Connection, Desire... Self-esteem

It's a funny predicament for me, the person who was always the last one chosen for teams, squads, dances or anything, to be desired.  And maybe it's ridiculous to keep thinking that at this point too -- because I've been an adult a helluva lot longer than I was ever a kid or a teenager -- but those years seem to permanently ingrain labels such as Jock, Skater, Geek, Slut, Fag or Cheerleader in the annals of our personal histories.  

Ridiculous or not, overturning the labels can become a mission.  Standing on the receiving end of a half-dozen-plus requests for dates in the past six months is powerful.  Whether making out with the hot young man from San Francisco  or being pursued by the radio rep in Dallas, there is a sense:  Yes, I AM all that and a bag of chips!  Being told by the dying, 70-year-old millionaire in the plane seat next to me, "If I were 20 years younger and single I'd come after you hard..." more than just a ego trip, it's validating.  Everyone wants to be desired, independent of who you are or what your philosophical and psychological leanings are on the topic of self-esteem.

Along that line, people (females mostly) will lament, "you really do concern yourself far too much with the opinions of men."  Well HELLO!  To that I say:  you know what?  Maybe YOU don't want a man, maybe YOU don't want to be in a committed relationship with a man.  I for one do so YES, the man's opinion counts in my book.  And being desired reverses if not chips away at the stories I made up about myself a lifetime ago.

It's also why situations like the one with the douche bag from Dell are poignant (Played Part 5).  In my perception of the world - in MY reality - being pursued or asked out by him pulled me a dozen steps further away from that geek image I cultivated for myself.  Being discarded?  Two dozen steps back...oh, the ego.  Oh well.  As my good friend Laine says, "we have something to learn from everyone and everything in our path."  From him I can learn or get a "reality check."  Between us chicks, though, he served a higher purpose.  He categorically broke the attachment to someone else, so perhaps I should be thankful verses bitter???  Just a thought.

It can seem in a day that a particular path is wide open with possibility, the next?  Overgrown with weeds and disappointment.  Another friend, Naomi, says, "Just because u miss someone, doesn't mean u need them back.  Missing someone is just a part of moving on."  I've clamored to this in recent days to buoy myself up from the likelihood that things are over with R.  

I miss R.  Is that part of MY moving on?  No.  I feel that there is more yet to learn, perhaps for both of us.

The P Word

Okay, so I posted on what I lovingly refer to as my "Behind the Scenes" Blog the other night, www.DQGDramasAtAGlance.blogspot.com  If you don't know about this other blog, it's the one where I post my in-the-moment dramas whereas this one I tend to use as the narrative or post-drama analysis blog.  So that being said, the other night I wrote what was for me a somewhat intimate over-share about my sex life with Mr. G and I gave SIGNIFICANT PAUSE to the particular use of the P word (G in Anticipation).  


Which word is that?  P for pooch, pouch, purse?  Nope.  Say it with me folks:  PUSSY!!!!!!!!!!  Oh my gawd.  Maybe it's because I know the people reading it and am worried about what all of you are thinking if I write about my crotch.  I've been thinking on it over the past 48 hours, having even gone in to edit it from pussy to some version of "down there."  Seriously, do I as a writer or any of us as members of the female gender need to refer to our sexuality with directional descriptives?  


Really, what word better describes our sex than pussy?  I guess we could keep uttering some juvenile version of vagina by calling it the va-jay-jay.  But seriously, how many of us in the middle of fucking (another brilliant and most apropos word) scream out loud:  "Oh baby, yes!  Ram it home into that hole somewhere down there between my ass and my pee hole!!!"  "Yes, Yes!  Fuck my birth canal harder!" 


Anyway, I'm still contemplating how to move forward in chronicling my dating dramas and all the  sex that I hope will accompany them in my Dramas At A Glance blog.  I am hopeful that soon I'll graduate into adulthood and call that "area down there" what it is in all of its beautiful glory in my writing all the time.  Meanwhile, my wish for all of us is to call it what it is in the privacy of our love and sex lives:  one glorious hot pussy because that's all it is meant to be!  

Ma'am, Put the Phone DOWN!

The palm is itching, but not to spank a would be lover.  It itches to text, call or FB the former.  Trusted council demands:  put the phone down!  And I consider once again the delete key option.  The Delete Key, my modern, digital solution for saying Fuck You without ever uttering a word.  Oh, yeah... you want to be like that, send an email like that, be a tool like that?  Well take this you, you... you imbecile:  DELETE.  And poof!  Gone forever as long as I remember to delete or empty the delete folder.  


The Delete Key... also a knee jerk reaction.  A child's response to not GETTING WHAT I WANT RIGHT NOW!  What does a child want?  Attention.  Because somewhere in the architecture of my mind one or two scores ago I collapsed attention for love.  


Trusted (and some not so trusted) friends echo this sentiment:

• If I looked back through history to list what I found attractive in men, what would the common denominator be to their qualities.  What if I picked the opposite quality in the future?
• Reflecting on the ex and those before and since:  what do I notice (not that I have to dive into the big question of WHY).
• You want what you cannot have and if you get it you become bored.  

A week of reflection and survey says:  unavailable.  

In descending order:  R, P (legs Played Part One), D, B, A and Rob before all of that.  Unavailable because of lack of interest, lack of emotional availability, inability to  generate income, engagement or marriage to another.  When was the last time someone was truly available?  Was it 1991?  '93 maybe?  Hmm, I knew it and yet I didn't. 

So the opposite quality?  Available.  What does that look like I wonder.  I haven't a single clue, but just like you can start to uncover what you DO WANT by identifying what you DON'T WANT, I can start with taking a sharp right turn from the people (men) who share even the briefest utterance of the following: I have trust issues, I'm unhappy in my marriage, I've never wanted marriage or kids... blah, blah, blah.  And then continue by realizing that what B once said is the eternal truth.  Attention isn't love.

Step One - We Need to Talk

Lyrics from The Fray's, "How to Save a Life"


Step one, you say, "We need to talk"
He walks, you say, "Sit dow, it's just a talk"
He smiles politely back at you
You stare politely right on through


Some sort of window to your right
As he got left and you stay right
Between the lines of fear and blame 
You begin to wonder why you came


Where did I go wrong?  I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up all night
Had I know how to save a life


Let him know that you know best
'Cause after all, you do know best
try to slip past his defense
Without granting innocence


Lay down a list of what is wrong
The things you've told him all along
And pray to God he hears you
And pray to God he hears you


And where did I go wrong?  I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I wold have stayed up with you all nigh
Had I known how to save a life


As he begins to raise his void
You lower yours and grant him one last choice
Drive until you lose the road
Or break with the ones you've followed


He will do one of two things
He will admit to everything
Or he'll say he's just not the same
And you'll begin to wonder why you came


Where did I go wrong?  I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life...

Relationships Begin and Relationships End

And sometimes relationships go on pause.  It's the Ross and Rachel "let's take a break" phenomenon when a couple reaches an impasse.  It's a he-said/she-said interpretation of events that can move us to that proverbial next level of relationship or close the door altogether so that we have to say, "next," as we pull up our big-girl pants.


Friends and families advise to cut bait and move on, but there is a kernel of hesitation.  It's not the hesitation borne out of "what if I'm wrong."  Rather, it's the type borne from, "yes, there are some red flags here AND there's all of this other awesome, great stuff."  If we can calmly sit down to communicate face-to-face about the issues, then doesn't all of it - the red flags and awesomeness -  warrant deeper exploration before giving up?  I'm sure my best friends are screaming NO as they read this considering the degree to which I lamented all weekend long.


So here we are.  Is this the Drama of Dating or the Drama of Relationship?  For sure the landscape is dotted with mercurial mood swings, conflict and the need to be right.


Friends say we date [rather than marry right away] to learn whether or not another is a true match.  Others note that four months ought to give people enough time to evaluate "true-match" potential.  Somewhere in that four-month gap dating evolves into a relationship.  If only Facebook statuses had not been updated to "in a relationship" before this last breakdown... dammit!  I may sometimes feel no older than a 22-year old, but I HATE when I publicly look like one.  And lately I fear that I look like one a lot.  No comments from the peanut gallery please... I am hard enough on myself without hearing it from well-meaning loved ones.


Whether or not it's a drama all can agree that a break is required.  Others may jones for their nicotine during this time.  I'll be curious to see if I can navigate this gap without jonzing (sp?) for attention from the opposite sex.  

It's Not Bad Behavior per se, just an Awkward Match

Knowing who we are takes time.  How much time?  When do know that we have arrived?  I have spent my life thus far trying to accommodate, bend and BE what I think others expect me to be.  It is exhausting to say the least and equally frustrating because what others expect can change from one moment to the next.  

To answer the question of WHEN, it comes in a moment.  It's standing on the receiving end of a communication from someone and realizing that what they're saying isn't about me at all.  It is purely about them as they utter unflattering sentiment about my so-called character "flaws."  

It comes over a matter of months, realizing that the carrot dangling before me will only ever be dangling and not eaten.  It's letting go of the attachment to position, title and advancement. 

It comes after years of thinking there is something to fix in myself so someone else will accept me only to learn this week that this person never ever ever wanted to be married or have kids and resents that he "allowed himself" to be talked into something he never really wanted.  Seriously?  I mean... I guess this isn't a huge surprise.  I acutely recall how resistant he was to the idea of anything conventional, but he did come around eventually, right?  Did he agree to convention just to make me happy?  


Perhaps this was the undercurrent of our relationship, running in the background all that time.  If someone still tells themselves "they never wanted a family," doesn't that create an awkwardness or a distance... an impenetrable barrier to relating? And to think I've been beating myself up feeling guilty for "throwing in the towel."  There was nothing to throw the towel in on I see now.  

They say knowing who we are takes time.  Trusted friends and advisors have uttered this epitaph over the decades and it seems I have finally caught up with it... not needing to hear it again just knowing I am here.  

Our Work Here

Okay, more than two years have passed since my last entry.  On this side of time I am divorced and no longer working for the person I once considered a tyrant but who became a dear friend.  I have joked for much of these two years that if I had put half the energy into my marriage that I put into my relationship with Holly that I would still be married.  In hindsight though, that's probably just me being hard on myself... which I do... a lot.  


I've wrestled with guilt post-divorce and I have tried to understand why the guilt persists.  Am I the cold-hearted beast I fear I am or just someone who knows what I will and will not put up with in the next act of my life?  I choose to believe that it's the latter.  And as I contemplate the next act I question what I will or will not tolerate from this career I have built for myself in Corporate America.  


On the outside looking in I have more than what most women -- most people in general perhaps -- can imagine from a career:  a healthy paycheck, stock options, respect, the ability to work from home (which enables me to stay home with sick kids, start the work day when I want and leave to run errands and pick up my kids when I wish), a hands-off boss, the opportunity to travel and dine out at nice restaurants with intelligent and talented people... did I say nice paycheck?  It affords me a lifestyle as a single parent [whose ex is still not paying child support] to keep my kids in private daycare at a Montessori school, pay the mortgage and enjoy some of life's little perks.


That being said, I swear on all that is holy that if I don't exercise an exit strategy to do something more true to who I perceive myself to be that I will succumb to a depression far greater than what I have experienced in the wake of my failed marriage.  This lament is nothing new, but my resolve to walk a different path this time surprises me in the hour of my midlife.  Is it the clarity that comes with age, the ability to see the past 20+ adult years of patterns that motivates a different POV?


Two years have passed since my last entry and the weight form 14 years is off my shoulders.  I do not have to keep a commitment to this corporate career any more than I have to keep a commitment to an unhappy marriage.  Eight years in my job has netted enough drama to write a book in itself.  Weary of the politics, ass-kissing and posturing, it is time to let go of the expectations that a promotion, raise or any other entitlement will come this way.  I'm done whether it comes or not.  


Reading from, Women Who Run With Wolves, "be you [I] a Black wolf, a Northern Gray, a Southern Red or an Arctic White -- [I am] the quintessential instinctual criatura.  Although some might really prefer me to behave myself and not climb all over the furniture in joy or all over people in welcome, do it anyway.  Some will draw back from [me] in fear or disgust.  [My] lover, however, will cherish this new aspect - if he or she be the right lover for me."


When I or any of us begin questioning life we begin uncovering the condition of our relationship to our instinctual selves.  We begin to flesh out the wild woman that we were meant to be.  And this is my work - our work - here.