Today has been one of those frustrating-ass days when literally all I have done at work is fart around online. Oh, and take an hour and a half long lunch to nosh on crab wontons and watch episodes of Addicted (like Intervention but without the joys of having Jeff Van Vonderen say the same thing to every meth head he counsels)
on Netflix in my office. I say it’s frustrating because sometimes I prefer to be busy. Surfing the internet for 8 hours can be boring, especially when sites you’d normally look at (insert your own private thought here) are blocked at work. There is only so much gossip about what 26 year old Demi Moore has in her bony-ass claw that I can handle in a 24 hour period. (Girl, you are now freed from the world’s biggest douchebag manchild. Flourish. Go find someone with chest hair. I spoke to Bruce Willis and he concurs.)
(Tom Selleck and his hairy chest: always, forever. And he’s a Republican. SWOON.)
So I’m vainly staring at myself in the bathroom mirror at work the other day when I noticed something. (And no, I didn’t go to the bathroom just to stare at myself. I actually had bidness to attend to.) I peered back at my reflection and leaned forward. No, I thought. Surely not. I went over to the full-length mirror and got eyeball to eyeball with my own reflection. And there it was, straggling up toward the light. Wiry. Belligerent in its marked difference. A wayward soul.
A motherfucking gray hair.
Oh hell no, I said out loud to no one. I almost ripped myself bald trying to pluck it out, which I did. Also, because it’s my nature to be both sentimental and weird, I saved it. I held it between my thumb and forefinger and brought it back to my office. I was still in disbelief.
Maybe it’s blonde, I figured. Maybe it’s a strand I missed the last time I colored my hair. I laid the hair on a black surface and stared at the truth. Gray as gray can be. My very first. I texted Paolo. To which he replied, “Shish. Shush.” I left the hair in a special spot on my desk, where it still sits. (A testament to the cleaning crew no doubt.)
I know plenty of people who went gray at early ages, and most of them wear it well. Especially the dudes. They get all Clooney and shit with age. Women? Well, put it to you this way: I feel more like Kathy Bates than Diane Keaton. I do not feel regal. Guys on dating websites don’t want to bang the fat, gray haired chick.
(While I think Paula Deen is very attractive for someone her age, it’s entirely too soon for me to embrace my inner memaw.)
Which is why my ass is going to CVS post haste to get my Perfect 10 haircolor. Gray? I’ll be goddamned. I saw a picture of a 91 year old women today who is a full-out ginger, and that’s the kind of bitch I want to be. Faking it until my dying day. I started using Sun-In back in the 80s and haven’t seen my natural haircolor sense. And now ain’t a time to start.
Still, it’s not like I’ll have that preserved look about me. You know the look I’m talking about. Those women who fight age until their knuckles bleed. The ones who are pinched, plucked, sucked and pulled tighter than a drum (Adrienne from Real Housewhores of Beverly Hills, I am looking at you).
I mean, it’s not like I have a lot to preserve, for one thing. It’s not like I can exactly recall a time when I’d like to press pause and freeze that version of me because I’ve always been dissatisfied. (Correction: I’ll take early spring, 2005. I looked pretty good then. Not perfect, not ideal, but good.)
I always assumed aging wouldn’t happen to me, mainly because I feel eternally 15. There’s a large part of me that has Peter Pan syndrome out the ass. I’m just in denial that it could ever happen to me. I’ll lose my hearing, get diabetes, and break a hip all while wondering how that can happen to someone my age. I think I would feel more my age if I had a mortgage, a spouse and kids to be responsible for, too. I think that’s part of it. My thought is, I shouldn’t be allowed to get a stray gray until I’ve actually lived a little. I shouldn’t be able to get old until I am old, dammit.
I work in a big office building and run into the same people often: the 4’9” smiley Mexican janitor, the Indian deli owner with the Wayne Newton circa ’92 hair (totally rad and I marvel at its volume), the two middle aged fraus who walk the building during lunch with their white tennis shoes, the lobby clerk who looks like Ron Johnson from A Different World,
(In case you’re not cuing up a visual of who Ron Johnson is)
the chick who’s so thin her thighs don’t touch (who I was majorly jellie of until she turned around and I saw her face. Note to self: would always, always prefer to be a Butterbody than a Butterface.) Anyway, one man is an older gentleman with thick, white hair who’s always crisply dressed and very polite – letting me on and off the elevator first, holding the door, etc. When he was 18 he was probably of the generation that wore hats. You know….THOSE guys. Like an elderly Don Draper.
(This never gets old)
So today, we’re on the elevator, and he looks over at me and says, “Very pretty colors you’re wearing.”
My dress is black with orange, red and purple flowers on it, which I’ve always thought resembled a mumu my one-legged grandmother used to wear.
(Don’t get me started on why the fashion industry thinks that big women want to be covered in giant hibiscuses.) And I have on a bright purple cardigan (like I’ve said before, I would cut a bitch for a cardigan), a color I know I look good in because I have red hair. And Paolo has told me before.
I said back to the man, “Thank you. Gotta do something to liven up a Monday.”
“I’ll think of it all day,” he said quietly.
Instead of being 75, why can’t he be 35? This just depressed me. But then, I’ve been Depressed Bitch lately.
Speaking of depressed, finally last Friday, I shimmied in to see my new shrink, a good-looking young guy who goes by Benji, which is fabulously endearing to me. He’s very sincere and calm, which is always good, though his cuticles need some serious attention. I once had a swarthy Russian shrink with a pinky ring (he was a liter of Stolichnaya away from being a caricature) who was, in short, a complete spaz, convinced I had the “A-Tea-Tea.” The phone service? No? ADD. Fucker couldn’t pronounce for shit. But he thought I had every disorder under the sun. Benji’s not like that. He doesn’t get worked up about much.
(except fatter, and not so angry)
Thing is, when I walked in to see Benji Friday morning, my mom had been there the night before. (She came up to stay with me Thursday and Friday night.) So Friday morning, I – who is used to talking to NO ONE first thing in the morning (yes, though I occasionally meow back at Butters) – has to deal with a barrage of questions from my mother. “How do you work this coffee maker, I forgot,” to “Don’t you have any coffee that isn’t flavored like chocolate?” to “Is that what you’re wearing to work today?” and “You’re going to keep your hair pulled back in a ponytail?” So when I arrived at Benji’s, I was agitated.
He noted as much, poor bastard. Wouldn’t you hate to roll out of bed, go to work and deal with surly people all day?
(I googled surly and this guy came up. I mean: I wouldn’t want to piss him off.)
Long story short, I’ve been off all my meds – thyroids and anti-depressants – for months. This is, I can tell you, most ill-advised. So yeah, the 15 lb weight gain and major irritability make perfect-o sense. Benji and I agreed that I need to open up my piehole and swallow those motherfuckers post haste. Then, later, he’s going to do blood work to determine if my cholesterol is high (I’m sure it is, since I have a love for beige crispy things) and if my liver is in the process of pickling or not (again, the chances are good).
So this morning, I gradually started back on my meds. I am kind of a holy terror when I’m not on them. My mother and I got into a rip-roaring fight that sort of built out of nowhere, though that’s a story for another post.
My depression, as I’m sure I’ve said before, is something I have to manage. For me, it will never be cured. It’s chronic
and it seeks to destroy me. Benji would like to see me get into some talky therapy, which I don’t disagree with, though we’ll have to find someone who does night and weekend hours. Still, it’s doable.
My depression reached the perfect storm last week when, apropos of nothing, I broke down in tears, sobbing about the mess of my life, and turned back to cutting. It put me in a (predictable) trance and I went straight to bed and slept like a baby. The next morning, however, I regretted it, as always. Does winnowing it down to episodes that occur twice, three times a year seem like progress? Yes, sometimes, especially when you consider how intoxicating it is to me. But still. At 35, it’s not anywhere I want to be. It’s just a bad habit I picked up as a kid to cope and haven’t ever put down.
Much like eating. And drinking. And spending money. And being lazy. There’s a theme there, if you look closely. It’s all about instant gratification. No thought to the future is given. We are, by far, a nation of self-soothers, addicted to all kinds of things, all so we can zone out of some aspect of our lives, be it big or small, surmountable or not.
(There’s only one problemo here. I’m not an adolescent. Age-wise, anyway.)
Really, I’m a hedonist of the first order. I am all about satisfying myself for the next few minutes. I may pay for it weeks or even years later, but that rarely crosses my mind. And yes, by the way, it does make me angry that I can articulate exactly what the culprits are and still feel powerless to stop them. You always hear about how naming your problems is the first step. Great. Fantastic. What’s the goddamned second step? Because it’s the one I never get to.
I know I say this a lot, but let me reiterate. I am afraid I will be alone forever, that the best part of my life is passing me by and I’m partner-less, family-less. Damn near all of my friends are either married, engaged, healthily dating, dating toward marriage or are at peace about not being in a relationship. Even my seemingly forever-single friends are suddenly partnered up and crazy happy. And while I am so happy for them – because I love them, they’re my friends and they deserve the best – I am also secretly sad that I am not a part of any of that.
Oddly enough, Paolo and I talk about this stuff. Abstractly, of course. When I tell him that I am depressed, he responds that he is too. And he is. (BabyMama kicked him out. He’s only allowed to stay there when she’s working at night or out with friends.) But we’re depressed for different reasons. He wants a steady job, his own place, time with his daughter. I honestly just want someone who loves me and treats me well. Who wants me to meet his family, and friends; who wants to take me out, and plans things for us to do. Who’s laid back, kind-hearted, thinks my ass hung the moon and isn’t voting for Obama this year. (Sorry, my Libertarian just fell out. Let me get that before you step on it.)
If I had a dime for every time someone had told me that I’m too hard on myself, I’d have a fortune. It’s funny, but there’s this standard form I have to fill out every time I go see my shrink, which is supposed to gauge my temperament and bitchability and what not. And one of the questions is something like, “I think about my faults and shortcomings: ___________” and there are 4 choices about varying degrees of obsession. My answer is always the same: D) almost all or all of the time.
My old beloved shrink, Stiff, would tackle it every once in a while. “Do you really focus that intently on how much you dislike yourself?”
“Surely you don’t find that hard to believe,” I’d snark.
“Well,” he’d say quietly. “Maybe that’s something we can work about changing.”
“Good luck,” I said. “I’ve been like that since I was a child. Shit’s ingrained.”
Maybe it’s because I haven’t been on my meds [thyroid or anti-sads], but I’ve been pretty down lately about the state of my affairs. I feel like I get a year older every day, and like I’m watching people around me have lives and families, the opportunity for which has seemingly passed me over. Here, it’s a king sized blanket: come on in and join my pity party, would you?
I know that no one really likes to listen to a bitch-fest (okay, I do, but I’m weird. In fact, when I was a kid, I used to get out my tape recorder [what up 80s!] and pretend I was talking to my best friend Catherine, and I’d just BITCH. Gripe her out, gripe about the dog, my parents, my teacher, my then-thoughts on Gorbachev, whatever. I actually called them Gripey Tapes. And the worst part was, I’d play them back repeatedly to listen to myself rip someone a new cornhole. You could read a lot into that if you wanted to. I try to pretend I never did it, except that my parents confiscated one and still have it in their safety deposit box because they think it’s hilarious. My issues run deep, yo).
So I’ll at least be fair. Perhaps I can write a blog about my faults and shortcomings, and then I can try to write one about how sun and peace shines out of my asshole for X-number of reasons.
First, and most importantly, I think my major disease is a rather unfixable one. In that, there’s not a pill you could take for it. It’s totally intangible, not hereditary, and reversible with determination (I possess none of that). And if there were a pill you could take for it, and I was given a life supply, I’d be too lazy to take it. Because that’s my main flaw: I am FUCKING LAZY.
Think of the laziest person you know. Now multiply that poor, useless bastard by 1000. And you’d get ME.
There are just certain words people would never use to describe me. Lithe, for example. Ambitious. Mild-mannered. Athletic. And industrious. I have turned wasting time and procrastinating into an art form. In fact, the fact that I procrastinate, as I’ve talked about here before, is closely tied with my laziness.
I’m not proud of it. I’m just not a hard worker. I can’t think of one thing in my life that I’ve worked really hard at, except perhaps being hard on myself. But the thing is, I’m hard on myself for a reason. Probably for the same reason my mother was/is hard on me: we think that the harsher we are, the more likely I will be to snap into focus. But I’m telling you: I don’t have it in me. I mean, I need my ass kicked in a major, Bob-Harper-freaks-the-fuck-out-on-your-ass kinda way.
I guess that in 35 years, I just haven’t had my moment yet. Or maybe I haven’t really grown up. (I always thought marriage and chirrun would make you grow up whether you wanted to or not. And I have a cat child, but apparently that doesn’t count.)
And speaking of cat children and laziness, I’m so lazy I don’t even give Butters her inhaler every day. Yeah. How’s that for parenting? (“And do you now know,” God bellowed, “why I have not green-lighted a pregnancy for you?”) I would give Butters my goddamned kidney if she needed it, but I’m too lazy to give her her inhaler treatment every single day like I should. Though it’s fair, since I won’t take my meds, either. Which includes my birth control, which I take sporadically. Yeah, I tempt fate that way. I just dare it to happen.
I could literally make a list of 100 things that I need to do in my apartment to de-shit sty it, and when I accomplish 1 or 2 of those, I pat myself on the back and quit. Like last night: did a load of laundry (well, re-did a load. I’d done it days before but neglected to remove it from the washer (see? Lazy) and so it smelled mildew-y so I had to re-wash it) and changed the sheets on my bed. You would have thought I had climbed Mt. Fuji. That meant, to me, that I had permission to skip all the dusting, sweeping, mopping, clothes-hanging-upping, dish doing, folding, and Christmas shit putting-away I needed to do and finish watching season 3 of Breaking Bad until after midnight. (That Walt is turning into a bad motherfucker.)
Like I’ve said before, I consider laziness (I think God and the gang called it sloth) a personality flaw. And frankly, I don’t know where it came from. I think it’s just a program that came preloaded on the computer, you know? It’s been there since I can remember. I have never, ever been the organized type. Creative yes, but not particularly resourceful and certainly not with-it. I let things boil over into a glorious mess before I muster whatever energy I have (which is always very little) and turn into the Tasmanian Devil, going on day- or weekend-long cleaning/organizing binges. My life’s always been like that: bingeing on energy, money, sleep, food, self-harm, alcohol, studying, whatever. Just so long as I didn’t have to do anything in moderation or pace myself.
My notorious laziness also extends to my job. Like now: am I working? Survey says…FUCK NO. I am typing out this blog. And my job requires that I be relatively fastidious, what with being a proofreader and all, which is like THE WORST profession I could have. (The copywriting flows like honey, thank God.) I spend a great deal of my day – even busy ones, where I work long hours – grabbing snippets of time here and there to whore out recipes and bathroom remodeling ideas on Pinterest, or read people’s status updates about how much they love hot-house yoga or whatever in the fuck. It’s a damned wonder I haven’t been fired yet. It’s probably just a matter of time. If I last another year there without getting the ax, I would be most surprised. Every boss I’ve ever had has had some gripe with me about my ability to pay attention to detail, which is, apparently, something I am not very good at. I chalk it up to just being lazy.
So by the time I hobble home, I have spent the majority of my usable energy just getting through my day, and I have nothing left. If I could go home and go straight to sleep, I would. As it is, I rarely even cook myself dinner. I fix a drank, watch TV, surf the web, and have scholarly conversations with Butters about Greek mythology and existentialism. (Turns out, Butters is quite the intellectual.)
And I’ve mentioned to you my propensity toward procrastinating, which is a kissing cousin of being lazy. So roll all of this into a ball and you get a big boulder of NO.
Personally, I think being lazy is about two things: physical energy (or lack therof), but mostly it’s a frame of mind. And I’ve honestly wondered if there’s a way to break out of that frame of mind. I mean, I see and know people who are really determined folks. They’re movers and shakers. They get things done. My parents are both this way, in case you were wondering. Where does it come from? Some inner reserve? Am I really lower energy than I think? Is there something specific that makes people able to put their mind to things and then accomplish them? Because I don’t feel like I have that at all. I make excuses for everything.
Do I just not want it badly enough? I mean, if this were about weight loss only, I could understand that. But this is about simple shit. Taking my meds. Giving Butters hers. Not farting around at work. Using my time wisely. Mailing something when I should. Whatever. How in the hell do you teach self-discipline? (Fuck all of you who just shouted in unison, “Your fat ass should have joined the military. That would have taught your ass some discipline,” to which I reply, “Touche.”) I just feel like some wayward soul who’s never been righted. And I’m beginning to wonder how much of this is truly me — just who I am, intrinsically — or if this is something that can be unlearned. I mean, I have some friends out there (who are blog readers, who have four children and work as an attorney and run long distances and not because you’re being chased by a mountain lion) who I constantly marvel at, how they do it. And I am slowly beginning to truly realize that it’s probably best that I don’t have children because I would be a wreck. I can barely keep myself together. (Logic does not work when I watch Intervention and every fucking pill-popping meth head on there has managed to spawn.)
I don’t know. Does anyone else perpetually feel like they don’t have their shit together? Or it is just me? And for those of you who do … what’s your secret? Is there one, or were you always that driven, even as a kid?
The other night, I had a dream. (No, this is not MLK-caliber, but it wasn’t nonsensical so it might actually make some sense. Stay tuned. Because yes, I know there’s nothing worse than having to a) listen to someone describe their dream from the night before and b) listen to someone describe a funny commercial you’ve never seen before. BORING.)
In it, I was at a party, seated at a table next to people I was unfamiliar with. The lady next to me said, “Is that a maternity dress you’re wearing?”
Now, if I had this dream 10 years ago, the dream-me probably would have burst into tears. But today? This middle aged dreaming bitch wasn’t having it.
I turned to her and said, “Is there a particular reason you’re dressed like a 1980s crack hooker working the strip in Vegas?”
Honest to Pete. I by-God got ornery in a dream. I woke up tickled with myself and my ability to fire off totally cunty remarks when called for.
I’ve blogged many times about how I think that, besides the numbers part of it creeping up on my ass, I actually kind of like getting older. Really – there are beaucoup advantages. I want to be one of those old memaws who doesn’t hesitate to beat your ass with a cane as I fly by you on my Hoveround. I want to – if I’m (lucky, fortunate, unfortunate) enough to live to be 80 – not give a sweet goddamn what anyone has to say about me. You know old people: they fall into two categories. Those who get old, fat and sweet as time goes by, and those who morph into politically-incorrect turds who won’t hesitate to hurt a bitch’s feeling.
But there’s another thing about aging. My generation (I’m at the tail-tail end of X) ain’t the same as my grandmother’s. She grew up in the Depression and earned every damned wrinkle she had. They worked in the sun without sunscreen, they didn’t get manicures, they didn’t have La Mer cream to writhe around in, and vanity was not an issue – feeding your chirruns was.
I think it’s my mother’s generation that really got to start fooling around with facelifts and shit. And now, women my age don’t even have to resort to that – we’ve got Botox and fillers and fake titties galore. No telling what our (okay, YOUR) kids will have available to them.
So whether we like to admit it or not, I think we’re a pretty vain bunch. And if we know someone who’s not, it’s a miracle, because every day we’re bombarded with advertisements for new creams, potions and anti-aging treatments while simultaneously having to see Hollywood types at every turn, who seemingly start to panic at the age of 23 and begin subjecting themselves to all sorts of shit.
For example, saw a picture of Cindy Crawford the other day, and the blogger was speculating on her alleged Botox use. They showed a late 80s Cindy vs. the Cindy of now and it was staggering. Now, this woman is beautiful (in a mannish sort of way, to say nothing of the mole which has always bothered me) and she even has her own beauty line! Doesn’t said beauty line sort of insinuate that one doesn’t need to have surgery to achieve great skin and a youthful appearance?
Of course, on the opposite spectrum of that is someone like Helen Mirren (my mother’s generation) who looks ah-may-zing, not like she’s been shot full of silicon and ass fat. And Kate Winslet promises that she’s not going to have anything done, that she is going to “age gracefully,” whatever in the fuck that is.
Despite the big azz scar on my face, I will admit to being quite vain. I probably have $10,000 worth of beauty products in my “makeup room.” Yes, I have a makeup room. It was why I wanted my apartment – 2 bedrooms, 2 bath and a den that really would have been the perfect place for my dining room table, chairs and buffet. But no. I put an old pink desk in there and bought a bunch of shelving from IKEA and it’s my MAKEUP ROOM. (And the location of Butters’ litterbox. Which is also pink.) I go in there every morning to get ready. I am almost as obsessed with beauty products as I am with Alex Skarsgard and saying the word “fuck.” (Funny how those last two obsessions oftentimes go together.)
Maybe it’s genetics, or maybe it’s all the Strivectin and Chanel creams, but I have the skin of someone who’s 22. (This is also due in large part to one of the few gifts God gave fat girls: we don’t age like our skinny counterparts. WORD.) I can’t exactly be vain about my body, because it’s the body of a stocky Greek chick who birthed out a Duggar-sized army of children. But I am vain about getting just the right dewiness to my makeup, about curling my eyelashes with a heater curler, about lipstick that stays on 16 hours and still looks fresh.
My point is, I wonder how I will handle aging, because I’m just now sort of conscious of it. I never worried about it much in my 20s — I just stayed my lily-white ass out of the sun and smeared on Oil of Olay whenever I was standing still. But let me say unequivocally that when I find my first gray hair (which may never happen because red coloring goes on that shit every 6 – 8 weeks) I will shit a bowling ball. Ditto with finding crow’s feet. I’m not about to be the type to start shoving my lips full of restalyne (I’m like the only living woman alive who seems to be happy with her natural lips — I have no desire to, as Michael K would say, have lips that look like a gorilla’s swollen asshole)
(a lined bra would also not be out of the question, supertits)
because it looks unnatural, but would I be above a well-done face lift when I’m 50? Or Botox when I’m 40? I mean, I’ve had vast experience with plastic surgeons before because of the scar. I know what they can do. Shit is amazing, and it gets more amazing and undetectable as the years go on.
So what I’m saying is, I don’t quite know the boundaries of my own (future) vanity. As much as I’d like to be all, “That’s right, assholes! I’m going to age naturally!” I’ve sort of already acted to the contrary, what with all my anti-aging creams and hair dye and concealer and shit. And the only thing that would stop me in the future from having a little work done is money, probably. But I also haven’t felt that quiet desperation yet, of looking in a mirror and feeling suddenly old. But if I ever do get that feeling one day, I have some decisions to make. And for the life of me, I don’t know what they’ll be.
Are you adamantly against plastic surgery and fillers, or do you think all’s fair in the war of aging?
Well, here it is, 2012. I won’t go into my theory about how even-numbered years typically blow goats for me, and have since 1988, but I think that by telling you that I spent NYE alone, with Butters, watching a marathon of Breaking Bad (yes, about meth production), nomming a shrimp casserole I made, and fell asleep before midnight should be all the evidence you need to draw your own conclusion about the state of my affairs.
I should also mention that a year ago yesterday, darling Brodkey and I decided to end our relationship. I resisted it at the time, but it was for the best. However, in the year since we split, I’ve experienced the Dating Year from Hell, replete with Ryan (“I thought you’d be thinner”), Bobby Darin (utter fucktard from South Carolina who could kiss the socks off a tree), Princeton (who wanted to stick something – anything – in an orifice of mine), and let’s not forget Captain Cock, who routinely pulled it out whenever the wind blew. This was all, of course, prior to Paolo. And considering our current status, I’m not too sure you should write him off as a success or not.
I just typed out the whole reason I’m in a snit about Paolo, but realized that it was tedious, boring, and in the end, doesn’t really matter. Just suffice it to say, I am sick of getting the shit end of every stick (except the sex stick) that comes along with us. I am growing weary, and I am not going to long be content with the status quo. I love Paolo, and in a lot of ways, we’re really good together. But I deserve more than he can give me at the moment. I deserve someone who acknowledges my birthday past a text message. I deserve someone I can go hang out with on the weekends, whose family comes to know about me, whose friends I meet. Who can come home and meet my parents.
Right now, dating sites (like diet programs) are flooded with well-intentioned people who are finally ready to shed the chunk and/or find The One. Part of me thinks that now would be an opportune time to get on and find someone who’s actually really ready to be in a real adult relationship. But the fact that I actually love and would miss Paolo is stopping me.
Well, there’s a second thing. I would rather be poked repeatedly in the asshole with a deer antler than have to go back on a bunch of blind dates. Hopefully the lessons I learned in 2011 would serve me well in 2012 – and I wouldn’t meet up with someone who had one blurry picture on OkStupid, or who was obsessed with whipping out his cock 17 times a day (and who also had a limp due to arthritis). And perhaps this Texas chick can go ahead and write off the Yankee with the grating accent who feels that it’s perfectly acceptable to comment on my motherfucking body type on date #2.
Yeah, you can learn a lot in a year. Just a little ol’ year – what a difference it makes.
Still, part of me wants to just hide – curl up in a ball – and hope that God drops Mr. Wonderful on my apartment, all wicked-witch type, just BOOM out of nowhere. Because I am beginning to lose hope, fast. For the first time in my life, I truly can see a sad and lonely future for myself, replete with living in an apartment forever and cat wrangling. Where I actually *name* my vibrator. Where I have more NYEs like this one where I fall asleep after eating pasta or whatever.
On New Year’s Day, however, I did meet up with some friends. One of them is terminally single, like me, and has been through some real assholes. Her faith is much stronger than mine, and she noted that she’d finally found peace about being unmarried. (She prays a lot. And asked me to go to church with her. I said churches scared me.)
Not that I don’t have a relationship with the Big G – I do. But if there’s some peace He could bestow upon me about being FUCKING ALONE, it hasn’t happened yet. Because I feel super unpeaceful. I feel like I’m living the wrong life. And it all comes back to the cyclical “I’m alone because I’m fat. But I’d rather find someone who loves me at this weight so that way I know they love me for real. But my chances of finding someone like that are slim to none. So I need to lose weight. But what if I do and then I meet someone and it’s all great and shit, and then I gain the weight back and they cheat on me or leave me. So I should stay fat.” I’ve yet to talk myself out of that rat’s nest of a rationalization.
Then I get pissed thinking about how much I love Paolo, how much he makes me laugh, how well we get along, how much we have in common and the stuff that we don’t have in common turns out to be comic relief. And if he weren’t beholden to Baby Mama, had a great job with insurance, a reliable car and his own place, then things would be groovy. And I think, “Those are really superficial reasons to not be with someone.” But then I look at the reality of our sitch and it’s just not working for me as much as I’d like.
Perhaps this needs to be the year of GET REAL. Or not. Shit, I don’t know what this needs to be the year of. What I don’t want is to wake up in 2013, be 36 years old, weigh anywhere close to what I do now, and be as alone as I feel now. But when I think about the enormous effort I will have to make in order to change, I want to hide under a blanket and die. I have no energy to do anything except get through my abysmal workday. I am not motivated. I don’t have enough faith. I want something for nothing.
We’re not just talking about a wake up call. We’re talking about reversing what has been a lifelong trend for me, a lifelong approach to things. I avoid, procrastinate, talk myself into or out of things, am constantly tired, and would rather zone out and wait for things to happen. Those are character flaws. Those things have become who I am. Like I’ve said, when I lost all that weight years ago, I was in a fucking zone, and for the life of me, I don’t know what the impetus for it was. For the first time in my life, I was determined – both to lose weight and write my book.
I just feel “blah” about pretty much everything right now: my life, my job, my lovelife, my future. (Blows party horn, confetti comes out.)
Oh hell no, I said out loud to no one. I almost ripped myself bald trying to pluck it out, which I did. Also, because it’s my nature to be both sentimental and weird, I saved it. I held it between my thumb and forefinger and brought it back to my office. I was still in disbelief.
In it, I was at a party, seated at a table next to people I was unfamiliar with. The lady next to me said, “Is that a maternity dress you’re wearing?”
