lovely, heartfelt ceremony on Friday. The room was divided: the bride's family was sober and the groom's were normies. Were the drinkers the ones cutting it up on the dance floor, wildly gyrating and sweating and shouting joy? No, that would be the sober guests. The drinkers were standing on one side, holding beers and watching the action. I used to be on that side of the room. I'm so glad I crossed over and joined the dancing fools.

Acceptable dating material

I recently went on a date during which the guy admitted he was married. I actually considered seeing him again. My therapist says that when I learn to love myself, I won't mind  being alone. I don't mind being alone, I just like having someone I can call and ask if I'm crazy.

I'm pushing 50. I know women my age become invisible to men. When I hear stories about dirty-dog men who cheated, quit their jobs to avoid paying spousal support, or gained so much weight they stopped having sex, I don't think that woman is lucky to be rid of him; I think ooh, that means he's single.

However, my list of criteria for what's acceptable dating material has expanded beyond he must have a job and his own car to include he must not be married. This is progress.

Side note: my friend C says when she first got back into the dating after getting sober, her criteria was the guy must have all his teeth.

Coping.

I was reading my friend, Therese's blog. (I don't know her; she just feels like a friend.) This part struck me:

Coping your way through life is not a way to live ... I had incorrectly assumed that coping is what everyone did. No one actually wants to be alive, I had always believed (and still do when I get depressed). They just pretend they like they are having a good time on this excruciating planet because no one likes to hang out with a downer. “La la la la la … Sing a happy song …”

I consider it more of a slog, but I assumed everybody thought living was a chore. My joke in high school--and I was a teenage girl at the time so everything was dramatic--was that I'd like to speed things up and get this life over with. That was sooo long ago. And I'm still here.

Coffee with Ex on Sunday. It's good because the more I see of him, the more I realize that we shouldn't be together. Apart, I can spin these fantasies that maybe we could still work things out and never have to pay another lawyer $400 to read an email. A little face time with him clears that up. On the money issue, he says there isn't enough. He has to dip into his savings to take vacations. Doesn't everybody?

Brick walls.

A woman I respect greatly quoted this piece of wisdom which somebody had shared with her: "Keep moving forward and when you come to a brick wall, turn."

Sounds easy, right? This is something I rarely do. I curse the wall. I try and climb it. I bang my head on it, kick it, and punch it. Then I camp out at the base and fume and stew and try to convince any passers by to join me.

My divorce is a brick wall. I need to turn and leave it behind me, but I have a hard time letting that shit go. Partially because it's not final yet and we'll still be tied together financially until we sell the house, but also because I keep going over why, why, why things didn't work, as if it matters now.

I'll just have to keep putting it out to the universe to remove my fear, obsession, and tenacious, sick desire to beat myself and ex up.

Here's to turning and walking on.

You're like so funny.

Have you seen this site? Do you have a couple of hours?

But You’re Like Really Talented, Terry Richardson.

 

Still no job.

Archangel Uriel is gonna burn away your bad shit. You feel me?

I found out on Friday that I didn't get the job that was mere blocks from my house at a successful, pre-IPO start up. I was sure the stars and planets were aligned on this. How could it not be God's will? The rejection hit me hard and I've been fermenting a stew of anger, shame, resentment, and guilt for feeling these things. Then ex called to report he hired a lawyer who told him he'd been overpaying support for the last three years and I owed him money. This did not bode well for the stew. In fact, I fell into the old pattern of me doing my Warner Bros. Tasmanian Devil and him clamming up. It would be funny if it weren't happening to me.

I couldn't calm myself enough to pull an Angel card until this evening. Here's what I got:

Archangel Uriel
Your emotions are healing. I will help you release anger and unforgiveness from your heart and mind. I simply and lovingly ask them to be willing to release toxins from their mind and heart. If they are willing to do so, then the release will occur. In this way, the person retains their dignity and control, while choosing to be clear of lower energies.

I have the dignity and control of a tired two-year-old, along with this desperate need to feel secure and, for me, security means a full-time job and money. It's a false sense of security, really, because both of those things are paper and ephemeral, and yet I am beholden to them. I am clinging to them as if they were my lifesavers. I've been down this road before. I know these things, but then I forget.

Then--and here's God at work--a friend forwarded me this piece by one of my sisters in spiritual progress, Anne Lamott, who describes losing it Tasmanian Devil-style like this:

But eventually I am too tired to continue and my head has become too uninhabitable, and I realize I’ve been driving this rickety temperamental old bus of my mind around for too long. I’ve lost all sense of direction and am feeling confused and pissed off and bitter and resentful and nuts; but then finally, finally just tired. I begin to worry that I have had or
am having a complete nervous breakdown, and that I am about to start weeping or barking and won’t be able to stop. Sometimes I still look more or less okay on the outside except for the tics, which can actually be pretty unsightly but inside I’m feeling a little bit more like Ted Kaczynski than I like to. And I realize I’m just crazier than a shithouse rat; and that it’s all hopeless. And that the sun is burning out.

She always makes me feel better about being crazy and this makes it easier for me to forgive myself for feeling scared and acting like a little kid and for picking up that rock of money fear AGAIN. And AGAIN, I am stating that I'm willing to have this fear removed, that I'd like a few angels with bleach and sponges to go to work on my psyche. Thank you. Good night.

Bad ad placement.

I was doing a bit of research and came across this page. Really? Does anybody pay attention to this stuff? I hate to think it might have been purposeful. If you can't read it, it's an ad for guns on a website for suicide prevention.