Today and tomorrow are the packing blitz days – and so far (it’s 4:11 pm) I’ve only packed 2 tiny boxes with a couple of candles and knick knacks and vitamin bottles, and one medium box with some pots. I keep just staring at everything, feeling dumbfounded. How do I do this!?
And since tomorrow is thanksgiving, I suspect I won’t have much time to myself for a ceremony.
However, since it’s nearly the new moon, tonight I will:
Does the woman’s book of rituals have anything more than this on suggested new moon focus?
judging by the number of self-help books and magazine articles dedicated to solving the crisis of being a single woman in ones late 30s, I am about to enter a crisis. The crisis must exist (right?) if there is this cottage industry attached to it.
or is it just a crisis for OTHER people? Maybe it’s only a crisis if you believe in it! Maybe if you think positive, ask the universe for a life partner and watch Oprah, you’re immune to the crisis??
I’m trying not to believe in it. I’m trying to harbor a little hope, look toward the future with a little optimism, but, I need help.
Can any women here who’ve had positive experiences of finding love and having it turn out well AFTER age 35 please report? I need some anecdotal evidence that such things happen, to kindle my little ember of hope.
I’m not fashion conscious. Perhaps some of you are?
Question 1 part A of the first) There are all kinds of sparkly pretty shoes for sale online that look holiday-ish – and I want to buy a fancy pair of shoes! The majority I’ve seen, however, are sandals or peep-toe pumps. Do women let their toes peep out in winter? Are you allowed to wear stockings if your toes show or is that gauche? Do men look at these shoes in winter and think they’re crazy? or sexy?
B) how many pairs of shoes do you own (roughly) and describe your favoritest pair.
what did your mama wish she had been or done?
And/or
what did your daddy wish he had been or done?
did they achieve the kinds of things they dreamed of achieving?
(optional extra credit: what impact did the unlived lives of your parents have on your life, the life of the child?)
went on a date last night with a “catch.” A successful, good-natured, well-educated, together sort of guy – a senior resident in psychiatry! 6’3”! A couple years younger than me!! And he likes me! (txt message after date: “I had a wonderful time with you, jane, and hope we can meet again soon.”) ...
But today I’m dragging around and feeling frumpy-souled because I have no spark with Mr.Solid and, meanwhile, my favorite A$#@!& has dropped back off the scene after our wee little reintroduction last week.
Even though I remind myself that I have no interest in wasting anymore time or energy on cads… nevertheless I feel emotionally sucked in by the idea of him and blue because I’ve been rejected by him (again) – I feel like a bit of grass in the wind. I have no emotional roots.
It sucks. I hope I can fall in love one day with someone really worthwhile, really deserving of love and able to return it. Wouldn’t that be a fancy idea?
Packing up I decide to try on the fancy interview suit I bought in March. I went on two interviews in it, feeling like a total sausage (wearing spanks to try to make it acceptable – it was okay but I could barely breathe in those pants). I’d bought it at the snug size thinking, well, I’m losing weight so in a little while it’ll fit just right.
Now I’ve lost a bit of weight so I thought I’d give it a go. Tried on the jacket and it looks positively boxy. Not attractive at all. Then, a bit surprised, I pulled the pants on over my sweats and they fit with room to spare.
Over… my … SWEATS!
There was probably a week in 2008 when I should have lined up all my interviews because the suit would’ve been PERFECT.
I hope I can get it taken in while maintaining the integrity of the shape. It’s such a lovely suit, and only worn twice! Dang.
But – hiphip hooray for the noticeable difference!
to help me keep a healthy perspective while packing/moving. I don’t want to keep bringing all this garbage with me every time I move.
So – will be asking these questions (adapted from a clutter-clearing advice article):
1) When did I last use this item?
Purge old clothes, jewelry, knick-knacks, hobbies, and unfinished projects to allow space for new, alive energy.
2. Am I going to need this item on a specific date in the future?
If it doesn’t have a definite date of use, the rent you pay for the space it takes up into the indefinite future isn’t worth it.
3. Does this item have a legal or tax purpose?
Go through your papers and keep only items that are really needed.
4. How hard would it be to replace this item again someday if I needed it?
Get rid of things that are a dime a dozen.
5. In what way is this item making my life more purposeful, fulfilling, enjoyable?
If the items are not making you happier, healthier, more efficient and effective, if they don’t support your feeling like your best self, they are just taking up space and blocking the flow of healthy, positive energy into your life.
I said to my bro, “Mr.X got in touch with me again. Mr.X, the one from..”
“I know who Mr.X is,” said my bro, looking at the floor shaking his head.
“It’s not an issue. I had a little momentary insanity, but my 43t friends straitened me back out.”
“good.”
“I thought about it and I remembered he’s really an A$#@!&”
“But you’re kind of addicted to A$#@!&s,” says me bro.
well, now today I’m in this low funky blue laze and I’m fixating and I think, you know, what was I feeling about Mr.X in the last couple days? Jazzed. Buzzed. I had a real buzz going. And this feeling now? This is a hangover. A crash.
And I thought, maybe addicted really is the right word.
If it feels more ‘intoxicating’ than comfortable… has that got to be a cue that something’s wrong, then? Is that a good tip off to head the other way?
How, then, do I contend with the fact that the magnetic thing that happens between people who really OUGHT to be together – real feelings of attraction between GOOD and HEALTHY people can also feel intoxicating and nerve-jangling (even for NORMAL people who aren’t A$#@!*& addicts)?
Will it be different and better if I fall for a good guy? Are my feelings for men always going to be de-centering? Is falling for someone inherently bad for me? A feeling that will be forever a little tainted and dangerous? Maybe I oughta stay away from men altogether then? Like alcoholics have to be completely sober?
Because I don’t want rollercoaster feelings. I want something calm. Sturdy. I hope I can learn to have good healthy grown-up and non-extreme relationships.
Today accepted an offer for a dinner date from someone I met online some months ago. We’ve only exchanged a couple emails. I told him there was no point since I’d be moving away soon, but decided that it’d be good to follow advice of my pallies on here and spread out the anchors of my attention so as not to be pulled overboard by one particular siren clinging to the hull of my ship.
this morning. Or rather – I woke up at about 11 so I think my concept of morning is around 1pm. anyway. It’s done.
Feeling so draggy. Looking around at all this STUFF with a real feeling of bLecchhh.
BUT! Today must make a big fat dent in packing this place. Only one more weekend in November! So, I’m going to overcome my draggy blechy feeling and just start. I think I’ll use my little 15 minute timer to hack through various tasks.
First:
It was long but I didn’t fix it in my head when I woke up, so all I remember now is this one brief scene.
I was sitting in my car, looking at myself in the rearview mirror, putting on “chocolate cherry” lip gloss. A woman came over to the car with a sort of… eliza doolittle accent. And she said something like, “you’re beautiful your grace.” and I said, “thank you.” and then another British guy came over and laughed at her and said “she’s not royalty! she’s an american!”
I was abashed at being an american and also at having lied, by not correcting her. I nodded that this was true.
I asked the woman why she thought I was a royal, anyway, trying to deflect blame for the embarrassing moment onto HER mistake. and she said it was because I had … something. I don’t remember now but it was characteristic of royalty, like austerity and elegance or something. And I was flattered.
since I’ve already lost weight this year and I know it won’t be that hard to hit my ideal weight now that the end is in sight.
Or, more or less, I just wanted it off my list and thought it was sufficiently accomplished.
BUT.
Now it’s really done. Really.
The shift isn’t incidental. It’s monumental. It’s like zombies climbing out of the ground.
So. When I first got onto 43t, I was entrenched in a long relationship with a lousy soul-sucking guy and it took me a lot of goal setting to wrestle and wriggle my way out of that.
And after that I thought, well, I sure would like to think that something might come AFTER this.
And after some months I did think so. I had a more optimistic sense of hopeful anticipation.
BUT… now there’s this new thing – a kind of lively, eager, suspenseful feeling. It feels, for lack of a comparison – YOUNG. Young and stupid. Which is maybe a nice feeling. Brought on by someone I might be better off fearing and shunning.
Nevertheless, I can’t help but feel that it’s a good thing – in general – to feel so in suspense and hopeful.
Maybe nothing ever turns out for the best for certain types of people – and I would say that to the degree to which I know myself, I know I am more aligned with that group of unlucky sad sacks than with the army of happy people.
But… maybe for us unlucky sorts, we are blessed with these in-betweens of feeling like MAYBE something fun could happen.
It’s extraordinarily difficult to feel like MAYBE anything, in the wake of certain soul crushing experiences. And if you’ve had a few of those experiences, you tend to keep watch over the mass grave of MAYBE feelings and you think, there will never come another live feeling again. This is it, here.
And so, if a live feeling does come crawling along, all you want to do is crouch with it in a fox hole, and hope you can both stay there for a while, because, hopeful live feelings make for good company, even if they do feel ill fated.
quite dumb actually.
I’m getting all soft-brained and crushy and while it’s nice, it’s also very clearly a lousy idea with respect to the object of my crush. My bro says i’m addicted to A**s. Admitting it is the first step.
I was focused on not caring about his dismissing me, but hadn’t planned on his actually try to WOO me. So now I’m faltering in my reason.
But, he’s wooing really hard. I haven’t been this actively wooed in such a long time. How am I supposed to be smart about THIS?
Oh no!!
he contacted me…...
oh noooooooo.
We talked for about 3 hours last night, about how things went down between us. He disagrees with me about how it played out. He’s still really charming, though. It’s hard not to want to believe the whole revionist story the way he tells it. I’m so nervous all of a sudden! I want to see him, but I’m also thinking, this could be such a bad idea.
Oh, poor boy-addled brain.
I have to say, it’s nice, though. It’s nice. At least he said he was sorry. And it sounded like he meant it. This made me feel so much better about the relationship, looking back.
SweetMK’s comment – I just love it.
Pink has offered to make an image of all us little spots of bright energy across the globe. If you want to be included on the map add a comment here with your location.
Mine is: Englewood, NJ make that Boston, MA(I’ll be moving really soon!)
Cranberry! Have a wonderful day. We’ll all be sending happy vibes to you in support of your feeling buoyed and joyful all day long.
Have a wonderful year of dreams fulfilled and goals triumphantly achieved.
The backstory is as follows:
Just before I met Rob, about 5 years 6 months ago, I dated this guy for a few months and was WILDLY in love with him. He wasn’t very kind or decent (I don’t have much taste for nice guys, it seems). But he was charming and exciting and funny and intelligent and I was amazed that someone like him wanted to be with someone like me. And then he dumped me quite suddenly. Literally walked out of my apartment one evening without a word. And that was it.
Evidently this was because he had been “struggling” with the fact that while I was interesting and intelligent and soulful, I was nevertheless too fat for him and had a big overbite and some scars from a car accident that unnerved him. He’d been trying (in his opinion quite valliantly) to overcome his resistance to dating a less than attractive girl and eventually he realized he just wasn’t strong enough.
Ta daaa!!!!
Yes, yes. That was the big reveal – explained to me (after the fact) by a friend of his who somehow felt it would be merciful to explain to me the jerk’s sudden and complete disappearance from my life.
Well.
It suddenly so happens that this ass and I are going to be crossing paths again in 16 days.
Now, I’ve already lost quite a substantial amount of weight. But I’m not really in the all-that-and-a-bag-of-chips shape that I would LIKE to be in.
So, I’ve decided that in the coming 2 weeks 2 days I’m going to pull out ALL the stops. Green tea and water and lean protein and gym visits and I’m going to get a hair cut and a new dress and whatever the hell it takes.
I am going to be scandalously sexy.
And that little jerk is going to look at me in 16 days and think, why, look at that stunning incredible woman! What? What’s that? That’s fat little jane? Oh my god! What an ass I am! I shall go about regretting that bum move for the rest of my life now.
That’s what I’m hoping for. REALLY, REALLY hoping for.
I just want him to think, even for just a tiny split second, “wow, that could have been my girlfriend, and I dumped her cruelly in the middle of making her feel like the most special girl in the world, because I’m a shallow piece of crap with no concept of what it feels like to be human. (and then reported to my friends how i felt so bad because she was great, but I just couldn’t overcome wanting to be with someone more attractive. Nice.)”
you think that the gods could get behind me on this?
for me, it’s such a big and dangerous sadness that crouches around this small hope. So, some of my reasoning goes like this – look, you haven’t had good relationships. You’ve made lousy decisions. You don’t seem to trust men, and for the most part the men you find yourself involved with only corroborate this mistrusting attitude, and frankly, you should have found a way to sort out your issues sooner, because you simply have not reconciled with whatever demons keep ushering you into this lousy situations, and you’re getting older and the odds are against women as they get older. There are practical considerations. Even if you could find a wonderful, good and decent and trustworthy and reliable man… Men have a million reasons to choose a younger woman, looks, fertility, less baggage, whatever.
So I think… if I hold this particular dream too dear, and I never am able to find a partner and have children, the whole ideal soulmate scenario… then it’ll break my heart and I won’t be able to endure the sadness of it. It would be better maybe not to think of it anymore. Let it exist out there as an idea of something that might or might not happen, but don’t hope. Just wait and see.
However, there is this other line of reasoning which goes, you have to harbor the hope, kindle it with your attention, in order to sort the energy and consciousness of the universe around you into the kind fo shape that would yield up a guy like this and a future like this. And there is along that same line of reasoning this corrolary which is, maybe it would be good for you, healthy even, to start thinking about these things as things you could still be worthy of and deserve. Maybe you need to see yourself as someone who could deserve the committment of a really great guy, deserve to be chosen by someone really great. And capable of offering someone something really great in return.
I’m torn on this goal. On the one hand I so want to think of myself as good and deserving of that kind of a relationship, the kind where you build things together, a life… and on the other hand I’m so deeply insecure and thin-skinned and I hate the idea of being disappointed. I’d like to protect myself from that disappointed by accepting defeat early. Not embarrassing myself and getting my hopes up when it’s just unrealistic.
So, anyway, since I’m on the fence, my goal is going to be simply ALLOWING myself to harbor the small hope. Let myself hope. That’s all.
