Dating...

Watching a movie, just a bit after my last post, and I realized I left out one of the most crucial points I wanted to make. I'm dating Watt. I don't want to date any more. I don't want to cook, and wash, and dry, and do all of it to impress. I want someone to be impressed, enough that they don't want to date me anymore. I want that daily phone call where someone says, "What are we going to do for dinner?"

I’m Sick of Washing and Drying

Let’s start with this: I am not an insecure person. But, I am insecure about how Watt feels about me. Why wouldn’t I be? I only know how Watt feels about me when I am with him and I am not with him enough to feel that.

I feel connected to him when we are not together. But I do not feel him connected to me. He confirmed that what I was feeling was right. He didn’t say it in those words, but it was enough so that I didn’t have to guess anymore at why I felt the way I’d been feeling.

This confirmation happened in a phone conversation. I was telling Watt how I needed us to be connected more between the times we see each other. I was reminding him that I needed more texts, here and there, or just an extra call a week (this would help to keep the sex great, to keep what we have going and to not loose momentum), and I said I didn’t know if it was the girl in me, or the me in me, but, regardless, that that is what I needed.

That’s when he said it, that he feels way more connected to me when he’s with me, when we are together. Well, shit. That explains that, doesn’t it? I thought.

Let me back up.

Remember when I said I was hemming and hawing and fearing around, in the last blog entry or two, and not spitting out the words I needed to get out? Well, before I got the words out, before I said what needed to be said for me, and before I got my truth out there straight to Watt, telling fear to fly off, I started with hints, with easing into it with texts:

The texts (most of them are included) went something like this:

To Watt:

Not sure if you got my buzzed vm last night, but it was bound to happen. Been get’n cnfsd/mixed signals 4while. Don’t hear frm u 4 days, then u r always happy to see me. U leave me a great vm recently, then day l8r, give me impression could B dayz b4 I hear from u next. My feel’ns r bruised. I know I adore you, but u hv me Qstn where u r w/ mixed msgs. Wonder’n if I am wasting my emotion.

From Watt in response:

Hey! I called u back last night but I still don’t have a vm. I wanted to get off the phone to do work, but wanted to talk before it got late…I didn’t know you were wanting more day to day, was having fun just being with you as we are.

Another msg From Watt in response:

I’m not trying to hurt either. You’re too awesome for that.

To Watt:

Am having fun as we r, too and didn’t realize I wanted 2 hear frm u, C U lil’ more, ‘til u said u wanted 2 c me sooner/left that gr8 msg. Then when u made odd insinuation last night I might not hear from u 4while, that’s when I realized each week when 3-4 dayz pass, its not always clear if u want 2 c/tlk. Guess girls r more obvious/vocal than boyz. Silly girlz n boyz.

Another msg From me in response:

And maybe if u could help the natural short bus, girl part of me out (h8 b’n a girl sometimes… LOL) & I could hear from you sooner than 3-4 days, hv u be clearer when/that u wnt 2 c me, c u at least once a week, I’ll not get my feelers hurt.

From Watt in response:

Ok. I can make sure that we steer in a good direction. :>)

After that last text, Watt writing to me in black and lit-cell-phone-background white, that he’d steer us in a good direction, I thought he would. I thought he’d call me that night to check my temperature. He didn’t. I thought he’d call me the next night to ask to see me. He didn’t. I thought He’d want to see me that nxt weekend. He didn’t. That’s when he went to his family birthday party.

I am not bum-jacked about all this with Watt. I am not. Not in the way you might think.

I’m grateful I have this connection in my life. I am not even going backwards in spirit, just in story. See, I am trying to put out bigger and better bread crumbs. How else are the gals closer to my age going to understand how utterly frustrating it can be dating a man from a different generation and how hard it is when your intuition fights against your wanting.

Chloe knows about the dating-a-younger-man thing. She just moved in with her younger man. But her man is only about 7-10 years younger than her? Can’t remember, exactly, the age spread. (I suck with ages.) And, her man is so head over heals in love with her that Chloe is mostly saddled with moving-in-together growing pains. (So normal. And Chloe is awesome. She’s got this one!)

The point is: Chloe, my love, if you are reading this, I am going crazier than you could imagine on the other dating-a-younger-man things. I’m hoping my tits don’t sag more, before he figures out there are better boobies out there. I’m hoping my crow’s feet don’t scream louder, before his face starts showing the night before just as much. I am hoping he still likes my ass as much as he does now, before he realizes that my ass ain’t that great and it’s about to catch up with the back of my knees.
But, at least my hormones are back in order from that damn Birth Control ride I was on for awhile. (I’ve got that going for me.)

This is how my neighbor Chad puts it, this is what Chad says is at play, just as much, if not more, than our age difference… Chad tells me to keep it all in perspective. He says, first of all, I should remember that I am not going to live forever, so while I should think as if I will live that long (I should plan for tomorrow), I should live and love as if I am going to die tomorrow. In other words, lead with your heart not your brain. In other, other words, love with your heart, not your head.

More?

Where did Chad get this little pearl of wisdom? Gandhi, of course. "Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever." - Mahatma

That’s Chad, the tough-as-shit street kid who paraphrases Gandhi’s words and says: Don’t let your quest for knowledge interrupt your life today. (Then I think, Don’t let the love I want take me away from the love I might already have.) Then Chad goes on to say that he thinks that consumerism has taken away a man’s hunter/gatherer/protector role. To put it bluntly, Chad says the 70s, women’s lib, F’d up the economic model of the family from the 50s, so couples cannot survive on one income any more which means everything else get f’d in the process.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Chad said. “I love how powerful the fairer sex has become. It’s a turn on. But, men don’t know how to bring home the saber tooth tiger any more. We still want to puff up our chests, bring home the meat, but now women can do that on their own.”

Then Heather, Chad’s wife, says, “Yeah. Now all women want men to do is to bring home the cosmopolitan.”

She’s right. That’s where I wonder if we have mixed up our gender roles so much, and have mixed up where to draw the line in the generations for how we evolve, that we have gotten to this place where women want a man to bring the cash and the cocktail home. We want him to pay for the auto repairs instead of being able to do it himself. At the same time, we’re screaming Be the same fish in the same water. Do all the things the cave men and the 1950s man did before you, did before the world changed around both us.

They can’t do it, men, be everything of yesterday and today at the same time, Chad is telling me. Many men feel like fish out of water, or like they’ve evolved into lame mudskippers. They are supposed to be able to use their pectoral fins to walk on land, and they are supposed to be uniquely adapted, but they don’t feel quite right. Not on land or in water. Men feel like they’re caught betwixt roles, identities, generations, and expectations.

What does all this mean to me? It means the man I am dating is from a generation where the rules have changed even more than they’d changed when I was first dating, and that puts me in a situation where I keep thinking I am going to get 3-4 calls a week, but, as Chad puts it, I am supposed to be making at least 2 of those calls instead of waiting for them.

Chad didn’t hold back with me. He said, “Look, Levan. If you want to go to La bohème and get all your calls incoming, date in your age range. If you want great sex, the intrigue of going on someone’s journey while they are trying to figure out who they are, don’t give up on Watt yet.”

And Chad is right. I asked the universe for come what may Now. Watt is here now. My problem is, I don’t want to wash and dry anymore.

I’m tired.

No matter how much Chad reminds me that a man Watt’s age dating a 40 year old woman, as independent as me, may be intimidated by me, because he hasn’t gotten to where I am in life, to the level of life-lived and bills-payed that I’ve gotten to, I don’t feel Watt being intimidated. I feel Watt just being 26 and not being as into this, into me, as I am into him. (The worse part? I still don’t know if it is more my girl or more my me into Watt.)

When Chad tells me that I need to let myself need Watt, and that I need to be the girl and let Watt be the man, I can’t. Not because of fear. I know how to kick fear’s ass. I’ve done it all my life. Okay, some of this is fear, I’m not an idiot (and I know what part of this is fear) but a lot of it this is not fear.

Watt has not given me a place to fall.

He's amazing. I adore him. The sex is great. But, people only fall for a future when their Now has made them a comfortable bed to lie in. If the dreams in the Now don’t have a safe blanket to wrap themselves up within, a person feels like the place they might fall is not in love, not into a future, but out of f’n bed and onto their ass.

And girls like me, girls who have washed and dried their whole lives, who have had few people in their lives who have helped them with the dishes, helped them make a bed… Okay, forget the analogies. What I am saying is that I’ve done in on my own my whole life.

I have a few friends, best friends, who’ve been there and who would be there if it all shit the bed, so I know how that feels. I have had a few men in my life who felt like the future. They may have turned out not to be, but they felt like it in the Now. So I know how that feels.

Watt doesn’t feel that way.

More truth? I don’t care age/generational differences; I don’t care gender confusion, the stupid saber tooth tiger, or any of it. That saber tooth tiger can choke on it. I care that I only feel wanted by Watt when we are together.

Watt makes me feel more wanted when we are together than even my ex fiancé did, years ago. So, shut up. Right? I can’t. Because there is a difference, because it is only when Watt is physically in the same room with me that I can feel him wanting me (needing me), it is that difference, when he is not in the room, that I do not like. That difference is the same canyon I felt with my ex fiancé. I had never felt so lonely as when I was laying right next to him. With Watt, I don’t feel that loneliness (how could I? Watt is such a beautiful man), but I do feel a divide.

I have never dated a man who has left me so hot and cold. I’m with him, and I know. I want. I am content. I am ready to fall. And then when I am not, I am not, any of it.

No matter how much I say that Watt is not supposed to be my white dress man, he’s just my little black dress guy Now, I’m a girl. I’m more than that. I know what I want. I know what I am ready for. It’s more.

These ways I feel with Watt, they are not red flags to me. Not yet. They are simply flags. The color comes later. If the flags keep flying and more flags get planted, then a girl has had time tell her. That’s why only time can tell.

Another way I can say this is that when we are apart, there is so much of him I can feel being held back. The part Watt holds back, the part he may not even have to give right now, forget that it’s me, that’s all I need to fall. That’s all any girl needs. That’s what I’m not getting.

And that’s how it might happen (and this might be what I’ve felt from the beginning), even though I don’t want anyone else having my heart but Watt right Now, this is how some other man might steal my heart away from him. This other man will want me more. He will want a woman in his life more. He will want what I can give more.

This other man will want me. He will, like me, be ready.

I’d say more, and go into how I’ve had a weird feeling in my belly for three days, but why? I can chalk the weird feeling up to Watt being on a camping trip and me just feeling him further away, in physical distance and in connection. Get over it, girly.

Still, I want to be wanted more. I want to be where I am on that camping trip with him, where he wants me there. I want to be wanted even when I am not in the room. I want someone else to wash while I dry.

I don’t want to do it all on my own any more. I’ve gotten too good at doing it alone. I want to get good at doing it with someone.

Watt is a gift. But I’m ready for more…

I’m ready for FABULOUS! (Do you hear me, universe?!)

Men...

Okay, so here I am all ready to throw in the towel. I'm in this place where I have come to my girl conclusion that my annoyance w/ Watt outweighs my attraction and my connection to him (the waiting too long for calls, the: he's a guy...he's not getting my hints, or my out-right can-ya-do-this-for-me please pleas are getting old) and, then, he does it again. He's him. Amazing. Good. Beautiful.

He calls up, I hear his voice, I forget what I am annoyed about, or, I remember but don't care anymore (or, I'm sick of being a silly, insecure girl and I want to be the evolved me that doesn't have gender again) and I can make it another week or more with him. I'm not so annoyed. I'm suddenly planning a future with Watt once more and don't care our age, don't care he's not figured out how I tick yet, and don't care that it all between us doesn't work like a clock yet. Tick, tick, tick, pace, pace, pace, tock, tock, tock. Who cares, the minutes, the age, time...any of it.

Friggen men. Friggen me.

Thanks, Watt, for being you. I am reminded, as Watt even said, but in different words, he's just a man who doesn't know half of what we women intuit or freak out about and we gotta help them out. The way he said it: "Sometimes I'm a guy. We're assholes when we don't even know we're being assholes. (Oh, my Watt. Smile. You make up for it, don't you?)

But, to my credit, and what more so abated my festering energy, is that I blurted out what needed to be said. Well, no, I cleverly maneuvered and angled every point I needed to get across, for me. So that's all I needed and a lot of it (duh!) had nothing to do with Watt.

Another reminder: Nothing is personal. Most of what we can't handle is our own issue(s)/noise. And, we're here to learn, about ourselves and each other.

Thus, lesson not learned, yet, but getting it (more and more): We, our fear, not others, or their actions (or in-actions) are our own worst enemies. (Friggen fear!)

I did need to tell Watt, though, in so many words, don't f' with my intuition. I'm going to get shit and sense things, like it or not. (Trust me, dear Watt, it'll jack with me more than you.)

Which means, don't say you have a family birthday party to go to when you are going to a birthday celebration for a friend that is a girl. I don't care if you have friends who are girls. I'm 40. And, forget my age, I'm not insecure about other women. Never really have been.

Plus, and this is the point, I have mad intuition. The minute you said family I knew it was not a family thing, and I figured you said family so that I wouldn't be jealous or insecure. But, loud and clear now, with my intuition, knowing you said something that was not a complete truth, and not feeling threatened by the untruth, but knowing you switched up reality, that bothers me more than the reason you did it.

But, now Watt knows. He knows that I know, when he, or most folks, are saying something that is not how something is, I may not know why it isn't the way someone is saying it, but I know. Now Watt knows. That's all I needed him to know.

Of course, being that he is a man, I will have to remind him to just say what it is, how it is, when it is, and not change things around because he thinks that's the better/easier choice to protect me, or whatever. But, that's okay. The bulk of it is out there now, what I needed him to know, and the follow up is just doing guy-thick-headed maintenance.

There were a couple of other things I needed Watt to begin to understand, because I am me and while I operate like a girl, I also operate like me (not such a jacked girl), and I also got to communicate those things. So, I'm all good now. In fact, I'm great, especially when Watt reminds me, even means to convince me, that our age does not matter (without me even mentioning our age)

That makes me happy.

I could be wrong, but I when I hear Watt say that our age makes no difference, that, as he put it (as best as I can remember), "It's like there is no such thing as time when it comes to our age...it's as though we were meant to know each other, because we are so much alike, even if we were born so far a part," I feel he's not just saying that age doesn't matter, he's saying so much more.

I feel that is Watt's way of saying: Woman, don't go getting so here and Now on me and discounting what this is between us. I get insecure, too, and 'm doing a little bit of falling as well, so don't get ahead of both of us.

I feel him questioning and searching in me for the answers to the same questions I am looking to answer in him. I feel him wondering: What if this is not just amazing sex and awesome conversations and what if we have a future?

I am seeing Watt tomorrow...

So, I am going to be fabulous, and so well he be! (Oh, yummy, yummy Watt!)

Cube Living is the Best!

Okay, weird, but, funny. So, I had to share...

I had come to work, on what would have been my third day on this new job of mine—that I’ve now been in for a couple weeks, and I had thought I was alone. I was in early. (Gotta get that running start.) Not a single other soul appeared to be present.

I was wrong. I was not alone. I was definitely not alone.

Suddenly I can hear all kinds of bodily bedlam, mostly neck-up noises, coming from this guy. I can't see my new noise-making neighbor. He's either the cube dweller directly opposite of me, sharing the common cube wall, or, from what I can make out by how far away the sounds of the gurgle madhouse appear to be, I am thinking he could also be the cube just on the other side of the cube on the other side of me.

Either way, I knew he was somewhere tucked against the back wall of the office, like me, at the end of his respective cube row (whichever one cube row that is). And, unless I go strolling up and down the cube rows to confirm where he might be, which I had no intention of doing, I'm not going to see him and know for sure.

Shoot, can you imagine? Him, mid-cough, then, suddenly, there is me, standing upon him stupidly. “Oh… Hi? Err, uh, just wanted to make sure you weren’t chocking.”

Truth is, still haven't seen or named this nonharmonious human who is filling up the office air-space soup, this hell I’ve never been able to swallow, with his own special spice. Go cube living! It’s such a pleasure: spending 8 hours of your day with people you don’t call family or friends.

Anyway, I got the impression he was Asian by the sound of his noises. (Don't ask.) I know noises do not have an accent, or one would think they do not, and who knows the difference between an Asian man making a nose honk vs. a boring white-bread/European mut-mix girl like me snarling her nostrils, but in the first moments where his noises broke the silence, that’s what I’d thought: Hmmm…Asian, male, not tall. (Okay, so that describes half of the guys who I now work with, so I am not that clever, but still, there was an accent.)



Now, I've heard throat clears and people who are perpetual throat clear-ers. I've heard coughs. I've heard nose blowing. What this all sounds like coming out of him? Um, too much. He's got a virtual ear, nose, and throat symphony over there. It's a cacophony of grunts, sneezes, sniffs and barks.

I immediately thought, this whole discordance I've just been unwilling invited into (an invitation that will obviously be extended to me daily), these throat sputters, these allergic and/or nervous ahems, supported by variety of neck frog sounds he’s apparently trapped in his different hacks, is going to drive me nuts. I am going to jump out of the office window (that was supposed to be my office) just next to my cube. My only hope is to cut myself, as I break the glass on my way through the window, and bleed to death. Since, being on the first floor, I have no hope of dying from falling.

And, all morning, and the rest of that day, noisy-throat-guy’s neck hawks did drive me out of my mind. If I didn’t shoot myself, I wanted to shoot him. Or gag him, or do a number of things to him Alley McBeal might have done in a similar annoying office situation. I’d already imagine his head blown up a thousand different ways.

But the next morning, when I heard him at it again, and when I was just about to jump over the cube wall to tackle and muffle him for squeezing his nose into a tissue for the hundredth time, and for finishing off each squeak off with a yawn, or a sigh, or another ahem, or an eh…eh..Eh Ehhh!, out of where, and quite abruptly, noisy-throat-guy stops his own noises by starting a conversation.

Crap!? Is he schizophrenic, too? Is this another tick? How many personalities does he have in there? Is one personality doing the sneezing and another responsible for the coughing? I'm so screwed. What have I gotten myself into? I’m still working 9-5 in an office and now I’m being subjected to torture. WattatheF!

That’s it! I don’t want to work for a living any more. I hate people. I hate cube living. I hate noise from other people’s bodies if I am not sleeping with them. I hate florescent lights. My back hurts. This chair sucks. I want to go home. Where’s my lottery ticket?

And on and on my mind goes… Suicide is almost an option. There’s a 15th floor somewhere…

Joking aside, I know I didn't want to do mind numbing work anymore (like the last job with this company), but I had a corner before...to myself (well, almost to myself, spare the harmless enough, passive-aggressive, sexually promiscuous, pre-retiree who sat opposite of me, who had f'd with my allergies with her lotions and potions, and who pretended--when her music ear buds were in her ear, and the conversation wasn't about her--not to hear me talking to her).

Wait. Why is noisy-throat-guy talking so soft? Why is he questioning and answering himself. Aye, aye, aye. He really is not quite right. Uh, oh. No, no, no… Ah, man! He's just growled. And moaned? Now he's doing...? Whoa! Wa, wah, wait? Did he just say, "My baby?" Who's baby? Is he baby?
Sigh of relief. Ah. I see. He's talking to his baby. "Oh, baby. What you want?" I can hear him clearly speaking into a phone (now that I get that that is what he is doing.) He's asking, in a high pitched, but soft, voice (that squeaks like his nose), “What you want, baby? What you want me to do for you?”

As a reminder, we are now weeks into my new job, and I am here to tell you that these conversations with Baby go on 3, 4, 5, 6 times a day. Yet, over the weeks, somehow, having become armed with the knowledge that noisy-throat-guy is a soft talking, sex maniac who appears to be totally in love with his baby, I have come to kinda like my faceless throat clearing, trippy, possibly Asian, noisy-throat-guy.

He's good to his baby. He can go on with his quick throat chokes all he wants. I might want to kill him in another week or two, or on days I am extra tired, but for now, we're good.

Plus, and I could be totally wrong, I don’t think Baby is his wife. Of course, he may not even be married. But I’ve concluded that he is, or I’ve decided. Can’t decided which. Something tells me baby is his homosexual lover. That makes me like noisy-throat-guy even more. Edgy, Asain bad ass! Love that.

Oh, BTW, if I have it all wrong, if noisy-throat-guy does not have a homosexual lover, and/or is not cheating on his wife/girlfriend (or whoever the woman is he also talks to all day but does not call baby), and if for any reason my blog blows up and the people I work with find out about/read my blog, and try to figure out who noisy-throat-guy is and if he is, indeed, gay, let’s remember that I am a liar. I made this all up. There is no noisy-throat-guy.

Okay, there. The whole thing was a lie. I just didn’t have anything interesting to say today. And I love cube living. Who wouldn’t want to work in an office? It’s warm, and dry, and has controlled air. (My chair still sucks, though! Man, my friggen back is killing me.)

Keep being fabulous! (All of you, even my little sex-maniac noise maker!)

Whoohsy, Whooshy, Watt

So, whooshing away here still...with work, with the shitty neighbor's noise (they still haven’t gotten their F'n carpet yet. Jerks!), with life... But, I'm loving the good wooshes in my life.

Watt, Watt, Watt. Smile. Sigh satisfied. Oh, how I am dig'n this thing with Watt.

I am having fun. (I'm also a big ol' annoying girl, but we'll get to that.) Last week Watt and I laid in bed all night laughing about goat farts. Okay, so I am the one who brought up goat farts, and it was mostly me doing the laughing--hysterically, then Watt was laughing at me laughing uncontrollably.

I get into these laughing spasms, see, where something strikes me funny, and I can't stop myself from laughing. I am like a hyena on crack, or like a kid being tickled. It gets to the point where you don't even have to actually tickle me any more (meaning, you don't have to do the thing or say the thing that made me start laughing in the first place). You just gotta get close and act like you're going to tickle my funny bone, barely, or mention or motion towards me (just say the word "goat" and leave off the fart part) and away I go laughing for another five minutes.

Why goat farts? Um... probably because A. goat farts are funny, and B. because for some reason I started thinking about how my neighbor Chad (of the good-neighbor clan) had told me about something that had to do with goat farts, and I couldn't remember what it was, but, just the thought of something being funny about goat farts, even if I couldn’t remember what, was funny enough for me. (Again, ya just gotta get close...)

Turns out Chad's original reference was a line from the movie Reno 911. Some guy in the movie (I haven’t seen the movie, so I could be misquoting Chad’s quote) said something to the effect of: They smell like a goat that was raised in a fart. Now that's hilarious. After I asked Chad to tell me what the "goat fart" thing was, I wrote the line down on a post-it, so I could remember and tell Watt what I had been meaning to laugh about that night. Then, every time I walked by the post-it on my counter-top, I didn’t even have to read it over again. I just would just start laughing hysterically at the sight of the pale, yellow paper stuck flat and pushed up a bit.

This is where I am a spaz. What a thing to laugh about, goat farts, after you've just had one of the best org-- Err...wait. Still not at that point where I can do full disclosure here about every detail of my life, let alone my sex life (now that it involves someone else). As a writer, I think I still prefer to hide behind the fiction of a character's emotion and experiences instead of divulge my every truth as "my" truth, but I am inching my way there respectfully. (I might be a bit of a character, but I'm still real and a blog is very public, so whoa, there. Easy and slow does it.)

But, let's say that Watt and I do get to the point where I give him my blog address and I let him read away on what I've written about him and me, and about me exclusively (even if I'm still a total chicken sh!t of a truth teller and what I've divvied up thus far up ain't that much), I'm sure he wouldn't mind me saying that he is an amazing lover. (What guy would have a problem with that?) In other words, I don't have to go searching for my satisfaction. He's able to find it for me and deliver it with my body left blazing.

Oh, the talent that man has.

And his kisses, and those lips. I am so not done with being in love with his lips. That love affair started the day we met. I don't think I'm ever going to tire of those lips and he can thank them for us spending time together.

I'm sure a lot of the satisfaction I've been experiencing with Watt is probably also because of the connection we had from the beginning. Or, maybe it is due to the deepening connection we've been building--or that I am thinking we are building because I am a girl and we over-analyze EVERYTHING. (Yes, folks. This is why I like to write. I get to, in my own little way, put those obsessive girl skills to some good.) Either way, I've got no complaints about Watt and I. NONE!

LIAR!

Okay, we'll get to my lies in a sec, but I think I've reached the limit on what I have to say right now as it involves someone else were sex is concerned. I can't push it on what I’m comfortable with in the way of respecting Watt's privacy. So, that's that. The rest about this great sex is best kept between Watt and me.

Trust me, there may be other things that come up related to sex, which do not relate to Watt, that I will be willing to share plenty about. I've got no sexual hang ups, that I know of. (Well, I have always hated the P word--the one that you can call a cat--and have told every man I'm with, "Don't say that word unless you want to turn me off." Otherwise, sexually, I am healthy. Sex is healthy. It's great. Getting it is great. Getting great sex is even better. My advice? Yes. Get good sex.

Back to me being the liar we all know I am, I actually do have some complaints. But it's not about Watt, not exactly. Well, it is, but not he's a man (women complain about men, it's what we do). So... little known fact (or maybe I'm just the one finding out) them spiritual ones, the guys who don't sign up to life like most men, they are always intense and wonderful and passionate, But they are also living life on their own time, and so much in their own way, that they are annoying as hell. (Ava was a bit nicer when she put that little reality back out there for me. However, I so agreed that I had to punctuate just now in my own special way.)

But all this, it's me, more about me, about me being a girl, knowing what I want, not knowing what I want, wanting what I don't want, and wanting what I do want but am afraid to want.

Exactly. What the hell does that all mean? (F'n hate this girl stuff sometimes.)

On that note, not knowing what the what?, I don't know if it is where I have come to as a person (how I have grown), or who Watt is (how he affects me, or I him), but we seem to have a calming effect on each other all the while all this calm seems to be driving me nuts, too. That is to say, that when we are with each other I am calm. (Key clarification.) When I am not with him...

Regardless, I’ve not been behaving as I usually do when I’m in the middle of something with someone. Not yet, anyway, but I am about to!

Too vague? What do I mean?

Look, sorry. But, we're going to go through this a lot right now with this post, me being a little mushy brained on things and jacking up my points. Anyone who takes on a new man and job within weeks/months of each other is bound to get brain freeze and have their usual intelligence seize up a bit.

What I was getting at, am trying to get at, in the way of how I am different with Watt, is that by now I usually have to ask a man, or have already asked, by the 3rd date (or earlier): Where is this going? Are you seeing someone else? What are you looking for in a relationship? And on and on I need to ask. Alright, maybe I don't ask that soon, but I want/need to know.

Just gotta know, man. How do our worlds fit together?

After I ask my questions, I lay down my laws. I don't explicitly say this is the law. You need to call this much, or do this when, or don’t do that or else this. I hint at what the girl laws, what the "me" laws are. Then, once I'd put the can-ya-do-it-this-way (and read my mind while you are at it) playbook out there, I’d hope that my hints were understood.

Of course, with the few men I've shared me and my time with in recent years (okay, with all men), I’d have to stop hinting and start asking straight out. We all know, even the best and smartest of men are thick. Repeating hints never works. Again, men don’t get figure-me-out girl gray; they get black and white. Half the time they don't even get black and white. I'm not saying they are stupid, I am saying they are men and are wired different. Actual mental MacGyvers they are not.

You have to have to clearly state, and hang neon lights on it, what you need and want and figure out if your needs and wants can be met by the man in question. It needs to be clear: This hurts my feelings when…or I need this this way…or…or…

It's kinda like get'n what you want with sex. "Oh, yeah, baby. Do that. Faster. Slower. Now faster. (Can you say ROAD MAP, please!)

But I am not hinting with Watt. I've got no laws, no need to fit things into a template.

You know what? Sometimes, I wonder if Pinocchio is my twin. That wasn't even bold faced as a lie. It was pathetically transparent. Oh, I've got the laws alright. Girls never lose their laws. But, I haven’t felt as much of a need to lay them down. (My nose hurts.) More truthfully, I don't want to lay them down, yet.

I'm sorry, did someone just burn the fear patty cooking on the grill?

Part of the calm I feel is that Watt is just not the kind of man who'd double up on his dating or dipping. (Gawd, if I find out different, we're gonna smell something else burning on the grill.) So? Why ask what I already know in my knowing and what he's already said in so many words. He's a straight shooter.

And, while we've not gotten to the titles yet (you’re my boyfriend, I am your girl friend), or may never get to them, I know for certain that neither of us is seeing anyone else nor wants to. Correction, I might want to, eventually, or I do not want to now--it's about remaining open--but my remaining open is not what we're going with this tangent.

I can feel it building in me, though, this girl-need crap that's a come'n, with or without my consent. I really hate the insecurity that comes with having girl parts and girl hormones. But, I'm a girl. Suck it up.

I feel broken some times, being a girl, if you want the truth, since just cuz I am a girl I start leaking out of no where and don't know why the pipes have broken half of the time. That's why I am going to need this “guy I am seeing" to pee on me in some way soon. I am going to need him to claim his territory, to title me and/or to give me some kind of definition, or at least some indication that he wants others to know I'm his and wants to show me off as his. This way I can see if what we have going between us will keep working for me. Right now I'm questioning how much this is working. (Apparently, a girl just wants to be claimed, to know her guy wants every one else to know what great fish he's gotten.)

Mostly, I don’t mind taking it all as it comes with Watt. That's the truth. No lie. Sincerely. How could I not? So far I really like how it is coming. Yes, yes. I was referring to the sex, too, if you were wondering. Anyway, to that end, leaning into the way Watt's wind is blowing towards me, all I've said to him, in the way of hinting or girl-law laying down, is, "I am not going to expect from you. I will just react to what you do."

Basically, I let Watt know that I want him to do what he wants to do. I don't want him to do something because I've asked or implied that he should do whatever it is one way or another. I told him that if what he's doing, or not doing, ever hurts my feelings, or doesn't work, I'll tell him.

But, again, some things with him, they are not working. There are parts of us squeaking and clinking and clattering, like a loose party in the car rattling on down the freeway. You can ignore that sound for only so long. Eventually, turning the radio up doesn't cut it. But I've put off telling Watt we've got a rattle because I am afraid for things to change, for things to go away.

Yeah, I can admit it, I haven't had good, connected sex in over three years, here. (Damn picky chick that I am; it's my own fault.) You gotta give a girl a break for wanting to keep it up, especially when the sex is so satisfying, so connecting, so reminding of why it is that it's awesome to get to be human and exchange energy in that way.

I also told myself that if what he's doing or not doing ever hurts my feelings, and I’ve told him as much, and he keeps doing or not doing it, he'll see my towel thrown in. I just don't do B.S., or quietly fade to gray, and I can't go against myself and what I need, even if for a while I try to convince myself that I can. (That is the one thing I am unable to lie about.)

After all, part of what hurts is when we hold on to someone, or something in us, that we are afraid to loose. Loss is not always bad. In my experience, when we're less afraid, we don't hold on as tight. It's when we go against our deep desire to live authentically (ignore our need to live true to ourselves) that we start to cling, which then causes us to ache. Tightening our grip to something we know isn't good for us, or letting go of something that is good, perhaps because of fear, is, either way, ultimately the cause for most of our pain and grief.

That's why everyone who's gotten smarter than us always says: Let go. Letting go is letting in.

Think about it. Have you ever been struggling financially or were barely getting by in one way or another, but you'd never been happier? Or have you ever been busier than you've ever been but never felt more relaxed? In those situations, or in any situation where one might find themselves unexpectedly in a circumstance that, on the surface, would usually be stressful (yet, they were blissful), a person (most likely) is living authentically. Or their drunk, or high. And that makes everything feel good. Yeah?

Working towards, or on, or within something one loves makes a person feel balanced. Why wouldn't that make someone feel good? Being in sync with the universe and with one's purpose is the best feeling, ever!

That's why I think writing is my purpose. No matter what is happening in my life, or what I am writing about (could be the worst thing ever, like having sand rubbed in my eyeballs, or the best, like knowing what good friends I have), just putting words to paper and changing a comma around, then putting it back, and just knowing speil chck is sometimes a choice and a liberation of the ego when I don't do it, when I let go of perfection just so I can get a post out, it all makes my blood pressure go down. It makes me feel human to write, to feel the keys under my fingers and watch the words from my brain let loose on a screen. I feel like me. Good.

We all feel relaxed when we align ourselves with what really matters, do we not? When we respect our own personal truth, isn't that the best? One thing I can promise, with a lot of confidence, is that most of the time the things one thinks matter, don't. Not money, not prestige, not a title. Not unless those things are the by-product of the thing that really does matter.

Getting back to my Watt, and to what I think I've said before, I am of the school where all men should realize that a woman is easy as hell to get if she likes a guy and if he does the right things to woo her. But, after the guy has gotten the girl, he can’t just sit on his ass. He’s gotta keep on keeping on and keeping up to keep her.

Sadly, though, because men are built to spread their seed like a spit shot, a man, any man, will do anything to get any woman that makes his need to seed swell. Thus, as Ava and I were discussing, if a man is not at the place in his life where he wants to hold onto a woman and make her happy, if he's not in a place where he wants to settle down, he won't make any changes for any girl. He won't adapt.

The trick is, for the woman to like herself enough to know what she can adapt to and what she cannot while she's making her way to her readiness (whatever that means for her). When a woman is living true to herself (when she's all done crapping on herself) she's harder to keep when a man stops wooing her and/or when/if he starts doing all the wrong things.

Insecure women? Women who have not signed up to themselves, oh, a guy can crap in their lap and they’re still easy to keep if they like a guy enough. But the confident woman, the one who knows she is worth it and who understands that a man’s actions show her whether or not he gets how much she is worth, she hangs out her "No crapping here" sign. She knows that a man's actions show her whether or not the guy she is with is in the same place in life where she is

We've covered this. Thanks to Jen's dad, we know, without any doubts, that words can lie, but actions, they have integrity.

That's why it is important to know what one wants. And, if after one has communicated as much, if, after a couple of specifics have been laid out, a few needs and wants are communicated clearly, more gaps get gouged than comforts cradled--b'cause the guy obviously doesn't want to be the guy to support that's woman's beauty--white will go to black and the confident woman doesn't look back.

It's true. Just ask me. I've had my girl moments, but I've learned to be confident (even when I didn't feel it) and there always comes a point with me where if how I am getting treated starts going gray, I just cannot stay. I can't.

I have also learned that when it comes to letting a man know what the wrong and right things are, what will work for you/what will not, we all become rookies and go back to hinting. Duh! We’re afraid. We fear saying whatever it is, out right, because what if we don't get it?

What if we aren't good enough to get it? What if we know we're good enough, but we're afraid the guy won't know it? Yes, yes. If the guy doesn't know it, he sucks. But we're in girl town here, and girl town is crazy-ass insecure and questioning. So we test the waters. We see if the first couple of dips let us know it is safe to jump in, to take a real swim.

That's reasonable, though, easing into things, making sure there aren’t any bricks lurking below the surface that we might hit our head on if we were to dive in. But, eventually, hopefully, most women will reach a point where if the relationship they are having with their self first is a good one, that relationship will demand that they expect their other relationships to be just as good.

They say that home is where the heart is. Which to me means that a good home, the only true home, starts at the source (with oneself), not with the visitors. So if you let someone else into your heart, into your home, whether they are just visiting for a while, or planning to stay forever, they need to respect all the precious valuables in your home. ALL OF THEM. No negotiation.

My problem? I know how precious my heart is. I know how valuable the love I have to offer is. I know I am worth it. Still, I am human and I have fear.

BTW, I am well aware that I am repeating myself, and things, a lot, to get to what I am trying to say. For that, I am sorry. I think I am struggling here and this has become a little more journal than blog, but I am going to keep going to see what I am trying to come up with, and to become clearer on what I need that I am apparently not giving myself.

Okay, let me try to spin it again... When I am with Watt, in the Now with him, I don't need any answers. I have, right in front of me, everything I need to know in that moment and if there was anything I thought I needed to know before, to settle up, or to figure out, it goes away. I forget. Or, I don't care anymore. I know how I feel. I just want to be there, with him. I can feel him just wanting to be with me. When I am away from Watt my knowing doesn't need answers, either. Mostly. Well, it didn't need answers until recently.

Lately, some of my knowing has gotten clobbered by my girl and by my fear and by itself. My knowing has had the notion that Watt is not going to be around forever, see. And, I could be just reacting to fear. I don't know.

Ava reminds me that having that thought is bringing that thought and that outcome, and I agree, to an extent. Thoughts do become things as good ones and bad ones attract more good and bad energy.

But, in my humble opinion, thoughts aren't always pound for pound. For example, you think bad day so you get another bad day. Thoughts, to me, are more like you think bad day so your perception sees and feels everything in that day as being bad and so there it goes, it is as if nothing but bad comes your way that day.

But sometimes, as I've learned in my life, with my weird/good intuition, thoughts sometimes don't go away because the thought isn't a thought at all. The notion, the feeling, the pit in the gut(bad) or the gift in the heart (good) being experienced, it is one's knowing. It's like it was there, it was something else that existed on it's own, before it became a thought, too.

And that's where, as an extra day goes by (just one day too long that Watt doesn't call or text, where I don't know what’s up from down and I find myself mad that the precious little time we might have together is being wasted by his guy-ness. To put it out there, not as a thought but as a notion, I don't think Watt is temporary, I feel it. And, every time he does his stupid play-it-cool-guy stuff, I'm only reminded more of what I don't want to accept.

What sucks is, that once that time-too-long ticks with Watt, after that extra day spans, or that text isn’t returned soon enough, it's not just about my knowing, or a thought, or accepting what may be, or already is (or even accepting this could all be fear) I'm just, instantly, turned into a girl.

GIRL-GIRL! I am suddenly not fine any more. I go from being the girl who knows, or who doesn't, or who doesn’t need to know what’s what right Now, to the girl who wants her friggen answers. I become the girl with the ego who needs definitions to hold onto, who needs strokes to pad her ego. My ego starts to yell, "You! There! What's your name? Watt? You need to fill in some of my human gaps, eh?!"

It's like the sex is so good that the part of me which knows this is my polo field, those are my divots to fill, goes to goo and turns me into this girl who wants to go play with puppies and unicorns in the land of Watt. "Yeah, you, Watt! Be a big strong man for me, huh? Allow me to stop being conscious and to stop practicing at the every day of where I've gotten to (and worked so damn hard to get to) and just sweep me off my feet already! Come on, what are you waiting for?!!!"

Good gawd, everything evolved in me wants to obliterate the part of my physiology that is designed to procreate the species and is supposed to go to goo when two people get it on. Can't blame my thighs and my I got hot, though. Shoot, if we didn't get/go stupid because of sex we'd be extinct by now, we humans. Honestly. If we were smarter, less sex-induced/goo-brained, we'd never put up with each other's crap, would we?

Plus, I know it all doesn’t work the ego way. We can't just nail it down cuz we want it. (Although, there is plenty I'd like to put a hammer to.) But I start to want to box and label things anyway.

That pisses me off more than you can imagine!

Then, because I want more of Watt, more of us, these open girl ends start to cause my girl bottoms to drop out.

Disclosure: I’d fooled myself into believing that because Watt is much younger than I am, and because I haven’t yet felt that he is the one, that I'd not let myself need from him, I’d not let myself want from him as much as I might let myself want and need from a man who felt more like the one. I'd not let myself hope he was the one or become the one.

What a fool I am. Total idiot! Yeah, right!? Remember? I AM A GIRL! A SILLY, WALKING, TALKING GIRL! And I became capable of not being a girl when?

You know, if I beleive I am capable of stopping being a girl, maybe I should grab my puppy and see if we can round up those unicorns. Maybe we'll find a leprechaun, too.

Girl or not, we humans...we need, we want, and we let regardless of whatever restrictions we impose upon ourselves. That's the beauty of being human. We rarely get to choose what we are going to feel, no matter how much we think we can map it all out. That’s what gets us into position for learning... it is those clobbers, those beautiful falls and leaps. Our minds, or our hearts, or both, make a right when we thought we were going left.

Ava reminded me, and I thought she was magnificent for doing so, that we lead with our hearts. She's right. Imagine if we led with our brains, if ego (the brain) was at the helm instead of the heart (the core). We'd never get anywhere. We'd rationalize away, fear away, and stop any step that didn't support or stroke our ego. (F'n brains!)

That's what all this is about. I have been getting clobbered by Watt. He did something so nice then did a bit of a u-turn that it jacked me up. He didn't do an ass thing, not totally, he just acted like what he is: a guy.

He, as Ava also spelled out and reminded me, acted in the moment, then acted a bit different in another moment. That's what guys do, she went on. They're like dogs. They see a ball and chase it. A meaty bone diverts their attention, they go to devour that. The ball comes back, the bone can wait. Oh, now look, there's a cat. Screw the ball and bone. Get that cat. Oh, a girl dog, might want a different bone. (That was in the span of five guy minutes.)

Which is why I'd had no way of knowing how much it would mean to me to get the recent message Watt left for me, letting me know how much fun he’d had with me again and how much being with me relaxes him. He’d said our night/morning together had put him in such a good and relaxed mood the whole next day…

And I had no way of knowing how much it would hurt me that, when next we spoke, not soon after, he didn’t ask to see me in the middle of the week. He had said he didn’t want to wait too long to see me again, and had wanted to see m in the middle of the week. It was the last thing he said to me when he kissed me in the morning and went on to spend the day that left him so relaxed. And after his message later that night, letting me know about how relaxed he had been, etc., I thought for sure we’d make a mid-week date the next time we spoke.

But, no.

And that’s what I get for going and expecting, huh? Silly girl. Men react to what they are feeling in the moment. Dear, wonderful Ava reminded me of that, too. And, even though I usually know this shit, I can't seem to get enough distance on what I'm feeling. I've been blinded by the good sex and the spiritual, wonderful boy I started to want to be the one.

How could a girl not feel all wobbly? Why would I be different than any other girl? When you are in it (yes, Ava, you did so balance me with our conversation and remind me of this, too) you get all googly and girl lame.

BTW, oh how I am appreciating a great friend in my life right now (Ava) who can be a man for me. Well, who can remind me of man mechanics to get the perspective I need to get less girl gooey and lopsided.

Still... See me reacting to Watt just the same? See Jane stir, and growl, and fear, and be oh so f’n not accepting and instead more so pushy and weird? See Jane go whoa and feel her human-ness?

Sighhhhhh...

We've not known each other that long, Watt and I, if you think about it. So Watt seems to be the right amount of concerned for where we are at in this(this relationship?) right now. Yet, I moved in with Mr. Gold standard around this amount of time, so there’s that I shouldn’t be comparing my situation with Watt to. But I am, anyway, because that's what a girl does when her rationality is being clouded by amazing lips, and hope.

Hope is great, isn't it? (Oh, hope. Take a nap you bastard!)

A lot of what may be going on is that the courting style Watt’s generation has given him is starting to clash with the girl that was formed by my generation’s courting lessons. I was taught not to chase. That’s the man’s job. It’s his right. Therefore, I can’t chase. It’s like being taught not to be late, so I am not. But girls Watt’s age, they chase. They call boys more. In all my totally serious relationships, I never had to chase.

More crap. A girl never has to chase when it is the wrong guy. Whatever. Now is Now. I won’t chase.

But, I am trying to call Watt more. Chad said I should call him more and stop being so my age and so damn stubborn. I should at least call more than I’d ordinarily call a man at this point and throw him a damn bone. Yet, I'm finding it hard.

I am trying to find the balance between what Watt might need or expect from any girl (forgetting our 14 year age difference) versus what he’s been getting from a woman (me) who has been trying to unbind herself from an upbringing steeped in lessons from grandmothers, and women before them, who said the man is the hunter…let him hunt. I'm also the woman who has the whole actions/versus words thing practically tattooed on her chest.

I can't help but beleive this tattoo on my heart and on my truth. Black is still black and white is still white. If a guy wants to call, he calls. If a guy wants to see you, he asks. If a guy wants to make you happy, he does.

The whole truth? The extra-super-duper real truth, beyond the writer? I’m getting scared. Remember I said in the beginning that I had some ideas of how long this thing with Watt would last? I’d mentioned it, and I had said I had a few ideas, and I've gone as far as weighing thoughts versus notions, the knowing, but I have not said what those ideas were. Well, it’s coming out now.

Here it goes: I never expected, still don’t expect, Watt and I to last forever. Two people were never more suited, on so many levels, for each other. But, deep down, from the beginning (even though I’ve tried to ignore it) I’ve felt that our age is going to be our demise. Not because he doesn’t call me or woo me as much as an older man (near my age) might. Not because he wants society to take a flying F’, doesn’t pay some of his parking tickets, and refuses to have a job that requires him to sit in a cube. No! I love that about him! I love that we both secretly want to ditch all of our earthly goods and get out of the rat race.

My problem is, I am realistic. That's the point. I want a grown up.

Wait. Wrong words. Sometimes Watt is more grown up than me in some ways. Sometimes when I am with him I feel like his soul is older than dirt and I am just an old but newbie soul next to him. Damn, that is what attracts me to him, that he's not where I am, not as bogged down by the rules I've allowed society and responsibility to saddle me with and his soul gets things at his age I've taken 40 years to figure out.

Still, I’ve never had white-night syndrome. I can take care of myself. But, while I’ve never been a money grubber, or wanted to be saved, I want to feel like more of a girl around Watt. I feel like a girl plenty when it comes to our soul connection. But I don't get to feel like the girl in other ways.

What I mean is, part of what I adore about Watt is that he cares more about growing himself and his garden, and cares more about the world’s pollution problems than putting on airs, but my age, my understanding that life works slightly different than how you might want it to work sometimes, my being kicked around by life a little more at this point, and my having been forced to sign up to more responsibility than I care to because no one else has been on my team for a while, wants a teammate, and maybe even a bit of a team captain, and feels Watt may not be on my team.

I could be wrong, but I do not think he's not ready. Not for me right now, maybe not for any girl. He may know who he is, in his soul, but I get the feeling that he doesn't know who he is with someone else yet.

I need someone who is capable of a good volley, or who is capable of carrying the ball, stepping up (and providing the team with health insurance) if the ball slips out of my hand for a bit. I don’t want a hand out from the man of my dreams. I just want to hold his hand. I want us to do it together and I need to know that when life’s curve-balls come, my man has got my back like I’ve got his.

Right now, it feels like Watt would rather wash my back than get my back. (Sexy, but not something I can close my eyes and fall back to.)

Then there is the issue of kids. Watt and I have not talked about kids (whether either of us wants them). I can’t say whether or not I even know if Watt does want them. There was a quick exchange once that we'd had in a conversation (and I can't remember the specifics) where I got the impression from him that he does not want children.

But, Watt works with kids. That tells me that while he may not think he wants to have a child of his own (based on my impressions that could be wrong), or he may not want to start a family now, any man who works with kids is a man who is probably, eventually, is going to want kids.

Which means that by the time he’s ready for kids, or realizes that he wants kids, I am going to be too old to have them (whether I want them or not). Which also means that at some point he’s probably going to stop himself from letting go because down deep, even if he can’t put his finger on it and even while he has said, all along, “Age is just a number. Our bodies are just our shells,” his knowing knows, like mine, that our age and our state of readiness matters.

It shouldn’t matter. People say age is just a number. But, yeah. It's a number. Numbers add up or don't. That's why I really think our age is going to matter.

But, having/not having kids, our age difference, isn’t even the real issue I’m dealing with. What’s happening now is that I’m getting scared that I am wanting more. Not more than he wants right now (in the big picture way) but more than I think I’m going to get in my I'm-so-intensely-passionate way.

I know what Watt and I have more than he does. And this ain't my girl making shit up to make it seem more important than it is. I'm telling you, when Watt and I are together it's something special. That's why I don't care what the future is. That's why I am so basked in his Now, in our Now. I can feel the energy between us. (Remember? I am sensitive to those things.)

That's also why I’m mad that my gut, maybe even my intuition, which won’t sign up to what I want and what I can feel between us. I want longer than not that long. And not that long is what I have felt, from the beginning, was going to be my relationship with Watt.

I know sensing we weren’t/aren’t going to last for a long time really does sound like fear talking, but this is not my fear. What I fear is that no matter how open I want to be, and have become, I can’t and haven’t sensed something different than what I’ve been sensing all along. Watt is a blinking light for me, not a beacon.

That’s tough. It even sux.

Here I am, and my heart is being pulled forward by us. I am open and I am willing. I am not falling in love, but I am falling in and letting go and I’m wanting to fall in love and wanting, so much, for Watt to fall in love with me so I can fall, too, even if it is just for a short while. Everything in my realm of passion does not know how to hold back, especially when I can feel our intensity when we are physically present together.

I know part of why I need him to fall is to soften the blow of the gravity that has been dragging me away from him from the beginning, and I know I need to add to my short bus ego that doesn't care brain...heart, reason, just cares get stroked, come out on top. But no matter how much I want to feel like we’re going to last longer, it doesn’t feel that way.

I know that sounds weird, but whatever this is, this acceptance that he’s just for Now—a temporary gift—and not forever, that I’ve had, from our first date even, this desire to hold on tight to something that might have been meant to slip away before it was ever mine, is what and where I am reacting from, more than girl fear.

And every call of his that takes too long, and every action from him being held back, to all the words I can see him feeling but not expressing, just pile in together, like wood to a fire, to further emblazon that this-is-just-for-Now feeling I’ve had.

I want to be wrong so much. I want this to be some other kind of fear rather than a notion. I keep hoping I'll fall, he'll fall, I'm wrong about the tentativeness of it all, but I've had a right guy in my life before for a longer time, that's why I feel like this might be the right guy for shorter.

But I am not ready to give this up yet and every day I feel my self holding onto something slipping away.

It's like Ava and I were talking about. There comes that point in every relationship, starting, getting off the ground, for however long, where someone breaks. Someone has fallen deeper than the other person. Or, someone can't take the pace and wants to go faster, slower, whatever-er more. And, that's when it happens. Someone does a temperature check.

That someone is going to be me, and soon. I am going to break first. I'm going to need to address my authentic needs and say, "Hey! I want more with the right guy and if he is not you, well, shit!"

Yet, I am so afraid of breaking this thing because I have had that feeling that if/when I break it, there is no turning back. It will be done. It won't fade. I will have exposed a crack in how uncertain what we have is and everything will just fall through and drop off.

Don’t misunderstand me. I am not afraid of being wrong, or right. Whatever this is will show itself and end it self or grow it self. Plus, I’d love it if I was wrong and my sense for this thing with Watt were to change and become more than it is. Shoot, I don’t care age, babies, no babies, any of it. We are supposed to jump into our lives. Yes? So if you crack your head, you crack your head. Hell, no one ever hoped for less love in their life. Let's crack some heads and hearts and let the light in!

Yet, yet, yet... here I am trying not to break. Here I am convincing myself I can hold onto something when my holding of it is not how something keeps. Here I am trying to ignore what I might already know…

Even if I don't know, Watt is so beautiful, but all his actions are not that signed up. So, ouchy girl fear get'n bruised.

But, if my sense is right, if I have to give this thing up with Watt sooner than I want to, if I break, the crack will just shine more beautiful light in. I know that. I also know I will need that light to guide me further on my path, even if Watt won’t be walking with me anymore.

All right. Shit! F! Damn it! I know what I’ve been trying to figure out now. I know what all these repetitive thoughts and lame duck tangents have been about... It’s time to break. Let the light shine on in.

Let it go. Let’s do this thing and see what cracks!

I’ve got to jump in deeper with Watt to see how deep this can go or face the fact that this is not where I should be.

Oh, and while I am going to sign off with the usual: Keep being fabulous! (I know I am about to get even more fabulous by leaping),there has already been a development, of sorts, with Watt before I finished editing this post. Days go by sometimes before the start/finish of a post. But, I am going to post this post anyway, as is, and then get to the development when it finishes unfolding more clearly, and we'll see how how the folds lay themselves out.

Watt! WTF?! You are confusing right now.

When the whoosh is over...

And whoosh, whoosh, whoosh goes life and goes the acceptance that life is just one part of life. There is also death.

I know. These last few posts have been heavy. So heavy I haven’t even said, “Keep being fabulous!” as a closer. Sorry. I hope you know I still want everyone to keep being fabulous. Shoot, in spite of the heavy in my life lately, I still feel light and plan to keep being fabulous.

Anyway, I went with Jen to visit the place where, by way of a very dramatic and tragic accident, Jen’s father died last year. I’d get into the specifics on how Jen’s father died, and why this would be a place that we’d visit, a place that Jen would need to visit to get closure, but here again, my non-specifics are not only protecting the identity of others, and in this case respecting the privacy of Jen’s entire family (as Jen’s father’s death was high-profile), when you get down to it, again, sometimes details are not what matters.

When a person dies, when someone as amazing as Jen’s father leaves this earth and leaves behind so many people who will miss them, does it matter how the person died? Or does it matter more that the person is gone and that those left behind will need to begin accepting life without that person in it?

That’s what Jen’s family has been trying to do, learn to accept what life means without the man in it who was the center of their universe.

I do believe there is an order to all things, and that death is just as much a part of life as living (it’s just the hardest/crappiest part) however, that knowledge does not make the passing of a loved one any easier. We are never prepared to deal with losing someone we’ve loved, hoped after, and counted on.

As a side note, I may have already mentioned that it was Jen’s father who told me that a man should be measured by his actions and not his words. But if not, and even if, it’s important to mention that this imparted wisdom came at a time when I needed to mend from a 16 year old’s broken heart. Jen’s father, with a devilish grin of his face, had said, “Well, if you really want to know if this fellow likes you, just watch what he does not what he says. If his lips are moving, he could be lying. But his actions, they’ll tell the truth. You see…a man should be measured by his actions and not his words.” Then Jen’s father laughed, and the twinkle he was known to get in his eye, when he’s told you something that means something, showed up and filled the room.

I’ve kept what he said in mind all these years, realizing that the measure of all of us is in our actions. We can say so much. But, are we backing are words up by what we do? Are we acting in a way that allows others, and our selves, to respect us?

Jen’s dad, he was funny. Really funny. He was sarcastic, quick witted, dry, and wonderfully/playfully sardonic when the occasion called for it. And, he was ever present. He had the kind of nature which made him so willing to lend a helping hand, which meant he was always busy, as are all men of action.

That’s how I will always remember Jen’s dad, as a man of action who used his words wisely, lovingly, didactically, and as a man who lived, by example, as the kind of man other men call great.

Have you ever known a man like that, a man who others call great, a man men aspire to be? Those guys are usually in movies. But, those movies couldn’t be made if some man wasn’t the model. Right?

That’s why I cannot say enough about how much it sucked that I’d come down with that nasty stomach bug (I’ve already mentioned) the night before we were supposed to go to the crash site, to where the accident happened. Jen is one of my best friends in the world. She’s one of my soul mates. Jen is my family. There was no way I was not going to go with her to support her, but I felt like I was going to puke the whole drive there.

Shit, I’ve felt like I was going to puke an awful lot lately. Harrumph.

My at the ready for throwing up is why I got the front seat (it reclines) while Jen’s husband drove. It took us over an hour, and several road bumps and wheel turns, to get there. (Fun.) Sadly, I wasn’t as emotionally available to Jen as I’d wanted to be. Both my physical and emotional spirit were low. But, there was no way in hell I wasn’t going to, at least, be there physically for Jen. Even while Jen, seeing the green of sick still on my face like a bad zombie paste, told me she would understand if I didn’t go, I was more than willing to brave what would have been the 16th stomach upheaval if that was what it was going to take to be there.

There was even one point where Jen apologized that I felt so bad (as she’d given me the bug and had had it a couple of days earlier herself) and I wasn’t having it. “Look,” I said, “The potential for me up-chucking again, and me feeling like crap, fails in comparison to what you’ve been going through with losing your dad, so I don’t want to hear another word about you feeling bad for me. Get it, love!?”

The emotion of visiting the crash sit didn’t catch up with me until a couple days later, when I was telling a co-worker (who had known I was going to the crash site with Jen) about the visit. Fortunately, for both me and Jen, my stomach had decided not to turn itself inside out anymore that day or again thereafter as while I recuperated from the flu bug.

I did have to put off seeing Watt for an extra day to make sure I didn’t get him sick, though, but…there is another failing in comparison thing.

So, the point to this post, and talking about this whoosh, is not grand. It’s simple. Sometimes shit is hard. Sometimes we loose people we love. Sometimes it’s hard to get our bearings back. But, for whatever it is that knocks us off, chances are there is something just as good that is putting us back together.

No one can make sense of death. There is so much to life that isn’t easy. But, how lucky are we to have known the people we’ve loved before they go, and how lucky are we that we get to even complain about the stuff that’s hard.

Some of the whoosh in life, even when the whoosh is over, is still pretty amazing.

That’s the living part. We’re doing it.

That's fabulous!

When life goes wooosh... Just let me grow!

So, recently there has been another whoosh in my life. I alluded to this other whoosh in my last post, and this whoosh is what I said I thought was responsible for the nausea I was feeling on my first day at my new job. But, no. First day nausea, as we’ve established, was an epiphany…it was totally unrelated to this other thing (which I am gonna get to) which also made me feel like I wanted to puke.

Here goes…

I was supposed to go to this get-together with a bunch of people recently. I couldn't go. When I say I couldn't go, it wasn't because something came up. I couldn't bring myself to go. The whoosh of that, the deciding if I could or couldn’t go, would or wouldn’t go, the reasons why I wasn’t sure if I was capable of going (or if I even wanted to test my reserves at all), felt more like a clobber. This other thing had gotten to my gut, and still totally hasn’t left, like there was a target on my belly for a boulder to drop.

(BTW, don’t get sick of the word “whoosh” yet, even if I am over using it. If I get to it, I’ve got some more whoosh to post about and I’ll be referencing and calling these things some whoosh, too.)

Anyway, there was someone who was going to be at this get-together who I have some bad history with. No part of me wanted to see this person. I've forgiven this person. But, as they say, forgiveness is not for the forgived; it's for the forgiver. So this forgiver, me, well, no matter how much forgiveness is in my heart, as my forgiveness towards this person comes from a place of understanding, there isn't any room in my life for this person at this time.

To be honest, there may never be room for this person in the future, either. I am okay with that. The energy that comes with sustaining a relationship with this person is not energy that I want, nor can handle, in my life.

I'd go into what the bad history is, and who this person is, but does it really matter? Toxic is toxic.

When the thought of someone, or something, or some circumstance having to do with that someone or something, causes more than what can be described as a negative physical or mental reaction, but causes a ripple that pushes the air out of you so intensely that it feels like you are being sucked under by a crashing wave and might drown, why would you willingly invite more of that energy into your life?

Look, I may have it wrong here, but I've gotten to a place where I worked through and/or accepted what has happened to me (with this person and with many other things in my life). And, I wouldn't change any aspect of what has transpired with me and this person, because I am who I am because of everything that has happened to me (which includes my experience with this person). I wouldn't change any of me that I am Now! I live without regret.

But, I don't need this person in my life and I would tell anyone, without hesitation, who has a questionable person, or an unacceptable circumstance, in their life to extricate that presence.

If that still doesn't make sense, let me put it this way. Let's say you pour acid onto a living plant. (Yes, we’re back to plants. Truth is, I’m a plant junkie and have an insane succulent garden as evidence, so the living thing, the plant reference, works for me.) Let’s say that even though you pour acid onto this plant, the plant lives. It even grows a thicker branch where that plant was scarred by the acid.

Does that mean you should keep pouring acid onto the rest of the plant to add new scars, to see how tough the plant can get? Should you see how much acid you can pour onto the plant before it dies? If the plant does not die should you see if you can get the plant used to dealing with smaller then larger doses of acid before it’s too much?

NO. The plant can choose water instead of acid to feed from.

No acid for me, thanks.

So, I didn’t go to the get-together. I had someone close to me tell everyone that I was just getting over a bug and that I needed to rest up before starting my new job. It wasn’t a total lie. I had had the meanest stomach bug a week prior, and had had with that bug the worse chills of my life. I did still feel like crap and was a bit stomach jacked by the bug and the new first day on the horizon.

Then, what did the person, who I didn’t want to see, do? They called me on my cell phone during what was to be my first day at work and said, “Hey, so you weren’t at the get-together and I thought I’d call you to congratulate you on your new job…bla, bla, bla.”

(Um, so wanted to kill the person who gave this person my cell phone number. Turns out, that everyone’s current contact info was passed out at the get-together.)

When I heard their voice, though, and realized it was them, my gut went sour. No part of me had wanted to hear from this person (Duh!). Just as much, more, of me, didn't want to hear from them at work, or on my cell, or in my day, or in my life…in any way.

F! Who the hell calls someone in the middle of what would be their first day at a new job to say, "Hey, you weren't at the get-together, so..."?

Really? Brain cells of a gnat! And, who calls someone who A: they have bad history with, and B: who hasn't returned their calls in almost 10 years? Brain cells of a dead gnat!

The sound of this person’s voice gnawed through me and turned my insides out worse than the stomach bug had done, just a week prior, which had me puking my guts out more than 15 times. At the same time, I couldn’t feel. (Natural protection mode, I suppose.) I was pretty non-responsive, mostly dumb and silenced struck by hearing their voice, which at first I didn’t even recognize. Within less than a minute, they got the hint. I wasn’t happy. I didn’t want to talk to them. They concluded the call.

After they hung up, I went out and walked along the tree path I always walk along at work during breaks, the one I’ve mentioned before with the gorgeous shadows from the tree leaves which speckles the sidewalk gray and white. I wanted to try to figure out how I was feeling. I didn't know if I needed to cry or scream, or neither. I was so blown away by having their voice in my day that I couldn't react at first. I felt the kind of numb where you know you are numb, but the numb is so heavy that the weight of its nothing is worse than a punch, worse than a boulder to the belly.

The only thing I could think to do was to register the number they called me from in my cell so that I'd never accidentally pick up again. But that was not good enough. Suddenly, I thought: I can’t live this way. I can’t try to avoid them and hope they know I don’t want to hear from them. I can’t control life. I can’t control people. I can’t control. Period. But I can try to take as much of my power back as is possible.

So I called this person back.

I said, "I need to be fair to you and I need to let you know where I am coming from. I forgave you. I told you that, years ago. However, while I have forgiven you, it does not work for me to have a relationship with you at this time. That would create too much imbalance in my life. I cannot say if this will always be the case, but this is how it is now. I hope that you do not live your life with any guilt for what has happened, for what you did to me, because I do not blame you. And I hope that you can believe that I truly have forgiven you. But, again, because I need to take care of myself I need you to know that I am not interested in having a relationship of any kind with you. This means I do not want to hear from you again."

This person responded in a tone that was kind but sharp (understanding had set it), and said, "Okay. I guess I will just wait to hear from you when you are ready." "Yes," I said.

"Okay, then. It's been real," they said and then hung up.

When I heard the deadening of the phone line, a smile that was not a smile pursed my lips. I wasn’t happy. I still didn’t know how to feel. But, I was satisfied. I’d taken the direct route. Instead of trying to get someone to figure out how I was feeling (by avoiding calls, by never being physically present anywhere they were meant to show up) I told them directly that I didn’t want them in my life.

That felt right. That felt powerful. That felt stronger than hoping they’d get the hint.

Again, it doesn’t matter what the details are of all the things that transpired with this person. What matters is the extent of the grief that was brought to me. What matters is how I was affected. The course of my life has been so altered by the culmination of events that transpired because of this person that the weight of hearing this person’s voice in my day bought (even if only for a second) the thought that, F! This is hard. I’m not dig’n being human today. Break, please?

It wasn’t a suicidal thought. But it was definitely a split-second, intense desire to return to my original form, to lose this damn human body and mind that hasn’t yet become conscious enough or strong enough to not be affected by certain past experiences that have gutted me.

I’ve done an amazing job at being who I am, at being this person who has flourished in spite of things that have happened to me that can kill a person’s spirit. But part of why I’ve grown so far forward is because I know what grows me and what can kill me. I avoid the things that suck life out of me. I know certain avoidance is smart, not unconscious. For some things, there is just simply no need to figure out how to build up more scar tissue.

Would you ask a woman who is being abused by a mate to stay, to take learn to take the punches better, to figure out how to get tougher to receive the blows? No. You’d tell her to leave. Effectively, that’s what I’ve done. I’ve walked away from a relationship that threw too many blows my way.

You see, we aren’t weeds. We’re strong, but we don’t have to force ourselves up through cement and limit ourselves to existing between cracks and between hardships. We are more like plants. We need the basics: We need love. We need sun. We need food and water. Thus, we don’t have to be forced to thrive in an environment that crushes our love, darkens our sun, spoils our food, or droughts our water.

This much I know.

Let me grow. Let the seeds of my lessons spread to the wind like morning glory and then let me come back to me so that I can find myself in each new spring. And if I find that bricks have been laid upon my chest, let me find another way to my flowering. Let me decide how to turn over each of my new leaves, as this is my life, this is what I have to give, not what someone else is allowed to take. Let me grow…

When life goes wooosh... 9-5 SUX!

I feel like it's been a year since my last post. I also feel like my life has gone whoosh. There has been so much change and intensity swirling around me, and this shifting of things (internally and externally), this path I’m on, appears to have such a forward force to it, with no letting up in sight anytime soon, that I’m not sure if I’ve got up from down back into my knowing yet or if I even will get a balance on things for a while.

As a side note: You might recall that I disclaimed some time ago that I wasn’t going to be freaky-vigilant when it comes to spelling errors and/or mis-grammared spots in this blog. That still holds true. My continued apologies for that, for what will inevitably be some mis-spelled/mis-grammed doozies to come, and for what will likely cause your head to cock to the side as your ear reaches toward the sky and your brain goes: WHUT?!

My sincerest apologies to those folks who feel like nails are grating against a chalkboard when things are off that way and periods and commas go missing. It’ll probably hurt you more than it does me that my writing is out there, dangling, without propriety to protect and respect it and you. But, you must understand, were I to reserve the kind of diligence and energy required of a perfect blog post, and then, and only then, post, well…my blog posts would start to spread out over weeks then months (much like the efforts on my book have been). Put simply, I am lucky to get this all out right now and to get the next few posts out with what little energy I seem to have left.

Anyway, with everything, in spite of everything, going on, I haven’t stopped laughing. (You gotta laugh.) I can admit, though, that recently some of my laughs have had holes in them. Have you ever seen how the leaf of a plant looks when a caterpillar, or some creature, has been snacking on it and has left it full of holes? The plant still seems healthy enough. It’s still green. It’s still growing. (Growing is good.) Its flowers, the most vibrant representation of the plant’s life force, might even have narrowly escaped being nibbled upon. Nonetheless, something has been eating away at the plant. That’s how I feel. With everything going on it is like the winds of change and circumstance are blowing through my holes. The affect of this has me starting to sway a little differently.

This is not bad. It’s all good. Everything is good in the end, even when things get tough and tiring. But, it’s all a lot. Minus the plant analogy, and to just put it in plain English, I’m getting a bit worn down. And that’s fine. Change can take it out of anyone. Even if I am the one who invited most this change, it’s still change.

With change, things are being made different; they are being altered. And when a metamorphosis of any kind takes place, no matter how profound or seemingly insignificant, the conversion requires energy. Whether something broken is being corrected, something physical is being altered, something spiritual is being transmuted, or something conceptual is being reformulated, all the characteristics and circumstances surrounding each stage (physical, mental, or moral), are either degenerating or regenerating, or, often, they are doing both, in order for the transformation to occur. And that’s what I am feeling, the pull in many directions as some things degenerate and others reformulate.

I am especially feeling this with work. Objectively my mind is saying: Yippee! I’ve just started a new job. This is a great change! Once the exhaustion, brought on by everything that starting a new job entails, dissipates, I’ll be good. Right? All I have to do is get through the learning curve.

Hate learning curves. Hate those 3-4 months (minimum) it takes to feel effective in any new job. No one feels like they are a bad-ass the first few months and they never feel like they are kick’n any ass for at least a year. Plus, it really does take about a year to learn your job well enough and effectively enough so that you can start to figure out how not to do your job for part of the day. You know, until you can start having time to do what’s really important: Personal email checking, bill paying, errand doing, personal anything-doing. (No, not really. I’d never do anything other than work at work. I have way too amazing of a work ethic for any of that. I only mention it because I hear that’s what other people do.)

Perhaps what I love most about a new job is the inevitable stress that comes with having to prove oneself again. Yeah, that love affair, the need to affirm that you’re worth your professional salt, which is really just a variation of the learning curve, where your ego comes out to play and reminds you that it wants to get stroked (mostly, it doesn’t want to get battered or shattered) is a love affair I can do without. Toxic love. Keep it.

Frankly, I am sick of jumping through the kind of hoops you have to jump through in a new job (or at any office job). I don't want to feel like I need to be learning things better and quicker anymore so that people will see why I was hired in the first place. Plus, I just did the proving myself thing less than two years ago for my previous job. That is so not a long enough time ago to have to deal with the unavoidable humanity/ego-reality of trying to be good enough in a job situation again

Yeah, yeah. I wanted this job. I am glad I got it. But, I am still making the point, being new in a job sucks. You cannot deny that.

What should also be a lot of fun for me in the weeks to come is the re-acquiring of all the on-the-job comforts, both creature comforts and the need-this-and-that-to-do-my-job comforts. Sure, it’s just an ergo keyboard and mouse, a chair that won't hurt my back, it’s some highlighters and pens, some tape and a dispenser, a stapler and some staples, a bunch of folders and holders, and a refrigerator location for a home-packed healthy lunch, and, it’s just all the quick tools on one’s various softwares (the short cuts that took months and specific tasks to create and build-in convenience and effectiveness), but...it’s keyboard, a mouse, a chair, some highlighters and pens, some tape and a dispenser, a stapler and some staples, and a bunch of so on, that I have gotta get/find again, or ask for.

For some reason, asking for supplies as a new person in a new job is a weird, uncomfortable position to be in, at least for me it is. It's like asking people to give you stuff when it is not your birthday. Just weird. You always feel like they are going to deny you, like you don’t deserve it because it isn’t your birthday or Christmas, though I’ve rarely been denied for a work supply. So? What’s my problem?

I equate the trying to get one’s environment set up again in a new job (this whole trying to find the place where you aren’t subconsciously holding your breath on every new or same task) to be like trying to do something as simple as going pee, but, because the toilet keeps moving on you every time you try to sit down and relax to release your bladder (a very basic need), you gotta figure out how to bolt the damn toilet down so you don’t pee on your feet and/or no one sees that you had an accident all over your pants and shoes. Except, where’s the bolts? Where’s the wrench? Where’s the friggen toilet in the first place? And, oh, shit…really gotta pee now. But, can’t. Not just yet. Not conveniently. Not easily. Not automatically. Gotta get shit set up first.

New jobs also come with what I call “the exchanging of the assholes.” That’s the abridged description for saying that every place has jerks (fellow co-workers/bosses) that you have to learn to work with, or, or around. You always hope that when you switch jobs, and have to exchange your old assholes for a couple new assholes, that you loose an asshole along the way. But you never know. I’ve said it before; assholes are everywhere. No matter how positive you are or how much you look for the good in others (I’ve had my share of being called Polly sun-shine), it’s always a good thing when less assholes are around.

Unfortunately, assholes flourish where power, prestige, and the need for control exists. The partitioning of people (cubing folks off so they can pay for their life) is a perfect breeding ground. Think about it, every person who shows up for an office job, who isn’t made for it (like me) is essentially trying to make due with an environment that can be likened to the segregation/caging of animals who are waiting to die in a kill shelter.

Too harsh of a comparison? Is it? Really?

One of the good things that I am looking forward to in this new job is that I am going to be going from doing mind-numbing work that makes me want to rip my own eyeballs out (what I did in my previous position) to doing the kind of work I prefer to do, which is training work (my chosen career path). But, did you notice that I said “prefer” rather than “want’? I did.

What’s also nice is that I am not having to go through the whole health/retirement benefits change thing, as my new position is with the same place I work for now (just a different division). That’s also a little tough in some respects as I’ve also been warned about who my potential new assholes are. (Oh, help me, I am mental right now!)

What sucks is that I was told, and shown, what was to be my desk. I was supposed to get an office/window seat but ended up in the cube just outside the office that is no longer mine. I’m not a person who needs prestige. Who cares about an office? For me it was about the need for a window to help my deteriorating eyes—which are getting worse because I’ve not had a distance point to refocus on for some time now. It was also about needing the window so I don’t kill myself.

So, there’s that. Once again, just like the last year and a half, I’ve got cage walls, err, gray cube walls to serve as my view for the next…? Yup. “I got the corner office,” as they say in the movies, turned into, “Shit. I sit right outside of the office that's not mine and the dude who got this office is positioned just so, that if he looked up from his computer, in any direction, by at least a centimeter, he could watch me work all day.”

Perfect. Someone who gets to watch me slowly die. (Okay, that one was supposed to be funny.) Seriously, though, I don’t care how nice this guy is (and he seems to be a gem), I don’t want to be positioned with someone on my back for 8 hours a day. Do you?

Do you want to be in a desk where at least 10 people can watch you come and go for the day, for lunch, to go pee? Just checking. Just driving my point home.

Does it sound like I am complaining? I am. Why? Mixed feelings.

This job is everything I’ve wanted (in the 9-5 way) for the last year and a half, ever since I got the last job and realized I wasn’t actually hired to be a trainer and ever since I figured out that I was in hell because I was doing work that sucked (beyond) and doing this work for a micro-managing power mongrel who is the most insecure, lost person (who makes others miserable to make up for the self doubt and misery that he/she has obviously been plagued with) that I’ve ever worked for.

So, I figured, if I have to work, which is a necessary evil (we’ve established that), I wanted to get back to doing the work I’ve mostly enjoyed doing. If I have to fulfill the work obligations that leading a responsible life requires, and show up somewhere 8 hours a day so I can pay my rent and buy my groceries and get the f’n prescriptions my crappy genetics require me to take daily, than let me do something I am good at and let me do it in the best possible atmosphere.

But that’s not what has appeared to happen. I’m telling you, I’ve never had the experience that I had at the first day of this new job as strongly as I had it, and it had nothing to do with this job. I really did feel like a caged animal. I wanted to throw up. I am not kidding.

But, again, I’ve been feeling this way for the last five years (okay, 20 years, ever since I started working). But, this feeling, that I do not belong in a cube has gotten stronger ever since I started my book, started writing, and realized that’s what I want for me. I don’t want to fulfill the need to sustain my life by working at a 9-5 office job. This signing up, doing what’s necessary, has been slowly choking me. On the first day of this new job, I felt like the noose got so tight I couldn’t breath.

I guess that’s one of the advantages of 40 years. You know the difference between first day jitters and an epiphany. I’ve had first day jitters. I’ve written the book on first days, and first weeks, and new jobs, and… With five layoffs under my belt and just as many crappy bosses that I’ve started new jobs to get away from, I know jitters.

This wasn’t jitters. It’s not just the work or the bad bosses anymore or being in a cube where some dude can stare at me all day. It’s not even an inability to accept the necessary illusions in life, such as working for a living. What’s happened is that the realization that I have accepted this illusion, this necessary evil, so fully and so responsibly that I’ve built a career around this illusion, makes me want to puke. This understanding now makes me so off balance it’s almost knocking me on my ass.

At first, I thought the feeling I was feeling had to do with other things going on in my life, but then I realized that don’t want a career. Not a 9-5 one. I want a life, even if that means being poor.

So now I have to figure out how to do something different (than working in an office) while I am trying to make my dreams come true. Because this hell I’ve learned to accept, where I have to show up to some place where I’m required to wear a bra and wearing flip flops or pajamas isn’t acceptable, at all, is starting to get too hot for me.

Not living authentically is starting to burn and leave blisters. It’s like I am living out the cartoon version of myself and I might really rip my own eyeballs from their sockets because the stress of being so unfulfilled is making it hard to see straight (literally and figuratively).

But this is good, that my first day caused this reaction in me. This means that I will no longer be able to ignore the whispers of the universe. Every bad boss was a whisper. Every job that made me feel like I was getting further and further away from my purpose in life was another whisper.

So Now, when this new job, a job where I will be working with amazing people (which includes the friend who referred me, another great resource and giving professional who only wants to see me succeed, and an apparently great new boss) is offering me the same type of work I’ve been most fulfilled in, yet on my first day I didn’t feel nervous but, instead, felt nauseous, like someone had punched me hard in the gut, it’s time to accept that I am in the wrong place in life. That feeling, that’s not the universe whispering. That’s being yelled at.

The universe is saying, loud and clear, don’t let yourself get comfortable, dear. Don’t get lazy or forget your dreams or let this job slow down your real passion. You’re gonna like this new job, and that might be a problem, more of a problem then the jobs you didn’t like. You might settle for three, gray cube walls again instead of working towards having a window in your own home to look out of while you are getting paid to write. You might get trapped by your fear again, and you might let all those things that you are afraid that you won’t be able to pay for (thyroid medication, rent, food, new shoes) keep you from figuring out a way to do something else, other than 9-5 (which you know leaves you with little energy for your passions).

If only I could figure out something else that would make me feel less drained and that would give me enough dough for health insurance and rent while I am working towards my dreams, doing what I love.

There’s always Mexico, a hut, cheap prescription drugs, the sand, the beach? Why not?

Exactly. I am chicken too shit to do Mexico alone. I’d need a partner (a lover) to lean with to make that big of a leap. Then there’s the freelance thing or the selling my art at craft fairs on the weekend. Still too chicken for that kind of instability. I’m too responsible, damn it!

Damn, the frig IT!

Sigh. I’ve gotten the message, dear universe. Now what?

Shit.