Coming to Terms

So as a middle aged woman, I got some things I've been wrestling with. It's been hard for me to admit that I am getting older. I don't think I am dealing with this getting old thing very well. Although I consider myself young at heart, I wonder sometimes how people age so damned gracefully and will I be one of them? For the first time in my life I wonder what it would feel like to be old. Will getting old mean I am no longer attractive to the opposite sex? Will I not be able to wiggle my way into a man's heart with just my looks? Or will I have to rely solely on personality, charm and my sense of humor? I envy those women who have been married for 25+ yrs. They can finally relax in middle age. They can take comfort in the fact that the man they are with still looks lovingly their way and can remember what they looked like in the younger years of their relationship. We single, middle age gals don't get that luxury. We always have to be bringing our 'A' game. We have to try to pull ourselves together and be looking good at all times! But the truth is...we are old. We are saggy and wrinkled and gray. Our bodies aren't like they used to be and they are going through God awful changes. Who wants to date women like me? I got 99 problems and a whole lotta excess baggage. You want to take me on? Well Good Luck Buddy!

I was at dinner the other night with the girls when a couple a little bit older than me walked in and they were holding hands. I looked at them and got this twinge in my heart and it hurt for like 2 seconds. I was envious. I was afraid. I felt almost panicked. What if I never meet anyone? What if the best years of my life are spent alone with myself because of all the stupid, stupid choices I have made in my life? Is this really all there is left to it? I don't want to be alone. Plain and simple. Yet, I don't want anyone in my life right now. I am a paradox. This is where I am today. Dealing with it. Coming to terms....then I just laugh at myself for being so damn serious and over thinking every little thing. Next I raise my glass and make this toast~ Here's to never growing old!

Life Really DOES Go On

One day you're here, one day you're there, one day you care..it's so unfair. Just like the song goes. Life is unfair. The thing is life is unfair to everyone not just you. At some point you have to stop feeling sorry for your sad self and move on. I was there, so trust me when I say I understand. I was there. For a long, long lonely time I was there. It's only been recently that I was able to move in any direction at all. I have been planted in the same place, with time standing still in hopes that my old life would come back looking for me. I am here to tell you...it doesn't and life goes on without you. So you can either stay stuck right where you are, or you can try to live, breathe and be happy again.

Any time you are nursing your wounded heart and ego back to health and learning to live again, there will be set backs. There will be Hi's and Low's in your recovery. And it really is recovery. You are are recovering from a broken heart. You've done battle. It's painful. You will feel high one day and so low the next. You will wonder how you will ever be happy again and if anyone will ever love you again. But the good news is, you are going to be alright. You won't be stuck forever. One day out of the blue, someone will come along and pluck you right out of the quicksand that you have been sinking in. You won't expect it. You won't even see it coming. Maybe it will just be a nice gesture, or a sweet compliment from someone, maybe it will be a pretty damn bold move like kissing you for no apparent reason completely out of the blue. I don't know, but SOMETHING will be be the catalyst that gets you moving and gets you thinking. Something will become the key to you finding your happiness again. You are going to be as happy as you decide to be. I have always chose happiness. Time and time again, when I have have been down in the dumps I always end up choosing happiness. I hope you choose happy too. It's a whole lot more fun over here on the happy side and I am saving you a seat and got the popcorn all ready to share.

Restless Life Syndrome

So many times in my life I have gotten so restless in certain situations. I am there now. Not feeling the job, not feeling the home, not feeling the state I live in, not feeling anything. All I DO know is that I desperately want some change in my life, I need some change. I can't possibly be any more ready for change if I tried! I have read before that after a big life crisis such as death of a loved one or after a breakup, it changes us so deeply, that we crave change in a manner we never did before. Like people go crazy with change. Like jump out of airplanes, completely change careers, move to other states and make sudden radical changes to their appearance all in an attempt to reinvent themselves. I can relate. My current emotional status completely confirms that I am ready to move to California where I can park my happy butt on the beach and live happily ever after with me and my girls. Then the rubber band snaps me in the arm. OUCH! Reality sets in and reveals to me that none of that is really possible at this point in my life- so I just live in limbo wondering how to move around this constant and relentless feeling that I want to be any where but right here, right now. Yep, I've got Restless Life Syndrome.

They Fall Like Rain....

Tears, that is. I had another epiphany in the shower this AM. Tears that fall like rain lead you to the road of recovery and healing and it's ok for me to cry. They cleanse the soul and heart of all the pain you feel. Who doesn't feel better after a good old fashioned cry fest? Well for me anyway, it's most helpful. Maybe that's a girl thing, I don't know....

I recently had a friend tell me that because she knows me and my past behavior that basically I am incapable of moving on from the breakup. I've had some things happen in the past week which has brought all the feelings that I have been working so hard to stuff down under to come screaming to the surface...demanding to be felt. Ok, ok...you win. I FEEL ya broooo. Oh my God, do I EVER feel ya. But my epiphany was not in the tears themselves, but in discovering that this is me. I am not you. I am not anybody else on this planet, but me. This is how I deal. This is how I roll. This is how I heal. My way. Doesn't mean I don't want to hear your opinion or that I don't value the opinions of my friends (because I very much do). It just means that no one else knows my pain or what I am feeling. No one sees inside my heart like I do. No one else can move me forward but me.

So in summary, I have decided that it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. I will work through this emotional baggage one day at a time and feel it all I want until I am exhausted from feeling it. Then and only then can I really, really move forward and make a new life for myself. I am not ashamed to say that at this point I might be stalling. I might be a damn fool. But, you know what? That's ok. Because we learn from our mistakes and I am just one of those people who has to analyze life. Over and over and over. When I finally decide I have got it figured out, I'll press forward. I just have to know what the lesson was before I can move on. Here's to tears and letting them fall like rain because after the rain, comes the rainbow, right?