Darkness Chronicles

I woke up this morning completely calm. My usual routine is to be blasted awake by my alarm clock which is quickly followed by my cat standing on my chest demanding attention.  I take a deep breath and anxiety rushes in behind it sending my brain into overdrive.

I slept terribly last night. My room was too hot and even the fan struggled to push that heavy air around. I like to be buried under a pile of blankets so sleeping with nothing covering me leaves me feeling exposed. Without covers there is no protection from the monsters that live under my bed and roam around my room when I'm sleeping.

Yet, none of that seemed to matter this morning.

This morning I woke before my alarm went off and my cat who was passed out on her back on the pillow beside me, didn't even stir when I got up. I poked her to be sure she was still alive. In the effort to move in the heat the only response I got was a twitch of her foot. My room was still stifling hot but I felt at peace with the world. As if in the suffocating wrap of heat protected me from the panic and stress of my life could not penetrate me and make me question my choices and desires.

I'm a child of the frozen north. I grew up in a skating rink (even spending my summers at figure skating school). Mittens, toques and woolen tights were my uniform so the heat and I are not great friends. I'm normally on overdrive with zero downtime but as the temperature rises, I slow way down. I feel the desire to sit on the porch and watch the world go by, listening to Billy Holiday lament her lost loves on a scratchy old record and drink cold tea from a heavy crystal tumbler. The heat does that to me. Turns me inward to a very slow, calm place. There is great freedom in moving in slow motion. There is a freedom in knowing you are in a place of peace and tranquility even if you know it won't last forever. The edges of that calm are blurred by my brain wanting to spin in obsessive thoughts but the heat demands stillness.

Although I could use some cooler weather and I'm not looking forward to the full heat of the summer. I'm glad for the moment to not be questioning my choices, to not be obsessing over the mistakes I've made and to simply be still. To be free.

Dating. A word that strikes horror in the hearts of singles everywhere. Of course there are those who the world of dating is exciting. A chance to meet new people, experience new things and expand their knowledge of the human psyche.

Not me. I'm not one of those people. In theory I am. I could wax poetic about how I've met some of the coolest people in my life through dating (which is true) - but I've also brought people into my life who have crushed my heart and taken little pieces of me that can never be replaced. I guess that's the crap shoot dating is. Sometimes it's a life changing friendship and sometimes it's a basket full of angry snakes. 

I am truly drawn to the tragic looser type and only when I've had my fill and I venture out of my comfort zone do I meet the amazing. Those ones I hang onto for dear life even if dating them didn't stick. Those are the gems that the universe gives us to help us survive the other kind.

So - here I am. Back in the dating pool trying to avoid the tragic and the lost. I have a couple of guys in my life who are so much fun they make me forget that I'm a little lonely and jonesing for a "boyfriend". I laugh and enjoy myself so much that I forget it's just all temporary. The much celebrated "Friend with Benefits". Thing is those friendships are actually very fragile. They rarely move into the boyfriend/girlfriend zone so when someone falls in love with someone else and the benefit part of the friendship ends so often does the actual friendship. I ask myself, "Is it worth loosing this friendship for a little benefit action?" Usually the answer is no. The friendship part is too important to me.

Recently I've met someone who I didn't think was going to be anything. I didn't think he really liked me, but we kept coming back together and the other day I actually felt a little frantic that I hadn't heard from him. Frantic to me means I like someone. The therapy inducing anxiety that I feel when I'm completely head over heels for someone is building in the bottom of my stomach and I don't want to fuck this up by seeming to eager or too aloof. What I fear is that this could easily move into a friend with benefit thing - and I truly don't want that. I want to date this one. I want to introduce him as my boyfriend. Silly, but true and I have no idea how to tell him that.

I do not need a fuck buddy. Well, I do, but I don't want JUST a fuck buddy. I'm not a conservative girl. I'm a left of center kind of a girl, but I want a little old fashioned courtship. I want to be asked out on a date where he drives and brings flowers. I want to be taken to dinner. I want someone to make plans with me. But if that hasn't happened by date 5 then it probably isn't going to happen and it will quickly disintegrate into late night sleep over invites.

Maybe he's just not that into me. Maybe he thinks I'm just not that into him. Maybe if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck..... I need to stop trying to see it as a bunny.

I don't know why we have to all be so guarded all the time. Why can't we just say what we want? Why do we have to play games? I hate games. I never know the rules. And sometimes the price of the outcome far outweighs the benefits for me. Maybe I need to stay in the safe zone. Hang a closed for business sign on my heart and just be with my other friends, the one's where the rules are clear. You know, the friends with benefits.

Friends with bennys

The Good:  My new painting by Jody Joldersma (Seattle). I found this painting in a coffee shop I never go to with a man I just met. 

Rabbit

The Bad:  Another man - who I've know for a long time recently poured a lot of bourbon and then took me to a place I never thought I would go - a real live peep show. I was horrified but thrilled. It was so bad - it was good!

LustyLady

The Ugly:  Ex-boyfriend's who don't want to let go ~ but clearly don't want to hang on either.

Alright. We all have skeletons that have made themselves a nice little abode in our closets. They aren't going anywhere. They get especially restless cooped up in there at night. They want desperately to dance around the bedroom and the noise they make banging around in the closet is enough to wake us up, make us stumble out of bed, throw open the closet and scream at them, "I have to get some sleep. Don't make me come in there and deal with you. I swear, I'll go to therapy and I will deal with you. I will. Don't push me. Now be quiet and let me sleep."

Yup. We ALL have those conversations. We do..... okay maybe you don't. But I do. Which is fine. I'm dual. Dual personalities. Artist and Corporate Drone. Adult and Immature. Lover and Fighter. Good Girl and Naughtier Girl. My id and ego along with the devil and angel that sit on my shoulder have been duking it out for years.  All the while, I've been acquiring some rather substantial restless skeletons.

And then there is the fact that I just may be a little nuts to begin with.  But, THAT isn't the point here.  The point is that I free these things that bang around in my head making my skeletons act up in the middle of the night on paper. I journal like, well, like a crazy person and now that I can give them wings to fly across the world wide waste of time (I must credit this to Diablo Cody) - I like it and I'm going to continue to do it. 

My daughter reads this. My friends read this. Strangers read this. It's a beautiful thing....... Just not on a first date. These snippets of insanity, hilarity, sadness, joy and quiet madness should be unfolded within a building relationship not dumped in a new guys lap on the first date.

It can happen. It did happen. Completely by accident.... i-phones, blackberries, PDA's they can all lead you to the internet even while nervously sucking up the last of your gin while you sit and watch in horror as your date reads your blog in a dark loud bar. 

Ugh.... B, if you are reading this.... my skeletons say they are terribly sorry for keeping me up at night causing me to vent electronically.  Me on the other hand, I say "welcome to the parade!"

If they are chasing you. Smile. Everyone will think you are leading a parade!

I'm a daughter. I'm a mom. I'm a girl. I'm short. I have food issues. I'm in therapy. I'm trying to forget a boy. I'm trying on new boys. I'm a homeowner. I'm a speed racer. I'm an artist. I'm a photographer. I'm a writer. I'm foolish. I'm headstrong. I'm lovesick. I'm homesick. I'm sick and tired. I'm a reformed nail biter. I'm an insomniac. I'm a cat person. 

What? Huh? Uhm....Maybe...I dunno...

I'm a lot of things. But - I don't know who I am. Who is my true self in relationships. Ah ha - you knew we would get there eventually....it's all about contemplation of my navel in the form of love, lost love, toxic love, healthy love, hatred in the guise of love - you know it's my schtick these days...

My homework for therapy tomorrow is to have some goals for my self in a relationship.  What? You mean there is a "self" in a relationship? You're trying to tick me, right?

How am I supposed to answer that when I don't even know who my "self" is out of relationship.

Maybe I should start there...

My ex said to me recently... "You're not over me. You're just negotiating your head with your heart."

So what! He doesn't want to be with me so what does he care if I'm selling my heart out? Eventually my heart will catch up with my head and I'll be done pining over him. Done. Finito. Over. Finished. Released.

It starts with a step in the direction of away. Away from heartache. Away from self destruction. Away from apathy. Away from fear. Away. I haven't been doing that. I've been firmly stuck to the same spot hoping he'll come back.

Uggg lame.....

Last night - I stepped off that path. I went on a coffee date that didn't make me run for cover or slip out the bathroom window. It was fun. I laughed. I talked too much. I said stupid things because I was nervous. And when he asked, I actually meant it when I said I'd like to see him again.

A little light at the end of this very dark tunnel I've been living in. Coffee dude isn't Prince Charming, but the whole event reminded me that I'm going to one day not look back at the path I've been so firmly rooted to for the past 14 months.

I have fumbled my way though life at breakneck speed. Sometimes barely recovering from one pot hole only to hit the next one full force...but, that's just how it has always been. So I've adapted. But, now at 41 I find that I am at a crossroads (I'm here more than I care to admit - but I usually just blow through the stop sign without thinking about the other directions I could take).

My current job may be coming to an end. The company I've spent 8 years toiling away for may be closing the doors and I could potentially be without an income.  Panic should be running through my veins. I have a big (BIG) mortgage payment, car payment, plenty of consumer debt (enough at least to make that bastard George W proud), an affinity for expensive underwear and a newly single drinking habit to uphold. This all takes money - like about $75K/year.  The first paycheck I don't get is the day my house of cards begins to crumble.  Savings are at a minimum (I plan on only living to be 75 - after that my plan is to lay down on the train tracks and end it all), jobs in the graphic design/marketing field that pay as much as I need are slim pickings that go frankly to better designers than me.

I'm not chewing happy pills to induce this false sense of alrightness. I think this state of being has been born out of timing, readiness, acceptance that change comes whenever the hell it wants and a sense of peace that is inhabiting my psyche right now.

Crossroad (n): A place where a crucial decision must be made.

So, like I said, I'm standing at the crossroads. Standing. It's quiet here. The freeway of life at my back that runs a full tilt makes a sound like the ocean. Someone has planted little pink and blue flowers by the hangman's tree. There are birds, bunnies and bees coming and going. It's warm and dusty. I like it here.

There are four sign posts. To the west is new career. Going back to school. Studying psychology and counseling ( a career I'm very interested in but not sure I would be any good at. I have a tendency to want to fix people by taking all the burden onto myself). To the east is new career as well. This one is big bucks high level executive assistant (a job I could do with my eyes closed and one I would be very good at although maybe not much of a challenge). Straight ahead is staying in my current field and hoping I can land another job that will pay me enough to stay in my house and pay my bills. (I'm good at what I do. It's challenging and I could grow it into something bigger than what it currently is) Behind me is the road I've already traveled. Moving home to Alberta, getting a "job" and spending time with my family.

There is a warm flat rock by the tree. Think I'll sit for a minute and ponder my fate.

Feeding My Demons

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Something is about to break. I can feel it.

I'm covered from my fucked up brain to my immortal soul.  I can lay on my therapists couch and vent or crawl on my bloodied knees to confess to my priest but I don't think they are going to be able to stop the storm thats coming. 

Thunder can crack the sky and lightening can lick up all the light that's left in my corner of the world. Let it come. I'm never been afraid of the dark and I like the rain. 

I fear I made a deal with the devil and he wants his pound of flesh.  He can come too. I'm ready.

There was a promise to take care of myself. There has been the knitting of flesh and steel all along my spine over the past six weeks.

So.... Why am I playing this game by someone else's rules?

It's time.

Time to crack the whip. Take no prisoners. Make my own rules.

In this world. My world. I am the boss. No one knows what it feels like to be me. No one knows if I will walk the line or cross over and sleep with the enemy... but that's the beauty of it...

My game. My way.

Let it come. I'm ready.