Hold on to what is good even if it is a handful of earth.
Hold on to what you believe even if it is a tree which stands by itself.
Hold on to what you must do even if it is a long way from here.
Hold on to life even when it is easier letting go.
Hold on to my hand even when I have gone away from you.
- Pueblo Blessing
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Friday, Feb. 18, 2005 - 11:10 p.m.
WARNING!!!! if you know me personally, you may read my diary, but if you do, you take the chance of hearing things you don't want to know, misunderstanding what I've written and being hurt by it. If you are unsure if it is ok to read, save yourself and me the grief and heartache, and ask first!!! Please note that this is a DIARY, ie my subjective feelings, hearsay, suppositions, and outpourings of ranting of the moment. It does not represent objective news, the whole of what I think of a topic or someone, or even a thought-out representation of any of the above. Keep that in mind. Thanks. * Here is a Diary Etiquette Read Me.
23 years of marriage
Crying and crying and crying.
And the worst about crying and crying is thinking "oh what self-pity" and then wanting to smash yourself in the face and that is even more self-pitying than the crying to start with.
God I feel like such a failure at life.
Wednesday at the doctor's when I said that I felt like I had gone from 25 to 60 and missed all the inbetween she replied that well, I was living "25" until I was 38. Youch. youch.
What does that mean. That I went out to fetish clubs? Hello. I stayed home with lovers working on relationships so I could have a partner and a kid how many times. And then stayed home and ate well and worked and gardened and inseminated to have a kid by myself for how long. And eventually you realize you just have to go out when you are alone and the kid thing isn't working. Where the hell am I supposed to go? The public library perhaps. And go to bed at 10pm. Is that adult?
Youch youch. Do you know what it is like to be the oldest daughter, the one who was always mature for her age, the one who was always responsible and older, to be 41 and be mistaken for 25? I dunno. It makes me feel like a failure. Like I missed the boat.
I googled a few people I used to know years and years ago two or three nights ago. One, a guy I had a huge kick on when I was in first year university. He was doing his master's in clinical psychology and I was a psychology nut. Used to read "Psychology Today Magazine" in highschool way back when it was a real magazine before it became the equivalent of the National Enquirer does Pop Psychology. He had a girlfriend back home since highschool. And every Friday night he'd play card games with his roomates, get tipsy and make out with me. He'd fall asleep, and I'd listen to Chris de Burgh's Spanish Train and other stories and Neil Diamond on a repeating 8track while his girlfriend looked down on me from an 8x10 glossy on his wall through the night til dawn when I had to get up to work in a grocery store. Saturday night he avoided me or we did stuff with all the roommates (it was in university residence). Sunday he called his girlfriend and then he'd swear off me due to guilt til the following Friday. I was 18 just. He was 25.
At Christmas he went home and I dreamt that I had given him my highschool ring and his girlfriend had seen it on his finger and dumped him. Instead he came back and was engaged to be married. He started studying in his room with the door locked.
I googled him. It wasn't hard. Put his name, and "clinical psychology". And got his email right off. Emailed him. "hi, how are ya. Were you in university with me in the 1980's?" yup. It's him.
He's been married since May 1982 to that girlfriend (the only one he ever slept with you know except a brief fooling around with me). Has two boys 18 and 14 years old. He's a clinical psychologist.
Now why couldn't my life be like that? Why couldn't I meet someone in highschool or university who wanted me and loved me who I clicked with and wanted and loved back? Settle down into a life. Have kids and a career.
Why. I don't know. Why do people I want always have someone else? Or find someone else. Or decide they want to be single. And then I didn't get pregnant anyways. All that time and money trying.
And then people are like "oh you are wild and crazy. You don't have dependents. You sleep til noon. You go out at night."
Well big surprise. I already feel 60, staying at home. Working, walking the dog and vacuuming cat hair off the floor. Why should I have felt 60 at 25 when my first relationship broke up? Would it have helped if I had stayed home, and done what. Knitted or read novels in the evening?
I had imagined us growing old together. Having kids. A house. A cottage in the countryside on a lake.
Why are my relationships so depressing.
Even for a moment today I thought, oh, what my doctor said, taking in foster kids overnight or on the weekend when they need someone to help out. I could do that. If I tried hard. But how will I get my work done? There is no second income. There is no one to walk the dog if the kid is sick or freaked out and I needed to stay with them. I would have to wrap up the kid and walk them around in the snow in the dark.
Then I feel like even more of a failure. Even my mother. I couldn't make it ok for her to be here and she moved away. I don't even dare really anymore to get anyone to move here to be with me.
Tonight on the radio. Some guy who has a really deep voice. Being interviewed about singing bass baritone in the opera. He used to play guitar in a rock band as a teenager. But never really felt invested or like it was fitting well enough to be important. And one day his dad got him to sing something from Mozart and said "hell , you're hired" and now he does that. He is singing Figaro now, and is happy he isn't touring cuz it's hard to have a family life while you tour. I thought maybe he is 50. No. he is 33 he says.
Why does that make me so sad. I feel totally like I have missed the boat. What happened to all those years of training to be a loving partner, a caring mother, a good housekeeper, I know how to make bread and darn socks, plan balanced meals for a week. Separate the colors of laundry, sew clothes, make cookies and halloween costumes. And I feel I may as well just sit at a desk and order takeout for all the difference it makes. Pointless absolutely pointless all the things I do best and want to do. Pointless.
I feel like that guy who says he never really felt invested or like it was fitting well enough to be important. Yes I do these drawings. But I do it cuz it has happened that is what i chose to do to earn enough money and to have a career that could be stable so I didn't have to move a kid out of school to follow a job. Not so i could be alone at home. Not because I had ambitions in the publishing industry. I am not an important artist. I don't care enough. I don't work hard enough. I don't push my art. I am not inspired and lit up by it. I do my best with as little effort as possible because i have contracts and deadlines.
I look at other art and I hear interviews with illustrators and they talk about their work like artists. Like they have a vision of what they want to be and do. Ambitions. Aspirations. They work hard to better themselves. It is their life.
It ended up being my life. But I will never be a great illustrator unless I invest more. I don't know that I have the personality. I just get freaked out. Like this Leo's Dog book. I had lots of time in September. I could have been trying out things in June and July while I was waiting for the publisher to give me the book dimensions. Trying out different mediums, feelings for the people etc. No. I put it off. I procrastinate and get freaked out. I avoid it. And then I do it like I already work. And it is the same. It is fine. It isn't shameful on the bookshelves at the library. But it isn't sought out. It doesn't stand out. It is mediocre in the market. Go into a bookstore and not a soul at the counter knows my name. I might be in the computer. And they will go, oh, that MIGHT be over here.
I feel like some sort of lazy swimmer who isn't really surfing, carried away on the waves, sort of flailing here and there... staying afloat but not going in any of the directions she planned or wanted to go.
And what would that direction be. I tell ya, this is the kind of question that makes me want to stay in bed all day.
I feel undereducated, underread, underdeveloped talent, and a failure at relationships, and appearing like some immature undisciplined jellyfish floating about.
I swear I would feel more productive to the world if I milked cows. At least I would know people needed to drink the milk.
23 years of marriage. An 18 yr old. A 14 yr old. A wife. A career that he studied for.
If I had applied myself. If I had applied for grants. If I had studied hard. I couldve been a doctor. Says miss indiscipline.
Sometimes hating yourself takes up a lot of energy.
I have to get to work. I am behind.
But at least the laundry is done.
cheers.
wenchie.
ps. I almost sent him an email saying "sorry for not respecting your relationship with your girlfriend more back in 1981, but Chris DeBurgh still reminds me of her face on the wall, and I will always regret not being allowed to be one of the girls jumping out of your stag cake" but after I wrote it I deleted it. I mean really, does he need to have his wife read that? dang. Stupid me.
How many of you have never ever had someone propose to you in their life? Nor had a guy call you his girlfriend for more than four weeks? (ok ok I've had girls call me their girlfriend up to two and a half years, one and a half of which were mostly concerned with "do I break up or not this is so not working") Dang. Harry? Sally. Sally? Harry. sigh. At least Disappearing Boy has his art. Imagine being a real artist. oh shut up wenchie. you are whiny. go work. tah.
pppppssss. Did I mention that not only did I get photos of the birth of the baby daughter of a guy I went to school with, and another guy I had a thing for in 1986-95 is adopting from china with his girlfriend (it's a bit easier to pay off the mortgage and pay for a baby from china when you're not alone, let alone take weeks off work) but also the couple next door just found out they're expecting. That's nice.
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previous meanderings - future past
Goodbye Michael. May your next life be kinder to you. - Thursday, Jun. 25, 2009
Taking Care of Your Cows - Thursday, Jun. 25, 2009
Saint Joseph robs the cradle and eats spaghetti - Sunday, Jun. 14, 2009
sticky notes and broken irises - Friday, Jun. 12, 2009
The FOODCOMMANDER - Monday, Jun. 08, 2009
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