As I turn 57

It's hard for me to believe that I am so close to being 60. Three more years (throws a pinch of salt over my left shoulder). Every year around my birthday I write about changes in my life - and the things that have remained the same.

Here is what is the same:

1. I continue to get excellent reports regarding the thyroid cancer that was originally diagnosed in 2005. It remains undetectable. 
2. I've got a fantastic job at a fantastic organization. What we do at CAN saves people's lives. 
3. I still live in the same house in the same neighborhood. It still scares for my visitors to get out of their car and walk to my door.
4. I remain single.

Here is what has changed:

1. I adopted Lolly January 3rd. To know her is to love her. The Jack Russell part of her makes her a spring-loaded lunatic sometimes but that is part of her *cough* charm. Her emotional scars from the life she had continue to heal. Trusting is still a challenge for her but for now she only growls at me every so often when I kiss her. 
2. I earned a promotion at work. Always a good thing.
3. I've let my hair grow. It's past my shoulders and I like it. I also like putting it in pigtails and braids. No, I am not too old for that.
4. While I continue to live with a few changes that are products of the closed head injury I suffered a few years ago, I am comfortable with who I am. My short term memory is back and my mind doesn't feel dull anymore. 

I want to delve further into item #4 in the what is the same category. I am still single. It is my wish to be part of a pair but I want to talk to you about a topic related to it.

I have had 4 serious relationships. All of them except for 1, (He might be living on the streets or dead, for all I know. His drinking ruined his life so I don't count him.), circled back to me to say the same thing in one form or another:

1. He was responsible for 95% of the problems we had.
2. He was an idiot. Didn't know what he had. Would treat me differently now. Please take him back. I was the best thing that happened in his life.
3. He wasn't ready. It was premature of him to start a relationship. He's back now and wants me to start anew with him. I was the best thing since sliced bread.

It is uncanny! For the sake of argument, this is 3 out of 3. Inside of these relationships, each man was forced to look at themselves and then make life altering decisions. Move forward with me and learn life's lessons or lose me and remain stuck in the muck. I ended the relationships and it was later that they woke up, but at the time, I was the one hurting.

I am not a serial dater. I couldn't be if I wanted to! There aren't that many available single men living in the area that are in my age group. So, I am single.

When I really think about this, there is a work experience that relates to this subject. I helped get a business off the ground. As a matter of fact, I was the first employee hired. Four years later, the owner, contemplating a hiring decision, came to me to ask my opinion. I told him not to do it and why. He disagreed and moved forward. He thought she would bring in a lot of money and grow the company. I ended up being pushed out and she took over. Eventually, she ended up leaving him and his business high and dry while he was on vacation with his family and took with her over half of the company's clients. He never had her sign a contract. That part of the company ended up closing.

After that all went down, I saw his wife at a continuing education seminar and we talked. She said he was so sorry for what happened, he should have listened to me, and would I call him? I told her I was not going to call him. If he wanted to talk to me, that is fine but he would have to call me. She begged me to call him. I didn't. Neither did he.

As I run head on into 57, I finally have the great job at the great company. I'm ready for the relationship.

A Christmas Present

A Christmas present
A small box tied with a bow
Mixed up in the remnants of torn wrapping paper
Kicked behind the tree
Forgotten

Amidst the excitement
Of opening the larger gifts
The pretty little box with the glossy red paper
Sees no light
In the shade of the tree

Her red bow
Still tied tightly
No hands reach for her
To open her up
She waits, sad, thinking she is forgotten

Breakfast is eaten
En masse the commotion huddles around the TV
To watch the game
A unified raucous
While the package is on no one's mind

Except, it is not that the small
Box with the neatly tied red bow
Is forgotten
Her time was not yet
Until now

She doesn't move as the discards of the morning
Are gathered, torn paper crinkling
An obnoxious noise
The hand that works gets closer
And one finger hooks on her bow

A tug, a slide across the floor
In hands that hesitate before moving
Finally freed of her bow and the glossy red paper
Her lid removed, her box finally opened
Relief

Can you give me more blasé?

"I cannot be Zen now and rise above!" Susan screamed it at the top of her lungs. "I am so sick of EVERYTHING!" More screaming.

"I don't want to talk about it so stop." Randall was not going to give in. He turned and started walking away.

"I am sick of you not wanting to talk about it. I am sick of it being a protected topic with you. As a matter of fact, I am sick of YOU!" Susan's fists clenched. The carotid arteries on the sides of her neck bulged.

Still walking away, Randall replied, "Fine. But I know you. You'll change your mind."

Susan watched his back as he continued to leave. "AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!" She screamed as she raced towards him and tackled him. They both fell to the ground.

"What the fuck!? Susan! Stop!"

"No. I'm not going to stop." She shoved his face into the sandy beach. "You will listen to me, goddammit!"

Spitting out sand and wiping his mouth on his sleeve, Randall got up on all fours. "Jesus, Susan!"

Still perched on his back, Susan kicked him in the ribs. "Woo Hoo! Ride m' Cowboy!"

Randall cursed again. "Son of a bitch!" Susan started to slide off his back as he attempted to sit up so she grabbed his hair and held on tightly.

The director yelled, "Cut!"

Anna let go of Billy's head and slid to the ground. Billy sat back on his haunches and rubbed his head.

"Sorry, Bill."

"No problem. It's in the script." He gave her a wane smile.

"That was fantastic but let's try it one more time. I want to see as much anger as you can muster, Anna, and Billy - see if you can give me more blasé."

The actors looked at each other.

"Anna, think of a time when you felt completely powerless. Maybe when you were a child. And you felt wronged and couldn't do anything about it," the Director suggested. Anna nodded.

"Bill, try to find a place inside where you know no empathy. Almost like a sociopath. No conscience. No sense of wrong. You don't care what Anna, or Susan, says, you aren't wrong."

"OK," Bill replied.

"Great! Places everyone. We're going to do this again."


 

What If...My Dear Sir

You have managed to weave a beautiful fantasy, my dear Sir.
How many fish have you caught in your net?
Wide eyed does daring to look
Muscles quivering ready to break into a run
Aware of the danger but unable to move.
As they stare into your eyes
That stare back at them
Promising warmth by the fire.

The fire of your soul that promises to make them whole, my dear Sir.
The mysterious music that tinkles gaily from your open mouth with your white teeth
Hypnotizes their minds while the shadows from the fire
Dance upon your beautifully painted work of art.

If you find my pulse
If you make me yours
If I fell under your spell
Would I feel all of those
Things that you promise I will?

Would you protect me from harm
Would you make me laugh
Would you hold me with strength
But not crush me with might?

What if you......
What if I.......
What if.......

Hurry, my dear Sir.

Mom

My mother and I have not been close our whole lives.  It isn't until the past year that we've found peace.  There has always been some kind of weird behavior from my mother towards me that she has a hard time controlling.  She has admitted to it on and off through the past 10 years most recently about three months ago.  She has apologized to me again and again for "not being nice to me" and I know that a large part of it is that she feels that if she had loved me properly and treated me kindly I would not be in the position I am in now.

One of my earliest memories of my mother is when I was somewhere around 4 years old.  I was in the front yard playing while she was taking a nap on the couch in the living room.  This was the early '60s in a small town at a time when it was safe to let your kid do that.  Being curious, I observed a bee a little too closely as it went about it's business in the bushes and I got stung.  Crying, I ran into the house to my mother asking for solace and help. Instead I was told to go back outside and play.  Everything was fine.

I no longer experience emotional pain when I recall this.  With age comes acceptance plus my mother has apologized enough.  She is 79 and I don't want her to be awash in guilt.

The position I am in now is I am making 36% less money in Florida than I did in Baltimore. I live in a house where 95% of the windows are painted shut and the ones that I can open don't stay open unless there is something propped up keeping them that way.  There are termites and the bedroom carpeting, despite my vacuuming efforts, is a luxury spa for fleas.  Since last fall my landlord has promised he will tent the house.

The appliances were new in the '70s except for the microwave that my landlord replaced last year.
Since the old one was part of a stove/oven/microwave combo, the new one sits on a table in the kitchen.

Because I left my abusive alcoholic ex-husband who wouldn't allow the 40 some odd potential buyers into the house I used to own to view it to make a possible $40,000 profit, I have been in the foreclosure process and have been notified I owe a lot of money despite the auctioning off of the house that was a couple thousand short of the asking price.

Getting back to my mother.  I routinely call her on my drive home from work.  It keeps me awake after a long day,  the hour long drive seems shorter, and I can give her the time she wants.  As we were talking yesterday afternoon, Poppy's allergies came up which was followed by the subject of fleas and termites.  My mother with a voice choked with emotion said, "I can't believe a child of mine is living this way."  I told her it was okay and I wasn't ashamed to live where I do.  Of course I wish I was living somewhere nicer but in the end we all die and we can't take it with us.  Whatever we do in our present lives will end and some day we will be back and I hope the next life, having learned what I have in this life, will be cushier.

I have lived through cancer and decisions I made hoping they would patch-up emotional wounds.  I no longer raise my fists in response to fists being raised at me.  I can admit to imperfection without losing my sense of self.  I can cry without feeling less than.  I can feel weak or strong without guilt and/or the sense that I am letting someone down or carrying them.  The only expectations I aim to fulfill are my own; the ones I set for myself.

I love my mother and I accept her.  She is not going to change and she loves me with all of her heart as best she can.  I am going to enjoy and cherish her and sometimes grit my teeth because of her but I will do it until I don't have her anymore.

Break

I am at my best with you, at my worst with you.
Satisfying happiness, intense pain.

The highs and lows are wearing me out, breaking my heart, bleeding me to death.

Feeling ugly, not wanted, not needed, not heard.

Bodies in the same airspace circling the same skies but not meeting.

The petals are falling off the flower that used to be so vibrant and alive.

The edges are drying up and hardening.

As each cut clots the scar remains, imperfect healing felt with each movement.

The lying did me in. Felt so stupid. Still do.

How do I find my place again? Suspicions were right.

Wish I could bathe in healing waters. Go back. Can't.

Anger is the blanket covering the sheets of hurt.

My fingertips are white holding on. For how long?

A Poem

You

You are the soft breeze that moves gently through the air
In the cool of the evening after the sun has set
Creating music as you wind around the hanging chimes.

 

You are the pillow that holds my head at night

Surrounding me with comfort

Caressing me with support.

 

You are the brook winding through the willows

Gurgling as you move forward

Hypnotizing me with your actions so that I have no choice but to follow.

 

You are the lightening in a storm

Temporarily blinding me with your brightness

Causing me to drop to my knees because of your power.

 

You are a man so I am a woman.

Your hands hold my heart.