Pussy Power, Perfected

I was going to write a long post about a dead cat. Then someone pointed out to me that dead cats are a downer. This revelation came from someone from a dating site.

Like the dating site, the cat liked to play with my emotions. Never knowing which game or what expectations each individual cat had. One cat even told me that I played myself out of a game before it even started. Bless his heart! I didn’t know we were playing a game.  Sounds like some feather-chasing nonsense to me.

The dating site also illustrated that there are some crazy cats out there. From those who just want playful intimacy to those who are willing to marry you right then and there. Dangerous Disney bullshit, my mind warned. Beware!!!

Like a cat, some of these males were very proud of their anatomy and not shy about showing it. As I do when a cat displays its butthole, I said, “Thanks but no thanks” and went on my merry way.

The dating site also proved that most men are pussies. Weird, compartmentalized, non-committal pussies. Not looking for a relationship mostly because the menu of women is vast. And the promise of the perfect woman is just a swipe away.

What none of these cats realize, is that I am the red dot. Too elusive for them. Moving in too many different directions.  Scattered, as it were. Brilliant, enough to make you skid in your tracks or hit your head against a wall. It’s all part of my charm.

I have no use for people who don’t like cats. And, like a cat, the dating site can shit in a box for all I care.

Breathing Room

There was a time when I hung on your every word. Yet there were so many times you left me hanging.

There is a void in me now that nothing seems to fill. No amount of shopping, no form of entertainment, no amount of writing or work negates the absence of our companionship. I wake up alone. I go to bed alone. I have no one to prattle to constantly who even pretends to care about what goes on in my head. Gone are the days of wine and whiskey: my friend and partner in crime is gone.

The accusations are also gone: “you're not the woman I married.” Now, I am the woman you divorced. Your joke of introducing me as your first wife when we were together hasn't aged well.

I am not aging well since we stopped occupying the same space. I didn't realize what a hollow feeling it was not to have another half. Not to be dependent on anyone. Not to ask permission or need to modify my thoughts, opinions, or actions according to your mood. I went from walking on eggshells to walking through shards of glass, and often times I feel like I'm bleeding about my broken edges.

Is the time without you a struggle? Yes and no. Financially it is nearly incomprehensible. I have had to navigate an unpredictable job market post-homemaking. My degree in the arts, barely useful as it was, means even less with a decade of child rearing behind it. There is simply seen an absence of meaningful work, though the toil involved raising our daughter mostly on my own was certainly not easy or unrewarding.

But there is also a profound sense of relief personally. Because it's not all about you anymore. The military spouse role prepared me for an ultimate separation: yet, it never prepared me to think or want anything for myself. To learn not only how to survive in a civilian world, but to thrive in it on my own. And I'm flailing.

I saw a counselor recently and he suggested breathing exercises for my ever-present anxiety. At first, I scoffed. Something so seemingly simple surely could not be effective. I have three anxiety disorders, and his simplification of my issues seemed, at first, the ultimate form of condescension.

After writing a particularly pointed blog entry about the session, I saw past my scorn and sarcasm. I started to breathe, and reflect, and found that taking just a few moments to relax to is essential for many reasons. I need air. I need focus, I need strength. I need my family and my medication. But above all, I need to stop fantasizing and start actualizing.

Up until now I've lived a life limited by fear. Fear of death, fear of failure, fear of the unknown. And I ask myself whether the result is keeping me alive or, in fact, hastening me toward a living death. I feel like a husk, a cocoon with no glorious butterfly waiting to break forth. It’s stifling, it's frightening, it's no way to live.

I’ve been so busy gasping for air, and trying to keep my head above water these last few years, that I've lost touch with my talents. My passions may not be profitable, but they are spiritually essential. This day to day business of living, post-divorce, is suffocating my soul.

So maybe I do need to breathe. But to breathe, I need breathing room. And I need not only breath, but purpose behind it. I need some air forced from my diaphragm and out of my vocal folds. I also need to make something out of that breath. Sing, speak, raise my voice somehow. This isn't a rehearsal, this is a performance that spans years. And I've been missing out on it.

In this vein, I need to do something every day that terrifies me. I need to do this not only for myself, but for my daughter. And the scared, scarred girl inside will someday thank me for it. Purgatory was my practice but never quite my style.

I also need to remember that there is truth in simplicity. Though at times I seem to be doing nothing but drawing air, that in and of itself is noteworthy. Without reflection, life is meaningless: without breath and its associated benefits, life is impossible. My aspirations require the respiration; my attitude needs the resultant alteration.

Inhale, exhale. Live in the moment, not in spite of it.

The Losing Battle

I have recently been rejected for a community theatre production and had my writing rejected by a popular journal. So instead of sleeping as I should be doing, I am battling my feelings of inadequacy.

I have that feeling again that I am too odd and too old and that there is no place for me.

Nobody wants a 40-year-old has-been in performance or in print, a voice inside me says.

You have held me back for far too long, says another voice. Failure is a learning experience.

No one can create a well-crafted pitch on this little sleep, the logical voice cries. Perhaps I should add schizophrenia to my seemingly inexhaustible list of maladies…

And yet here I am, with seemingly displaced motivation. Wanting to write and having no place to publish. Wanting to sing and act with no place to perform. Except for the karaoke bar of course.

The crux of it? I need sleep to function at my new day job. I must drive as a part of my job. If you’ve read my thoughts about driving, well, ha-ha. No freeway, no left turns, no parallel parking. Because my anxiety has PTSD elements, likely from being hit so many times in San Antonio. It was less like daily driving and more like bumper cars down there.

So. Sleep it is. Or at the very least, an attempt at it. The battle starts afresh tomorrow.

The Hardest Part

Hello, blank page. My old nemesis.

I'm waiting to discover the outcome of potential developments in my life. I am averse to change but it seems my life has changed continuously since my divorce in September of last year. So I guess I'd best put my head down and not draw any attention to myself. Or put my nose to the grindstone and embrace change in all of its glorious uncertainty.

The problem is, I suck at waiting.

Call me Instant Gratification Girl. I have to be doing something to catalyze change. I want what I want, and I want it now. I have no patience.

I  would like to establish a routine. But I want it to start, like, yesterday.

The bonkers part of me wants to freelance and transcribe and piece my income together, whoop-a-dee-doo! Part of me wants to establish a profession with a set schedule and guaranteed hours, and this pragmatic, OCD side of me is usually the one that prevails.

And then there's the whole Jack-of-all-trades aspect of my personality. Can I do just about anything well? Sure. But am I an expert in one field? Neeeoope. Many people take one look at the stay-at-home mom part of my resume and they are dismissive, despite the fact that I earned a bachelor's degree back in the day.

Have I thought of remedial training? Sure, but each path is fraught with obstacles. Mainly the time and the expense. I cannot even afford physical therapy though it is needed for me to walk without pain. So most programs are financially out of reach. Trying to parent around a retail schedule has already proved difficult. How would I juggle schooling, parenting, and a job?

So here's what I'm planning to do. Spoiler alert: it's nuts. I'm going to start auditioning for community theatre and schedule my jobs and freelancing around THAT. Because I need creativity and performance for my spiritual salvation. Think I'm being melodramatic?

You ain't seen nothing yet.

Paging Dr. Melfi

My anxiety issues are prevalent as of late. Pretty severe ones, forcing me to resign from my new job. I finally had the opportunity to see a therapist.

After nearly an hour of discussing my past hospitalization, struggles with OCD, daily anxieties and experiences with agoraphobia, he suggested something revolutionary: BREATHING EXERCISES. Like I’ve never done THAT before. Oh, silly me, of course! I’ve been holding my breath for the last two years. It’s only the most basic thing you could possibly suggest for someone suffering from anxiety.

So, I did the breathing exercises, frustration growing steadily with each breath. “Don’t you feel better?” He said. “I could tell the difference between before and after you did the breathing exercises.”

Uh-huh. Before I was anxious, now I’m fucking angry.

“Describe your anxiety for me.” Anxiety is a monster, I offered for a basis of comparison. He told me anxiety needs to be my friend.

Friends don’t wake you up in the middle of the night to prod you with your darkest fears. Friends don’t drive you to the brink of losing your mind. Friends don’t let friends write drunk. Friends don’t prevent you from doing things that you would otherwise enjoy. Friends don’t betray you by planting paranoia and delusions in your world-weary brain.

Why can’t I have a decent therapist? I know life isn’t as well scripted as, say, The Sopranos. But I yearn for someone who actually helps me talk through my problems, rather than just watching me cry and saying, “Hmmmmm. You seem upset.”

NO SHIT, SHERLOCK.

Most of the session I felt like he was going to stop and just say, “Well, what do you want me to do about it?” It’s like he thought that just because I was articulate about my anxiety that I somehow wasn’t really suffering from it. He even added, as an extra zinger, that I shouldn’t obsess so much.

IT’S CALLED OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE DISORDER. LOOK IT UP IN THE DSM SITTING, APPARENTLY UNOPENED, BY THE WINDOW.

I think you’ll be a lot better in two weeks, he said.

I think I’ll be doing a lot better if I see a better therapist.

Deluge: Defining Disability

"I'm getting tired of starting again, somewhere new."

                                                    ~~~ Foo Fighters, "Best of You," In Your Honor, 2005

Anxiety, you have won this time.

I haven't been writing on here because I thought the best way to survive in society was to hide. I deeply regret that decision. I should have learned by now that I can no more hide who and what I am than I can stop breathing.

I washed out of a great gig this morning. The hours were good and it involved customer service. I worked very hard in training, getting up at 3:30 every morning just to get to class. But that old phobia of phones, and the people who could be on the other end of them, won out. I feel grateful for the opportunity and it seemed like a great company to work for. I also feel that I was a waste of this company's time and resources because I just couldn't hack it. 

So I pretty much feel like crawling under a rock and never coming out.

Signing releases will be my primary business this week. Releases to prove what I always feared was giving up: that I am disabled by my illnesses. But I recognize that I need to take care of myself before I can take care of anyone else. And I know when to ask for help. Going back to counseling as well, hopefully, sooner rather than later. It seems as though since my divorce I haven't stopped to process my emotions or breathe. It also turns out that psychologically, such repression isn't healthy.

Also, recently stopped dating someone who I (gasp) liked. Apparently, I wasn't allowed to have feelings. Of course, there is a lot more to the story than that. But some songs are better left unsung. 

Started a new blog as well, on the entertainment front. Thought that I could get into the habit of reviewing films, television, and books again. My jobs have left me little time or energy for creativity. 

How I wish one didn't require a day job. ***Sighs wistfully before screaming into a pillow***

Square one in so many ways. And so very tired.

The Heart and Sole of It

I don't react well to failure.

I've been facing a lot of rejection lately, and everything is changing. I'm so stressed that I forgot my way around town yesterday (and it's difficult to get lost here since everything is a GRID).

Parameters, measured. Surveys, taken. Assessments, completed. Hopes dashed.

I knew this wouldn't be easy. But with a degree under my belt, you wouldn't think it would be so damned hard.

So here's the crux, alluded to: I need to find another part-time position to supplement my income. Or a good, old-fashioned, full-time job. I don't want to do this: I need to do this. I need to be able to support my child, as she is growing at an alarming rate.

She has big shoes to fill. No, literally. Shoes bigger than mine: a size 6. We went bowling the other day and the size 5 shoes, my size, were too tight for her.

But I wonder who will fill my shoes at my current position if I should need to leave. I love my co-workers and certain aspects of my job, of course. This is difficult for me. I work at my favorite store, for Pete's sake. But my gut is telling me that I need to make better use of my skills. And my wallet is telling me that I can't afford my bills and groceries, even with child and temporary spousal support. Life is wonderful and yet expensive.

Also expensive beyond measure: the cost of not seeing my daughter consistently. I need a job where I can support her emotionally as well as financially. Currently, that is difficult since I work until late at night, every night that I work. She told me that she feels isolated and abandoned. I can't really blame her. She rarely sees her dad and now rarely sees her mom. Again, I feel like a failure.

And of choices? Yes, I made the choice to leave my marriage for highly personal reasons. And I don't regret it. I still believe that though I am struggling (which I was warned by a lawyer that I would do), this is a better environment for my daughter. She needs her mom, and her mom needs her. She defines me in so many ways.

I wish so much that I could live my dreams, but frankly, dreams don't pay the bills. I dream about so many things, every night. I dreamt that my father was alive and we lived in a fantastic house. Yet there were so many leaks that the foundation was cracking. I woke up crying because, in the dream, I realized that my father was gone.

Her mother cannot be gone all the time. She needs some predictability: she needs to know that I have her back AND that I have the means to buy her new shoes.

And that's it, and that's all.