Cafe Hitch-hike

2018-11-18

Catching up

I had a lot of catching up to do in my house. I had to clean it and then get rid of some things so I won't need to take them with me when I move out in December or so. I never did get to the second half of the cleaning last week, so I finally got it done.

I've been wanting to update some of my home stuff, and had been for quite some time, I think since the summer. I've been meaning to get some new cookery (that is, plates and dishes). I can finally do that. I also want to get another bedspread, and when I move, new furniture. I've had this living room set since 2006, and the middle of the sofa is broken from when College John slept on it a few years ago.

I'm still looking for a place and hoping for a 2-bedroom. Man, there's a lot of dumpy places around here! They've been clearly neglected and it just seems some just want the money and don't care about their unit. I'd still like to find a villa on the first floor with a yard.

I had to let Joey go. It was becoming more and more clear that he was not going to be available. Yeah, his divorce was complicated. I had a policy to not date people who hadn't yet been divorced for 2 years. It seemed like the first 2 years is the norming phase which is often very messy, and I preferred not to find myself in the middle of someone's drama, and he had plenty of that. It definitely got in the way of things when conversations consistently steered towards his feelings about his divorce, or that he'd get into a really bad mood before he left because he had to go home, but it wasn't just the divorce. He was hardly ever around because of his business. It became clear to me after shortened or cancelled get togethers that things were going to be this way for a very long time because simply put, it was also the way he operated.

The part that irked me the most was when he'd call me from his house. He usually hid himself in his media room and turned up the TV during our conversations so his soon-to-be ex wouldn't hear it, and that was extremely irritating. It was more like he was having an affair than dating!

It was a shame because I really liked his warmth and comfortable affection, but I couldn't bear to be in a relationship that revolved around someone else's schedule. I feel a bit hurt after doing it, but I cringed from the thought of things going on this way for 6 months, and even more so that things were going to be extremely unpredictable. It was easy for me to imagine going through this for months only for him to say, 'oh, things got really complicated and this shouldn't go on.' I was assuming things, but I might just rely on my intuition for this one. If this relationship was insurance, it would lean towards a higher risk. So with that, I'm back to Square One and it means I get to try all over again.

This does very little for matters between me and Timmy. He is my friend who I get to have sex with about twice a month, and that's the extent of that. Nothing has changed.

As the year wraps up, I don't know what the hell to think. I guess I could call this my recovery year part 10, hahaha. I've been doing some inner child work with my mentor, and sometimes I feel terrible afterward. I had some really thick stuff to go through in February, and I started feeling better in very subtle ways. At least I feel that some major issues that had been on my back, ones I never could seem to shake off, have finally rolled off and they don't haunt me nearly as much.

One of my big goals of therapy was to get to a point where I wouldn't be one of those bitter, angry middle-aged women I often meet. They were disappointed by years of-- sacrifice? Selling themselves short? Heartbreak? Divorce? Career problems? Children? Actions or words that had never seen the light of day? Misgivings? Dreams and expectations that were never fulfilled? I don't know, it was a constellation of things like this. I wonder if it's an American thing, hahaha. At least 2 guys from Europe told me that American women can't seem to let go of certain things, whereas the ones where they're from drop it and blame the situation or person. They said American women take things way too personally.

I remember reading a couple of online dating ads where guys who were my age or older said they wanted women in their 20s and 30s because they weren't as jaded as those my age. I just rolled my eyes and thought they said that because these women were more likely to take crap for the sake of love (or the thought they would get it). Then they come to my age feeling fed up with being used, taken for granted, and hell, maybe even abused here and there. One younger woman who I work with said she wished she was my age because we tend to say what we think and don't worry too much about how others feel about it. Wow, I never thought of that as a benefit of being 45, but I'll embrace it!

So... how not to be a bitter, middle-aged woman! What would be my big disappointments in life? That would be an interesting list to write, and then get back to it to objectively view it a few days later. At least I can say it wasn't divorce. I guess I wished I would had opened my mouth more when I was younger to say how I really felt about things. I wish I didn't spend so much of my earlier years feeling afraid and too concerned about what others thought. And now... I wish some of my female friendships turned out better, I still have misgivings over that.

One of my big disappointments has been walking through this life largely alone. Many people, even those who had been happily married, told me they often feel alone. I think of all of the things I had done, and most of those were done on my own. I can't help but wonder if I'd be able to accomplish what I had because I was solo, or maybe I would had been able to if I were paired. I told my mentor that I've spent the almost-30 years of my adult life alone, and I don't want to spend the next 30 that way.

I can say that I've been able to put a few big things to rest this year, but I still feel weird at times. I often get irritated much quicker than I used to, and I am less patient. I guess this points to me having to pay better attention to my feelings and try to articulate them rather than bottling everything up based on assumptions. I know, and my mentor knows, that emotional regulation is an issue with me which he thinks stems from a lot of unhealed matters. Yeah, I had gone to therapy before and bla bla bla, but a bandaid was put on what should had been stitched or stapled, more or less.

Sometimes I feel ok in a social situation, and sometimes my anxieties mop me all over the floor. I'm still trying to shake off the 2 female friendships I had that went kaput, although I acknowledge that the one with Lily had been dying for quite some time and that Ali was not an easy person to handle. Then, sometimes I'm not good with answering texts and messages because my mood is, wherever the hell it is. South Florida is full of flakes, so I guess I just joined the ranks of them.

The other thing... I can't drink or smoke spleef the way I used to. At all. Two drinks is plenty. I often have to recover the day after smoking, and my mood is all over the place. I've been noticing this for the past couple of years, and especially when I was with Rafa. I feel a bit disappointed with the spleef; it was something that often helped me relax and feel less anxious. Damn, here's another change with middle age!

Then, it all points to me shutting down my heart quite some time ago. I guess I've been an all or nothing kind of person for a very long time, where I throw myself into something completely or don't care at all. I've known that I've had to take care of myself, be my own best friend, and try not to fall into things so quickly, so I've done all of those at the expense of closing my heart considerably. Yeah, don't be so clingy or needy with my relationships, give people their space and let relationships develop like letting a flower bloom, and then I come across as being cool-hearted and not caring. I still haven't been able to find that middle ground.

Hell, maybe people are just fucking clueless about relationships nowadays, and I'm one of them.

Thank goodness I don't have many nights like this where I wake up and can't get back to sleep, I sure hope these words of emotional masturbation get me somewhere. I just hope all this work I've been doing gets me somewhere and it's not just another spinning of my wheels. All I want at this point is to be able to calm the hell down on a regular basis, make some good friends, try to be a better friend, and... just not spend the next 30 years of my life so alone.

downwind | upstream