HAPPY FUCKING BIRTHDAY
I know my last few blogs have been pretty down but I promise the next one will be filled with sexual innuendo, a recap of my sexual exploits of the past few months and any other drool worthy tidbits I can think of. For now you’ll have to put up with this last thought provoking one I need to get off my chest.
I turned 48 today. And as I rolled out of bed (literally) yesterday and fell flat on my face I realized I had a lot to be thankful for. The past year has been a tumultuous one to say the least but at present it appears I have come away with only a few deep scars. A lot of irritating scratches that don’t seem to want to heal properly but all in all I have little to complain about. Yes my marriage of 21 years has hit the skids, yes I have lost custody of my teenage daughter, yes I spent a week in the Psych ward for a bought of depression, yes I am living in an apartment that does not allow dogs and yes I am still in a job that provides more stress then should be legal. I know most of you are shaking your heads “Dayum woman! What the Hell Happened?” I have days when I say that myself. Truth be told I haven’t a clue….I mean I was here and went thru all the trauma, tears and trials but for the life of me I can’t figure out when I went down the wrong exit into the Twilight Zone.
BUT that’s not important.
No really-it isn’t important anymore. I am looking at this birthday as a day of rebirth, renewal and a time to reflect. Yes I have lost custody of my beautiful and talented daughter but she is safe and secure where she is living. The people who are responsible for taking care of her will help her become the fine young woman I know resides within her rebellious frame. Yes I spent a week in the hospital for depression but the care I rec’d while there and afterwards has proven to be invaluable. I am strong both emotionally and physically for the experience. My self confidence has returned and I am far stronger then I ever was before. Yes I am living in a tiny little apartment that does not allow dogs but I’m not supposed to have animals in the first place. It seems I am allergic to both cats and dogs but am too stubborn to give them up. In just the two weeks that I have not been living with them I have been able to cut down on the number of allergy meds and pain pills. I still see them for about an hour every day but perhaps this separation has a silver lining. As for the job-well I couldn’t find a bright side to the job other than the 40k a year salary with full medical, pharmacy and dental at a reduced premium. 13 paid days off and 27 paid vacation days a year…….uh….I take that back-I’ll just put up with the stress.
I hate to use the phrase “starting over” because it is such a cliché that so does not sit well with me. You start over with a video game when you don’t have any lives left. You start over when someone bumps the chess board. You start over when you are crocheting and miscount the loops. You DON”T start your life over. I prefer the word “reset”. I would have used reboot but then someone would invariably offer to put a boot up my ass so ixnay on the reboot. To me reset means to move the forks from the left side of the plate to the right, to see something wrong in a pattern and reset the pattern, to see that the programming is wrong and unless you reset the programming every time you try that function it is going to come out wrong. I also see reset as an ongoing challenge. Unlike starting over a reset is still working with the old – just tweaking and tweaking and tweaking some more until it feels right. I know- symantics. But I’m a writer and I see the nuances that make a word perfect while another just doesn’t work at all.
I am resetting my life on this my 48th b’day. With all my rowdy friends around me, my newest friends smiling like Cheshire cats and a bright future on the horizon. I’ve been told again and again over the past four weeks that people envy me my strength. I’ve been looking in the mirror a lot lately trying to see what they see and finally my old self peeked out from behind the silver this morning. She wanted to know if it was safe to come out. Seems my plans for world domination are back on track.
TTFN
Aeryn