Let Them Eat Cake!

For the last forty years, the numbers on the bathroom scale have stared back at me with a stark reality I find discomforting.  It doesn't matter if they are near my "alarm" number or if they are near my lowest number.  Neither end of the spectrum will please me.

"Dear Scale, 

 

It's no longer your fault that I hate you.  It's my fault.  When your LED digits teeter too high, I worry about my butt.  Will I fit into my jeans?  Is a muffin top sure to appear soon?  How many calories do I have left today?

As your number fell to a decade's low, my happiness was tempered by the appearance of saggy and crepe laden skin.  WHAT?  Losing weight doesn't mean attractiveness anymore?"

 Sigh.  Weight gain and weight loss must take a back seat to skin laxity.  How long will it take me to become an expert on this dilemma and where can I buy a skin scale?

Anxiety Observer

By reading all these self help books, one would think I would be prepared for an encounter with an anxiety ridden divorced man.  Alas, I was taken completely by surprise when I observed a poor fellow encounter his own divorce demon...a demon chanting "I'm not ready for this" silently in his head while he tried to enjoy his evening.

Seeing this first hand, I wonder at my own preparedness.  If I get a clamoring from my inner demons, will I have the guts to simply call a stop to the date and declare, "I'm not ready for this" or will I sit there tied up in anxiety ridden knots until I can escape into the evening?  

As a good friend pointed out, my divorce was simply an end to a long painful process.  This gentleman, who was taken by surprise at his marriage's end, is entering his process of pain.  He's embarrassed by his perceived weakness so I don't get a chance to reassure him.  Were I to get the chance, I might say something like this:

"It's really okay.  Even though my experience at dating is just a couple months longer than yours, that short period of time has been ripe with poignancy and comedy.  One date at a time will teach you much about yourself and a lot about the opposite sex.  Don't give up on the process.  When you figure out that you ARE ready again, just remember that folks who are divorced at our age have more in common than not.  It's really okay."

   

Ah, vanity...

Autumn has arrived again.  Poignancy for the turning of the leaves and chilling of the air hits many Floridian transplants this time of year.

I had my moments of reflection for the third season last week in Washington, DC when the temperature dipped below fifty degrees.  I watched the birds flying south...I made the obligatory stop at an apple stand...I donned a cardigan and now, I'm happily done with reminiscing about autumn.

Instead, I will give into my vanity and thank my lucky stars that Florida is beginning the first of its many months of lower humidity.  Autumn and winter will be "good hair" seasons.  Let the celebration begin and the vanity indulgence take over.  Good hair.  Good hair.

Oh, wait, shouldn't I be more concerned with the upcoming Presidential election?  Isn't that more important than pleasant temperatures and good hair?  Perhaps the two go together as a happier female electorate is more likely to get out and vote thereby truly influencing the direction of the country's policies.

But it's really just about getting good hair...vanity and honesty...strange but satisfied bedfellows.

Jumping

Living without a net is a choice made unknowingly in childhood...we are given the freedom to jump or pause and forgiven for it because "we're just kids," right?

Each time I castigate myself for weakness, I come back to my net choice.  How many times did I use the net in my life?  Did I choose the path less traveled or the path well lit?  Okay, I honestly chose the less traveled path but I carried a lantern because the dark did scare me a bit.  That was acceptable.  Even a free flier has to give herself some slack!

When I chose to jump from marriage to divorce, it was with the realization that no one would catch me when I fell.  And I knew I would fall.  A lot.  In fact, the joy of net free living is taking the dive face first into the mud.  I accept these falls with grace knowing that mud is an exfoliant!  It scrapes off dead stuff that keeps the radiance from shining through.  Plus, science tells us that dirt is a great immunity booster.  Uh huh...practice has meant that I'm getting better at avoiding that mud but when I do take it in the smacker...I just  lick it off my lips and appreciate the taste.  And oh, how my skin is glowing....

I'm encountering numerous individuals now who live with a net.  Ideally, they would learn to loosen up and understand that even with falls, the best part of the process is catching life's cross winds.  Those winds mark the difference between mediocrity and breathlessness.

Adrenaline junkie?  No.  Full on life flier?  Absolutely.

Lessons? Learned?

"Have you learned your lesson?"

"Did this teach you a lesson?"

"Don't you think you should have learned that lesson by now?"

We parents are guilty of these phrases as we deal with the fallout from the countless predicaments our children encounter.  They expect us to "know better," correct them, declare a lesson learned and move on.  The parental code of lesson teaching is passed down from generation to generation as grandparents nod knowingly with their "I told you so" looks...again, bestowing a lesson onto their own children!

I am now encountering a whole different kind of lesson teacher who has no perceivable objective with being in my business other than just BEING IN MY BUSINESS.  Traversing a path in the land of Singledom by myself will be seemingly impossible.  So many comments, looks, and conspiratorial whispers are sent my way that memories of my school years come flooding back.

"You have to read this book.  It taught me so many lessons about being divorced."

"Oh, I'm sure you won't try doing that again.  Haven't you learned your lesson about men yet?"

"Let me give you some advice...."

If I had the time to read and discuss all there is to know about newly divorced women, I would have too little time to worry about the consequences of divorce.  Heck, I would probably have to hire a tutor to help me slog through the mountains of homework I'm expected to do as I "work on myself" and become a better divorced person.

"You need to be by yourself so you can learn about you."

Isn't that the reason I got divorced?  I was by myself so much that I reached down deep, found myself and catapulted to freedom.

Maybe these lesson teachers are just looking for students because they're addicted to their own stories. Maybe the biggest lesson I learned is I have to do it on my own because NO ONE ELSE will do it for me.

Lesson learned.

As a novice in all things of divorce, I embark upon this blogspot with some skepticism.  The entire realm of singledom hasn't proven to be as easy to navigate as the fairy tale magazines would lead one to believe.  Unlike the articles in Cosmo, I am not finding myself to be mired in daily choices of designer clothes, designer men, and trendy careers.

Instead, I look to start filling a schedule book with mindless but supposedly productive activities that will give me confidence, composure, and a hormone free way of looking at things.  As we said in the eighties...right!  The ex was certain that I would turn into a sniveling lump of mediocrity by giving up the "perfect" life I had endured with him.  And the term "perfect" kept coming up in a conversation recently with a date mate as he referred to a star athlete..."he has the perfect life."

My counsel...what looks perfect probably isn't.  There has to be something that makes it imperfect.  Of course, by throwing the "perfect" life back into the Lake of Reality, I may be asking for karma to hit me dead in the face.  Perfection by its definition leaves no room for error.  It is the smooth surface of a mirror reflecting back the unattainable and the unimaginable.  What woman alive could look into that mirror and say, "Ah ha...perfection at last!"  No, there is always a flaw and now, I navigate those flaws as I embark on the "less perfect" life that others around me think they have been living.

One of my favorite sites is www.sciencedaily.com because it is a clearinghouse for scientific research that usually makes it to a reporter's desk but not often in the daily review of Joe Schmoe.  Hello, my name is Joe and I secretly love to read science.  It's not romantic but its realism hums with a global need for information dissemination.  BTW (before the web), we hoarders of information got our willies from PBS, National Geographic, and NPR.  In just a click, we can now feed on it as often and much as we like.  Hello, my name is Joe and science is my middle-aged, divorced woman's porn.

I figure if enough of us read from this scientific candy store, one of us will be lucky enough to tie a subject area together and discover a nugget of use simply by virtue of unique perspective.  Maybe my perspective will be better than everyone else and I can be the hero that solves a scientific puzzle.  It's a pursuit that jolts me more than finding the perfect outfit, the perfect mate, or the perfect job.  If I can find a perfect solution to a problem, then my job as Joe Schmoe is done and I can then rest on my laurels of mediocrity...or maybe rest on a lily pad in the Lake of Reality planted square in the land of Singledom.