So here it is Friday Night. I am wearing a $2 t-shirt from Wal-Mart and really ratty underwear. Playing Chicken Invaders 3 and listening to Toby Keith ask "How Do You Like Me Now? (oh just fine Mr.Keith, just fine ;) and watching a show on TLC about a flaming gay man addicted to rhinestones designing gowns for pageant queens in Oklahoma (yes-all at the same time-nothing wrong with a little adult on-set ADD). An empty box of Mike and Ike on the coffee table.
WOW
I know...right? I think it is awesome too!
I am really happy. I am-I mean it. Even though I sound like the chick version of the guy in the Brad Paisley song "So Much Cooler On Line". I am content. Even though I sit in a complete state of inertia. I can't move forward and I don't want to go backwards. There must be angst hidden there or I would not be prompted to write for the first time in months. Let's see...
Angst 1: I have been in contact will several old friends from high school or old jobs-Facebook of course-and it just makes me wonder. While I sit here in this little Fla town on the edge of the ocean, how does my life stack up? I have a job I love and really great kids~but no grand adventures, no tragic love stories, no...oommph...no.....well, you know. How many times can I pull out the old "I went to the Playboy Club" thing or "One time we went to the horse races and ended up in the Bahamas"? I have had a few brushes with odd people~the lesbian with the tambourine, the MySpace guy with the librarian fetish, the stalking of the Publix meat manager, the Australian Professional Wrestler~but nothing exciting. Nothing that will get me a drink in a bar or invited to dinner so I can retell the story. Sigh.
Angst 2: Secret Envy rules my subconscious these days. I am covetous of my teenage daughter and her freedom and exploration of life. God, high school was fun and awful and crazy and I am so happy she is doing it and not me. I am jealous that my friend is going back to school and getting OUR Leadership Degree. I am coveting her WRITING-stuff people actually want to read. I am even begrudging her the awkward and slightly painful relationship she just cut out of her life. Dude, this guy (while very nice-a real sweetheart) called her muffin and his underwear panties. He had to go but still, he was there in the first place. I am lusting after the new house she is going to buy~sure, the old house is slowly killing her with Chinese drywall, but she is getting A NEW ONE! I am totally envious of my best friend who is fostering a 1 year old and a 2 year old. She can't go anywhere or do anything,but she has little ones again!
Which leads me to...
Angst 3: I have lost my balls. I can't make a decision to save my life. I think I want more babies or NOT... I want a man and I want to be single. I want to buy a house and I want to travel with my dog, iPod, computer and not much else. I want my kids to go to college and I want them to stay with me forever. I want to stay here so I can take care of my Mom and I want to live in a tent on the edge of a jungle near the water all alone. I want to write a book and a blog people read and do it "anonymously" while people celebrate my wit and enormous vocabulary in the comments . I want to build libraries in Africa and I want to go buy a sleazy romance novel to read in my chair as a hot cabana boy brings me margaritas and sunscreen. I want to be a slug and I want to compete in sprint triathlons. Which leads me to...
THE ULTIMATE ANGST: I am sure this is a mid-life crisis. A man on a dating site asked me why -at 47- I called my self "middle-aged". He is 52 and all the people at the gym think his life is really just beginning-after dumping his first wife for a 22 year old personal trainer (OK-I added that part but you were thinking it and it is probably true). Why? Because no matter how you look at it, I am in the middle of my life. I have been through 3 phases and am getting ready for the rest. It ain't good or bad~it is reality.
If I were a guy, I would put on my "cool shirt"-polyester from 1977- throw on a few chains, go to the local hot spot in my penis-replacing red sports car, spend money like water, pick up a beautiful girl with daddy issues and start my life over. If I were a different woman, I would dye my hair, get contacts, drop 100 pounds, wear something that shows my boobs and cool shoes that make my legs look a mile long, go to the new local hot spot in my ball-replacing black "elegant" sports car, throw around money and pick up a beautiful boy with mommy issues and start my life over.
But I am me. Stuck on the precipice of the rest of my life-the next phase-my "new freedom". I don't know what I want and I don't know where I will go or how I will get there. But it will be OK. I have several career paths I can follow-or I can happily stay where I am for 20 more years and that would be OK too. I have friends who will push or pull me along on all their adventures and from time to time let me navigate the next road we take. I have kids who have SWORN they will put me in a really nice nursing home and pay for it. I even have a "half-son" who says I can sleep in his spare bedroom in the basement. It's all good...
But I really do want that Red Corvette~cause I look really good behind that wheel!
3 comments:
You'll find it. I'm sure of it. That you realize you have choices...that's the important part. Picking your path...that's a bit trickier...
I love that you wrote this. In my "to be blogged about" list is a similar idea behind the envy. I think I'm happy, but yet I want what everybody else has too. Or, not necessarily what they have, but I want to do what they've done. I think I envy other people's experiences (particularly if it's publishing a novel or something). And I can't make up my mind where I want to live. I want to live in a loft over a downtown business in a cute walkable city. But I also want a lonely cliff hanging house on the ocean. Maybe it is a mid-life thing (I'm 44). And that's another thing. I don't care how old I am. But everybody else who is older than me won't let me say I'm middle-aged. I do get away more with "mid-life", although I don't see the difference. I'm using the term literally, as in, halfway to death, statistically speaking, while everyone else wants to treat it as a stigma word that they are trying to change and deny and redefine as a "state of mind". I just figure: Life expectancy is 75, I'm more than halfway there, hence I must be middle-aged. Actions speak louder than words anyway, so who cares what it's called? OK, I'm hogging all the comment space here and this is in response to an older post, so you're gonna think, "Now what the hell did I say in that post again?"
Anyway, I loved this post!
- Margaret
LOVE THIS!! I am soo with you!
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