Am I a bitter hag? I sure hope not!

I had a relationship that failed, and it has been really hard for me to get past it.

I like to think that every time I fail, I learn something that makes it worthwhile. Sometimes it works, other times, not so clear. This last year has been really rough for me, but I lucked out and made some observations that I can hopefully knit into something I will be able to use for the rest of my life.

Our culture has become shallow. We have lost respect for depth, for truth, for beauty, for meaning. It makes us bored. I hear people complaining about being bored constantly. People watch TV, listen to music, sit on the computer, anything to push down our thoughts and feelings. We have disconnected ourselves from what lies within us.

We have lost our sense of wonder about the other gender. Too much open sexuality, too much emphasis on the equality of the sexes, ignoring the wonder of the differences. We watch movies about how guys are away from women, how women are away from men and now we know way too much. I know men can be really disgusting, hey, I live on the planet, but just maybe I don't need to know just how gross they are, and maybe the men I know, don't need to know how truly icky women can be.

We have openly declared and even celebrated our independence from each other. We shun the notion of needing someone else. Our unwillingness to show weakness has robbed us of our innocence. The innocence required to completely bare one's soul to one another, one of the most magical thing about being human, intimacy, is dismissed now as pathetic naïvité. The man I loved told me once; "I want a woman who can walk away from me at anytime, who does not need me, but stays anyway." Are we that terrified of being responsible for someone else? For their feelings and needs?

We have deluded ourselves into thinking we deserve the absolute best relationship we can possibly imagine. We forgot that good, not better or best, can be really wonderful. In looking for our flawed perception of best, we miss the incredible right in front of us. Sure, I am great, I deserve to marry a brilliant Nobel prize winning scientist, but hey, am I really going to find him at my local WalMart?

We view love as a luxury, rather than a necessity. Great work, if you can get it, but not worth any real sacrifice. We are now too lazy to love someone.

We love with our head, rather than our heart. Our minds talk us out of relationships, because we have become "expert" at them, or so we think. We question the rationale of surrendering, of risk. The weird thing is, we do all sorts of other things that require levels of intellectual or physical challenge. We just forget that there are emotional challenges.

We have lost faith in marriage. Sixty percent divorce rate now. Enough said about that. We are now officially a disposable society. We chuck out relationships as if they were a broken VCR.

We are a distractable society. We have sensory overload. Too much expectation of physical beauty or money or whatever else, has caused people to be constantly looking for something better. Like some huge radar tower, we scan the horizon constantly, afraid we are missing something.

We have filed the pursuit of love under the title: pastime. It's no longer a priority. We think that hey, if we find it, great, if not, oh well. Career? Important. Finances? Important. Love? Well, when I am done with everything else. We have forgotten what is so incredible about being with someone you love.

I ran into this head on, over a year ago, when the man I was with for three years and loved dearly, upon being asked where the relationship might be going, informed me he had no idea how he felt about me. Now, I am not really sure just how you stay with someone for three years, vacation together, do things together, talk to each other about everything, and have no idea. For my own self respect I had to end it, because I know there is more. I was devastated and have only now started sniffing the wind, because I felt to date anyone else, when I knew I was emotionally unavailable was grossly selfish and unfair to the men. It would also mask how I was feeling and allow me to stuff it down way under the surface. I don't want to be shallow. I would rather suffer and never be bored.

Midsummer Respite

It has been nasty hot the last few days, not to mention humid. The air has hung about like an oppressive dictator and commanded my every mood. It has made me sleepy and lazy.

Today was by far the worst, the very hottest, most humid and unpleasant. The parking lot was deserted in the shopping center when I pulled in, as if everyone was hiding in underground caves to beat the cruel summer sun. I had to go out. I had my bi-weekly manicure and pedicure appointment. Still the air was sticky in the car, with the extra air conditioning boost turned on, blowing on full speed. I immediately regretted going out, the second my face hit the air outside the car door.

I stepped into the shop, it was cooler, but by no means the meat locker it usually is. I sat down in my chair and turned on the little fan they have to dry your nails between coats and set it towards my damp face. As I sat there, a flash. We all looked around to see where it came from and a huge clap of thunder followed a few seconds later. For an hour, the lightning and thunder came in intervals, but not a drop of rain. I sat calmly while they worked on my hands and counted the flashes and thunder as I did when I was a little girl.

Finally, I was finished. I stepped outside and the air was hot and still, poised as if it waited for something. I walked into the parking lot and a huge gust of wind as warm as an oven whipped my hair, pulling it from the clips. Then I felt the chill, cold drop hit my face, hard as a slap. I looked into the sky and saw the drops begin to fall.

The wind came up with a vengence. I could smell the ozone wafting up from the pavement, the harbinger of dampness. I stood waiting to see what would happen. Suddenly, the sky opened up and the cold rain pelted down driven by the warm winds. I could feel the hot air and the cold rain penetrating my clothing and I stood still, enjoying the sensation.

As the rain violated the trees, crape myrtle and jacaranda blossoms filled the air. Swirling about in tiny whirlwinds on the ground or blowing high into the air, creating a bright pink and purple shower on their own, driven by the winds they surrounded me as I stood next to my car. Which coincidentally went to the car wash yesterday.

A few people came running from the stores, guarding their heads from the icy drops as if they were acid. I stood alone amongst the few cars until I was completely drenched from the rain, watching the blossoms blow around in fantastical patterns on the asphalt. Finally I got into my car and headed home, ending up in front of the storm. In my yard it began anew.

I do not think I have ever enjoyed rain as I did today.

The Summer of my Discontent

This has got to be the single most frustrating summer I have ever had. I was under the (apparently) mistaken impression that life was supposed to get better and easier as we move into our "middle aged" years. Oh yeah, and I hate that expression. The way I see it, if you die in a fiery crash at twenty, you were middle aged at ten. Not a very uplifting idea. So, using that formula, if I am middle aged now, I will live to be 90. It seems too long.

Due to my health problem, I had to drop my summer class, which I was looking forward to. It's sort of sick and weird, but I do like school. My brain feels much clearer when it is getting constant exercise. I got Bell's Palsy, a bizarre but perfectly harmless affliction. It is not painful, just annoying. The worst part is that I cannot do a lot of close eyework, hence the cancellation of my summer class. I cannot blink with my left eye, and blinking seems to be something I have taken for granted for all these years. This also prevents me as well from spending a lot of time on the computer as well. So a summer of brain exercise is pretty much out.

Weeding in the vegetable garden is a horror, the dust is a worry. I was able to go out and see the infant cantaloupes and watermelons, and view the maturing corn, but not to stay out and love them.

My mouth has not been working right, so my singing is off. This has turned daily practice into a sort of self torture, an exercise in frustration, and I am not able to spend a lot of time going over music anyway.

I had not realized, how much I depend on my eyes daily. When I have a spare moment, I will pick up some Yeats, or some Eliot and read a snatch or two. I revel in the artistry of words. I love to dwell in the thought processes of others, as if I am seeing through someone else's eyes. To pick up a medical journal, or find some bizarre disease online. The joy of reading Dante, or Austen, or Bukowski.

Everything I am, that I do daily, is taken from me.

What this has done, in effect, has given me a lot of time to think. When I was but a mere hippo of a girl, my father told me that thinking a lot, was in general a bad idea. Dad was right. It is leading me to a sort of lunacy, and into an odd journey of self discovery.

Whereas I am completely unable to be negative about others, I find myself unable to be positive about myself. I started out telling myself all the good things about myself. I am a mom, love the kids, and I love my friends with the red hot fire of a thousand suns. I am in school, to finally do what I have wanted to do for years and doing well. I am kind to animals. As much as I can think of that is positive in my life, right now, I cannot seem to dwell in it, as if it was an apartment I was forbidden to enter unable to cross the chained and bolted door.

As I passed the first anniversary of the end of a relationship that I was so happy in, I found myself questioning my sanity. Maybe it was me. Am I wrong to know so surely what I want? Am I wrong to have passion for someone, something, for life? Is it wrong to have expectations? I find the lower one's expectations are for others, the less you are disappointed in life, this I do know.

There are things we all love and things we all hate about ourselves. This is part of the human condition, but why then does it seem that the least introspective, seem to be the very happiest people among us?

I seem at times to be internally contradictory, and sometimes it leaks to the outside as well. How can someone be insecure, and yet arrogant? How can someone be so bright, and sometimes lack basic, common sense? How do I manage to love something with such passion and hate with equal strength? How can I be so brave, while quaking with fear inside at times? I am willful, yet obedient. I relish an intellectual argument, yet run from a personal confrontation. These things seem to be at odds with one another on basic levels. Is everyone like this or is it just me? I don't hear people talking about it much, so it very well could be.

I think what this summer has done for me, and it has barely begun, is to strip back a lot of the layers that I created with my music, my books, chess, the garden. It is as if I had encased myself in contentment from outside sources and forced me to look at myself in a very naked way. I have watched every movie I wanted to see on the cable, on DVD, the netflix. Listened to a hundred operas, and when they are over, the self talk begins. In the long run, has my self doubt only been pushed back by the exercise of my mind by will over and over again? I thought the good part of middle age, was that you finally began to realize who you were. Or is the real secret of a successful transition to this time of life the realization that who you are may be partially out of your control and subject to outside forces?

Right now, I have no concrete answers. I guess I have plenty of time to think about it.