This Year’s Grays Recapped and Some Self Discoveries

Well, the year sure started out well. I was employed and involved with someone casually in the beginning of the year and felt like things were on the upswing. As the year progressed, I lost my job and the casual relationship became a bit less casual, until it got really great and fun and then inexplicably ultimately it crashed and burned. While I knew what I was getting into I never imagined it would be something so difficult to recover from. Thankfully I got a new and better job around that time otherwise, I’m not sure how well I would be doing today.

When you have spent your forty-something years being mainly concerned with self-confidence, independence and career success it doesn’t really feel that important to have someone else in your life to share it with. I have good friends and a decent support system, and that was enough for me. Now and again I would be involved with someone here and there and think, well, that’s a nice bonus to my already pretty good independent life. I can’t say I’ve had a relationship quite like the last one before where the person was over all of the time and helped with so many things, and I didn’t realize how hard it was going to be to give that up. I spent so much of my life proud of being independent up until then, that I didn’t realize how much I was missing out on relying on someone else to do stuff for me. Mind you, I just came to this conclusion while I was washing the dishes, and this guy never did the dishes, so I’m not sure why this was the magical moment that made me think of this.

What I’ve come to realize about myself is that I need to be working. It’s important to me in so many ways to be doing something I enjoy doing, that I do well, and that allows me personal and financial independence. While my current job does, or will do soon, all of those things, there are things in my personal life that I absolutely hate doing, most notably the bullshit around the house. I hate coming home and having to make something to eat. I love to cook, don’t get me wrong, and I’m good at it, but it would be nice to come home and have stuff done for me. If you’re paying any attention, you know where I’m going with this I’m sure. I need a househusband. I want to come home to clean organized house, and I want the trash taken out, and the dishes done, and my clothes laundered and the bed made, and the floor swept. Is this a bad thing to want? Is there anything wrong with wanting someone to hand you a cocktail when you walk in the door? Now, the last guy, while he was over a lot didn’t do that much around the house… but he did reach the stuff on the top shelves for me and he did carry my laundry up the stairs for me. Otherwise, I’m pretty sure he wanted the same thing as I did, which was someone else to do crap around the house, which neither of us wanted to do.

Thank g-d for my OCD roommate! We are strictly platonic, mutually so. However, he works out of the house and does all that crap I hate to do! I have never had so much counter or table space as I do now. I set something down on the coffee table, and if I’m not quick enough, it gets scooped right up! It’s nice. He does the grocery shopping, and all I have to do is loan him my car so he can run his own errands too. He takes out the trash and he takes turns with me doing the dishes. It’s great. So, what I realized between the last guy and my roommate is two things. I enjoy having company around the house. I like coming home to a little bit of activity. I like having stuff to do.

What I also realized is that I don’t need the kind of constant activity that I had with the last guy. While I miss him now and again, and while there are a lot of things he made it hard for me to do without getting sad, listen to certain kinds of music, watch certain television shows, play yahtzee or backgammon (yes the actual games and the other…), I don’t miss him being in my face all the time. I don’t miss him following me to the bathroom and never having a moment of privacy. Sometimes it was fun, but sometimes it was like – dude… get outta here. I don’t miss his endless diatribes. I don’t miss his ADHD, I don’t miss him demonstrating martial arts moves, etc etc. All of those things were entertaining sometimes, but now that I have a little peace, and some really good full nights of sleep, I recognize it really was a bit much to take.

What I know now as a result of this past year’s drama is what I want in addition to what I don’t want. It seems like at this age it should have been a lot more intuitive, or simple to figure out, but it isn’t that easy. Sometimes you have to experience the extreme of something to know how much of it is too much, or how much you are missing.

Anyway, it was a rough couple of months, so I couldn’t write anything without being full of emotions that I couldn’t organize or contain, so now that I have regained the ability to find the humor amid the bullshit… I wish a wonderful, happy and healthy new year to you all!

This Month’s Gray: The End of an Error

Sometimes you just have to cut your losses.  Let me start this by saying that The Boss and I are still friends and he still does business with my roommate, so it’s more complicated than it really needs to be.  It is so much easier to move on when you don’t have to confront the situation you are trying to put behind you every day or two.  I do feel like he made it more uncomfortable than it needed to be and did not handle it like an adult.  Here is where the younger man falls short.  It’s a maturity issue.  Somebody forgot to teach this kid respect for other people just for the sake of getting through life on a day to day basis, let alone with personal relationships.  Not to blame his parents, I don’t know them, but I tend to wonder if they didn’t just give up trying to discipline him because they couldn’t figure out how to deal with him. 

I don’t know how to describe him really except to say that he is a user with no conscience.  I think he actually might be a sociopath.  No, he’s not dangerous or anything, he just somehow got it in his mind that people are disposable.  So when he doesn’t want to hang out with a person or talk to them he just disappears.  This is where it gets weird with us.  He can’t just disappear this time.  We have a potential business relationship in addition to the business relationship he has with my roommate.  Essentially, it’s potentially going to put a few hundred bucks in my pocket every month, which I could surely use!  It will save money for the client, who would be a relative of mine, and everybody wins.  I believe he’s good to his word here and won’t screw me over in this case, but I honestly don’t care if it happens or not.  If it does, great for me, and if it doesn’t, that’s all fine too.  Nobody gets hurt either way.   Because of this, we have to talk sometimes, and he is in contact with a family member of mine, which is fine as well.  This person isn’t going to enter into this business lightly and just for my benefit, it will only happen if it is a good business decision for him, which makes me happy.    

Anyway, with all that said, he also is friends with my roommate and he hangs out at our place from time to time, which is how we met last year.  It has always been very casual, but also very consistent.  It started out with him coming to hang out with my roommate and then when my roommate would leave to hang out with his girlfriend, he would stay and hang out with me.  Eventually he was just coming over to hang out with me whether or not my roommate was home.  Next thing you know he’s spending the whole weekend with me.  We would stay up for hours and talk and play games of Backgammon, Yahtzee, Trivial Pursuit, Cranium, and etc and yadda yadda yadda.  It was fun.  Then he started bringing emotion into it.  This is where I think he really screwed up.  I was totally fine keeping it casual.  He decided to bring in feelings and emotions and sweetness and all that garbage.  Then what happens, he freaks out worrying that I’m too emotionally attached, which I’ll admit was beginning to happen.  To be clear, I never saw this guy as the man I would spend the rest of my life with.  However, I was beginning to look forward to hanging out with him, and to see his car outside my house when I got home from work. 

So, when he started behaving strangely towards me as I’ve mentioned in the past.  All of that nonsense about making me uncomfortable in my own place to the point that I left town for a while, only to return to the same crap and feelings of wanting to leave my own place.  I was really upset at first and for a few weeks I was so confused.  Why would things change, etc…?  Well, it turns out, I don’t care.  Once I gave it a little bit of thought, I realized that I’m really not very interested in him other than the company and the entertainment of listening to his long drawn out philosophical ravings.  The stuff he would go on and on about, I can’t even begin to tell you about it because it really would end up being a character study that could turn into an hundred page master’s thesis.  He would say, oh you make me so happy, you listen to me, and you don’t judge me and you let me be myself.  Well, sorry dude, but I think in your haste you forgot these things about me, and now I’m not so interested in listening to you drone on for hours about stuff that means nothing to me.  Also, if you’ve found yourself a new weekend backgammon tournament, don’t be so surprised when you find out that a) I have played in other tournaments as well, and b) I won, game over.

Weekend Update: No Time!

Well, I finally have a new job.  It's great and I am so excited about it!  The problem is the commute, but I'll get used to that eventually.  Being Saturday today, I had a smooth drive and was able to stop at Starbucks to get something to eat and some more coffee before opening up the showroom.  Meanwhile, no time for anything else yet, and boy is the adjustment to normal hours difficult after over 2 months of unemployment.  Since I was hired on Tuesday and began working on Wednesday, I haven't had time to put together a single thought let alone a sentence.  Suffice it to say, this feels like a real grown up job, I am not going to be micromanaged, I don't have to punch a clock, or worry about making up hours. Whatever I need to do to be successful here, the owner is cool with.  It's so nice, and so laid back, and I have high hopes for this.  Finally!

Today's Gray: Update.

Well, The Boss came over yesterday and we had it out a little and once I yelled at him I felt a lot better!  Imagine that....  Then we were fine and had a lot of fun which we do, and we did a little talking about it.  He says sometimes he's in a bad mood, why didn't I just talk to him about it.  I said, because you're impossible to talk to, and he said, yeah that's pretty much true.  Duh!  So, then he said, well getting pissed off and leaving doesn't do any good either does it? Also true.  Also, he said, I can't believe you packed all my stuff in a Trader Joe's bag!  That was a little hasty, but that's me, I get pissed off!  He said he didn't want to end things, which is progress I suppose.  So, let's see what happens next time.  Ugh, please let it go better than last time!

Today’s Gray: Part 2

Okay, so the letter was delivered to The Boss.  While I had a number of chances to change my mind about it, now that it’s done, I feel truly relieved.  I’m surprised because I thought the only way I would feel any resolution would be to actually have a face-to-face chat with him.  What was the most frustrating to me, I guess, was the fear of having that discussion, because he can be really impossible to talk to if he doesn’t want to hear something.  So, while writing it down in a letter seems kind of childish, I’m dealing with a fairly immature individual.  He probably won’t care, because he seems to lack a conscience, and the potential is there for him to find it amusing.  Regardless, I said what I had to say, and I feel better and less stressed just knowing he’s received it.  Like I said before, I had a great time, and I knew what I was getting myself into with him.  It’s not like I didn’t know what he was like.  It was just that until last week he hadn’t been that way towards me.  Unfortunately with someone like this, when you give them an inch, they’ll take a mile.   He pushes and pushes to see how far he can push you until you push back.  In my opinion that’s just a game where nobody wins and everybody loses.  

It’s a bummer to see something fun come to an end, especially in such a weird way, but until you meet the one you’re going to be with forever, there will always be new beginnings and there will always be endings and they’re usually not fun, but with each one there’s something to be gained and nothing to be lost.  I have some friends who are so afraid that if things don’t workout with someone that they have wasted time that could have been devoted to another relationship, because they’re not getting any younger.  So they keep working on the relationships they’re in.  That confuses me.  If they are so concerned about wasting time, why continue to waste more time if it isn’t going to work out?  Then there are the people that think they have to find someone else to be with before they can end the relationship they’re currently in.  How is that being in a relationship?  If you’re looking for somebody else then you constantly have one foot out the door.  Why not just decide whether this is the right person or not?  Not should it be this person or that person.  Are people really that afraid of spending time by themselves?  No matter how old I get, I’ll never feel like I’ll be alone forever, and I sure as hell will not be with someone just to avoid being alone.  After all, being alone does not have anything to do with being lonely. 

Today’s Gray: If Forty is the New Twenty for Women, How Does That Apply to Men?

If that applies to men as well, then frankly ladies, we’re pretty screwed aren’t we?  That would make a man in his 30s a lot like a man in his teens.  Remember what they were like? 

Let’s just say, The Boss has retired, or maybe I’ve been fired, I’m not exactly sure, maybe I was pressured into resigning.  I’m actually not as upset about it as I am annoyed at the way he handled it, or should I say, his avoidance of it.   I’m not entirely sure what happened the last couple of weeks, but I feel pretty confident that he’s avoiding me at this point.  Which is pretty cowardly if you ask me.  However, this guy is pretty odd, in case you hadn’t picked up on that over the last posts.   So, today I packed up the stuff he had here, and wrote him a note letting him off the hook, since he couldn’t man up and be straight with me.  I’ll be cordial to him as long as he’s pleasant to me when he’s here to see my roommate, for my roommate’s sake.  In the meantime, I had a really good time, and don’t regret a moment.  On to the next, as they say.

Gray 4 (plus!)

This is going to be pretty broad, but one of my biggest pet peeves is narrow-mindedness.  I don’t care to get into political issues here, however, it seems to me that stuff that is nobody’s business is getting thrown into the political arena more than it should.  It makes talking politics less about our economic problems or defense problems and more about social or religious issues and I am having a difficult time understanding this trend.  It’s not that I don’t understand the issues themselves, but why they are issues at all.   I also can’t understand why in the last decade the word liberal has taken on a negative meaning.  I remember the first time I noticed liberal used in a negative way. I saw a bumper sticker on a car parked in a 7-11 parking lot that said “Annoy a Liberal, Get a Job.”  That one bumper sticker pissed me off so much that I almost stopped to talk to the person.  It would have made me late for work though, and I didn’t want to annoy any conservatives by losing my job.  Okay, that one was at least based on social programs I suppose, which is a governmental purpose that conservatives have a problem with, I understand that, but that issue opens the door to other issues, such as poverty and unemployment.  Those are some of the issues that irritate conservatives, and until recently they, apparently, always have jobs and money and never take advantage of social programs.  Really??  Liberals, to me, are non-racist, open minded, compassionate individuals.  What’s wrong with that?  Why is caring about other people a bad thing in the minds of conservatives?  How is that a threat to society?  Don’t give me your crap about social programs and taxes; it’s a bullshit reason to be offended by poverty and unemployment, especially now, and don’t you wish you’d kept your collective big mouths shut now that millions of your own have joined the ranks of the unemployed and working class due to your greed?

But, I digress.  Mostly what shocks me is why so many people take things like racial differences, religious freedoms of others, and equal marital rights so personally.  How does this affect anybody and why are people so threatened by these things?  Why has it become okay again to be so openly racist?  I’m not saying I think that political correctness didn’t get blown out of proportion in the last decade, and people hadn’t become overly sensitive for a long period of time leading up to now.  I am saying that it isn’t okay to just throw political correctness out the window now.  I love it how people say ‘oh we have a black president now the country has come so far!’ Bullshit!  Look at the things that have been acceptable to say about our president?  It’s okay to question his citizenship, compare him to insane dictators like Hitler, and accuse him of reverse racism.  I hate the term reverse racism by the way, reverse racism means not racist in my opinion, racist is racist, regardless of which where it’s directed.  If there were a white president in office none of this would be tolerated, at all.   If people even dared to criticize Bush it was considered unpatriotic, and he was committing war crimes!  Okay, I said I wasn’t going to get political, sorry. 

The thing I’m most confused and frankly shocked about, is why people care about whether or not gay people can legally be married.  How does it affect anybody?  How is it a threat to the sanctity of traditional marriage?  I don’t get it.  You don’t want people to be able to benefit from the insurance and tax benefits afforded to married couples? 

Oh, you don’t want gay couples to be able to adopt children?  That’s right, because you were planning on adopting children, because there are so many unwanted children in our country that you want to help them out by giving them a loving home right?  Oh no, that’s right, you don’t want a troubled child, or a crack baby, right?  So, while I support adopting children from other countries, and have known people who’ve done that, and admire them, I don’t believe for a second that given the opportunity most of the extremely wealthy people would never even consider adopting an unwanted American child because that child will most likely be black.  An unwanted child is a child in need of a loving home no matter the circumstance, and there are plenty in need here on our own soil.  So, Angelina, stop importing babies, help some home grown kids out! 

Okay, that’s my rant, it’s random, it’s disorganized and it’s probably a bit whiney, preachy, and most likely offensive, but it’s my blog and I can say what I want damn it! 

Gray 3

Much of my stress and the cause of many grays comes from the pressure on me to be creative and artistic.  My father is an architect and my mother is an artist.  My oldest brother is a writer and artist, and my other brother, while his professional world doesn’t revolve around it, is also very talented and creative, mostly it seems with photography.  I’m not saying I don’t think of myself as an artist, I do consider myself an artist and talented designer.  I guess most of the pressure I place on myself, based on a need for approval, sort of like, “hey look what I made.”  I’m not going to get into the whole thing about my dad being an architect and I wanted to be one, but he didn’t support my interest because he didn’t think I was good enough, because looking back on it now, he really had no basis for thinking that because he had no idea what I was capable or not capable of at the time.  It is what it is, and I’m happy being an interior designer, and I’m very good at what I do.  Okay, I got into it a little bit, but I’m not going to make a huge deal out of it because I’m over it, well mostly anyway. 

I’m not thrilled with the way my career began.  I really struggled to find work as a designer, and it was so hard to show a good portfolio without having had any jobs.  I was not very confident in myself at the time, and really had no support or guidance finding work.  Now I have created a niche for myself in the kitchen and bath design world and now know what I am aiming to achieve in my professional career. 

All of that aside, I love to do small home improvement projects.  I rent my apartment, but I’ve lived there for almost 14 years so I’ve taken it upon myself to do a lot of projects around the house myself instead of asking the landlord to do things.  This has a lot to do with being an interior designer and people expecting my place to be very cool.  I have a lot of great ideas and intentions, but my execution of my work leaves a lot to be desired, to say the least.  Also, the pace at which I’m working, makes it a never ending project, because I’ll paint something like the walls of a room, and I’ll love the color and then maybe 5 years later I’ll paint something else in the room and then I’ll find I want to change the wall color again. 

Here’s a prime example.  Eight years ago I painted my entire apartment in rich deep colors, and the dining room is now a midnight blue.  First of all, it’s a messy paint job that I never tidied up.  This past year I started painting my dining room chairs lime green.  They actually look really good.  I like the color combination a lot, so I started painting a pattern in a light lime green on one of the walls in the room.  I never finished the pattern, so it looks weird and unfinished now, not to mention that I’ve only painted 3 out of the 4 chairs so far.  Now I want to paint the walls a less intense blue color.  I’ve also decided this past week to take up the carpet in that room and expose what I had hoped to be a nice hardwood floor.  It’s a hardwood floor, not so nice though, and is going to require a lot of work.  I wonder how long that’s gonna take me!  Meanwhile, I’ve bought a bunch of green and blue accessories.  If I ever finish this room it’ll either be great, or I’ll hate it and start all over.  This has happened in just about every room in my place.  I really want to put up a tile back splash in my kitchen now.  I guess I should finish the dining room floor project first, huh?  All this really means is that my place is an enormous, never-ending, work in progress.   Just like me!

Yesterday’s Gray: Continued

I’ve been trying to pinpoint what it is that is specifically upsetting me about this situation.  The thing is that my home is a place where I should be happy, self confident and contented.  Lately, I feel unhappy and uncomfortable and sometimes even unwelcome in my own home.  I thought at first it was a rash decision to go away for a few days, but now that I’ve distanced myself from the situation, I have a clear perspective on it.  It’ll all be fine, it hasn’t escalated to a desperate situation, but something definitely needs to be done, and I can handle it after all I’m a mature, somewhat rational woman in my 40s for pete’s sake.

Today’s Gray: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Jackass or Why isn’t there a commandment that says Thou Shall Not be a Dick?

This is obviously a follow up to last week’s gray, but here’s what seems to be happening on a weekly basis, lately.  The weekends are great.  We, The Boss and I, always have a lot of fun on the weekends.   We talk; well mostly he does, for hours on end about anything and everything.  Usually we laugh a lot, and of course there are plenty of times we disagree, and I just listen.  He loves it that I listen, tells me I’m the best, that I’m his best friend, and thanks me just for being me.  Isn’t that sweet?

Next thing you know, it’s a weekday, he’s been working and he comes over to see my roommate, they are friends and they work together.  It’s as if it’s annoying to him that I’m there too, even though it’s my apartment.  Now, I know that he, and a lot of other guys, are single minded.  What I mean is, there’s work mode and fun mode.  Fine, I get that, but don’t come to my house and make me feel like uncomfortable like that.  He’s a self-proclaimed button pusher, and he likes to see how far he can push people until they either throw him out, or maybe sucker punch him. 

The tough part is talking to him about it.  He’s one of those people that you have to know when the right time is to bring something up, which obviously is during the weekend.  I on the other hand, tend to get pissed off and leave rather than say something right when it happens.  For instance, today I’m writing you from my friend’s house 250 miles away from home.  This method has its drawbacks.  For one thing, he’s figured out that even if I’m trying to be pleasant and act like I don’t care, my leaving is a sign that I’m pissed off.  As if that was so hard to figure out.  Secondly, now I’m not in my own house anymore, and getting more and more pissed off rather than cooling off.  At least I haven’t said something in anger that I might regret, right?  You can’t really recover from walking out, slamming the door and then kicking it though, especially if the dramatic exit ends in tripping and nearly falling on your face.  Yes, I did that, thank god I didn’t actually fall, that would have totally sucked.

I’m making him sound like a jerk, which I’ll admit, sometimes he is, but over the past nine plus months, it’s been more fun than shit. Ugh, I sound like one of those stupid women trying to rationalize bad choices, don’t I? Before me he was involved with someone much younger than him, which makes her like 20 years younger than me, which is just crazy to comprehend.  I know he’s used to dealing with someone who let him act like that, and still wanted to be with him no matter how shitty he was.  This is where the ‘40 is the new 20’ thing does NOT apply to me.  You only need to act that way once, well twice, well okay maybe three times, before I’ve had enough.  Since it’s a relatively new thing, I’ll let it run its course and figure out a better way to deal with it.  I mean, we’re really still getting to know each other, and other things that ticked me off have been resolved, and I’m sure there are plenty of things I do that tick him off, right?  Nah….

Inexplicable Gray

I'm having trouble the last few days putting into words the things that are on my mind.  So, while the grays are sprouting like weeds, I can't seem to figure out a way to express the causes.  Maybe I need a few days of solitude. Cheers!

Today’s Gray: Lack of Motivation

All I feel like doing today is lounge around.  I guess that’s just another way to say I have no motivation to do anything today.  So much so, that when I woke up at 7:00 this morning and realized the cable had been shut off, I called, paid the bill and went right back to sleep.  It’s not depression, I’m not feeling down or anything, I am pretty sure that it’s just plain laziness.  Being out of work offers a great deal of opportunity to do whatever you want, whenever you want.  It also offers the serial procrastinator more time to put things off until later.  I did begin to do the dishes that were piling up, then I decided to just put the remainder in the sink under the guise of, they really need to soak for a while.  If I had a dishwasher, I’m pretty sure I’d be loading it up regularly and running it as needed, but you never know.  It’s like when you think that if you made more money you’d save more money, but you always find a way to increase your expenses when you earn more.  Then you wonder how you ever managed to eke out a living on your previous salary. 

I have three items in the kitchen that share two outlets.  So, when I want to make toast, I have to either unplug the microwave or the stove.  Since The Boss was annoyed that the time on the microwave is never right and keeps resetting it, I’ve gotten into the habit of unplugging the stove.  So, today I unplugged the stove and dropped the cord behind it, instead of looking for it I decided I would just wait for my roommate to get home and he can find it for me, and I figured, well I just won’t cook anything today that can’t be toasted or nuked.  Hey, it’s not as bad as the apartment I had that only had one circuit so that if I wanted to make toast I’d have to turn off all of the lights and open up the refrigerator for some light so I could even see the toaster.  At least now I can make coffee and toast at the same time as long as I plug them into outlets on opposite sides of the kitchen.  However, if I have the air conditioning unit in the living room on, I have to keep the toast and coffee separate. 

Anyway, I ended up finding the plug without having to pull out the stove, the dishes are halfway done, and I have had my coffee and my toast.  Otherwise, I’m still in my pajamas at 2:00pm and just beginning to get my ass in gear.  Maybe I’m not entirely lazy, maybe I’m just slow to get started today.  Today’s post is boring me, I think I’ll go take a shower.  Ugh, maybe later.

This Week's Gray: Revisited...

Okay, I am apparently a slow learner.  When people ask me for advice I tell them, the person you are dealing with isn't going to change.  The only thing you have control over is how you react to what they do.  So you can change how you react to what they do, and maybe they'll adjust their actions, and maybe they won't, but at least you'll feel good about how you handled it.  Today...  I haven't been following my own advice.  Shoot me.

Today’s Gray: The End of a Friendship

People come and go in our lives.  The only thing worse than fighting with a friend, is realizing that your friend has no interest in mending things with you.  Today I had to come to that conclusion after running into a friend who had become estranged over the past few months.  The hardest part about it is accepting responsibility for your own part in the damage.  Okay, maybe that’s not entirely true, we know when it’s our fault and when it isn’t.  Not that both parties involved aren’t responsible in one way or another, but there’s always one side that is the dominating factor, the one who “started” it, so to speak.  Really, what I mean is, that the person who got pissed off first is the one who started it.  I have to say, in my case, I’m rarely the person who starts it.  Meaning, if I get pissed off about something, I don’t always share it.  That’s probably because I hate it when people get upset with me, and I am afraid they will take away their friendship if I bring up something that might tick them off.   That’s a whole other bunch of grays to be revisited later.  So, when my friend told me she was pissed off at me a few months ago, I have to admit that I did not handle it well.

Here’s what happened; the names have been changed to protect the innocent.  Natalie became pregnant and confided it to me before any of our other friends.  She confided in me because we had been friends for a long time and because I was the one she hung out with the most.  She is living with her boyfriend, there’s no stupid stigmatic controversy there.  She asked me not to tell anybody of course.  However, she did ask me advice that I needed to ask a 3^rd party about on her behalf, and did not like it that I told this person who I was asking for.  Never mind that the person I discussed it with couldn’t care less and doesn’t know anybody else we know, she didn’t like it.  Some time later she asked me if I told anybody else, and I mentioned that I told a coworker of mine, also someone who does not know her or any of our friends.  This is where I have to accept responsibility for my actions.  Yes, I told a couple of people when you asked me not to, but in my own defense, they don’t know you and don’t care.  I never told anybody that we know.   I’ll also admit that when she told me it pissed her off I got defensive about it, and I did not apologize in an acceptable way. 

With all of that said, from that point it went from bad to worse.  She decided that she would take that opportunity to tell me some other things she doesn’t like or respect about me.  Primarily it was about The Boss, the younger man I mentioned previously.  Incidentally, I’m calling him The Boss, because he tends to be a bit bossy, and I find myself responding to him with, “yes boss” a lot, not because I think of him like the boss of us.  She didn’t think the relationship was appropriate, because he was dating someone else at that point, and that I was lying to myself about it to justify it.  Well, that’s not entirely true.  I knew what I was doing, and yes I knew that I could be hurting someone else while taking what I wanted from the situation.  I also knew I could end up getting hurt myself.  Regardless of any of that, I’m not going sit here and try to rationalize or justify it, suffice it to say several months later, he’s only involved with me and it might developing into something more than just a fun thing, but that still remains to be seen. 

After she said all of that stuff to me about her feelings about my character, I pointed out to her that some of the things she was saying were a) irrelevant to the issue at hand, and b) pretty hurtful things that she might not be able to take back later.  That’s one thing I’m generally pretty careful about, sticking to the issue at hand, and avoiding saying things that can’t be taken back later when things cool down.  Another thing I pointed out to her is this.  Natalie, you are not famous, and nobody gives a shit that you’re pregnant.  I care.   Also, this isn’t the “real housewives of Anytown, USA,” and nobody is interested in gossiping or judging each other in our group of friends. 

Time has since passed and I have been trying to remain in touch randomly, with notes congratulating her that everything is going well and I hear she is having a girl, and with happy birthday messages, etc.  Until today, that is.  Today I ran into her at the drug store.  She was on the phone, so I waved hello, and she waved hello in return, however she never broke stride, and didn’t skip a beat, she kept on with her phone conversation and kept on walking.  I was able to not be terribly upset about her not contacting me when I’m sure she knows I lost my job, I wasn’t thrilled, but I was willing to look past that.Today’s little meeting?  I can’t do it.  Whatever hope there was in mending our friendship just walked down the aisle in the drug store without even a second thought or a single glance back. 

Fine, be that way sister, some day you will wish you had stopped to say hello.  We’ll see how that goes, won’t we?

Yesterday’s Gray: PLUCKED!

I have to follow up about the mandatory job workshop at the unemployment office.  It wouldn’t be fair to leave it with a lot of negativity lingering.  I went there thinking that it was going to be a waste of my time, as if I have so much else to do right now.  Honestly, if I hadn’t gone to that this morning, I would probably just be rolling out of bed and nursing a cup a coffee.  I expected it to be only practical for those who were in low-end jobs and to force you into just taking any job you can get.  This was totally not the case.  They provided many resources for job searching and free resources the state provides, including grant possibilities.  They also had great advice on interviewing skills and answering questions.  You think when you’re in your 40s and have been working for 20 plus years that you know it all, and have all of the answers when it comes to this kind of stuff.  The truth is, there are plenty of people who know better and have a lot of good advice to share.  So, while with age comes wisdom, it’s wise to realize you don’t know everything, so keep an open mind.

Gray 2

A decent amount of grays can be classified as the conflicting desire for success in work versus the desire for success in love and family.  When you get out of college all you can think about is finding a job.  That might be different if you find the man you’re going to marry in college, which frankly, was never what I was looking for while I was in college.  I wasn’t opposed to that, and I’m not going to sit here and tell you I was so focused on my schoolwork that I aced every class.  I was there to get a degree; that was the deal.  For our generation, it was still a question for a lot of young women right out of high school whether or not they would go to college.  Was it as important for women as it was for men?  Now I’m not saying it was like the ‘50s or ‘60s when women weren’t encouraged to go to college unless they wanted to be nurses or teachers.  However, it wasn’t a failure or bad thing to do if you decided to skip college and get married, or have babies, or get a job, or travel at that time.  With that said, it also didn’t really feel like there was a lot of pressure, at least from my parents, to be an uber success in college.  It was sort of a running joke response I would give to my dad.  “What are you going to school for daughter?” To get a degree, dad.”  So, that’s what I did. 

I wasn’t entirely sure what I wanted to major in, but I was interested in architecture, so when I was advised to major in Interior Design, that’s what I did.  I liked it, it was challenging, and I’m good at it.  No question in my mind about that, at least not today.  I didn’t put a lot of stock in the basic studies, and I didn’t give anything my all, and I had a lot of fun going out with my friends, socializing and partying.  So, when I got out of college, I didn’t really know how to go about finding a job.  I wasn’t given a lot of guidance.  Again, mom and dad, I’m not blaming you guys, it’s just my story about my life.  I was just advised to get a job.  The first job I had was selling furniture, which I was terrible at and was fired after 90 days.  The next job was doing construction drawings for cabinet shops.  It started out rocky, but turned out to be very good experience and a good thing to do. 

When faced with opportunities to relocate, I remember feeling so lucky that I wasn’t in a relationship and didn’t have to worry about factoring anybody else into my decisions to move for what I felt were good career opportunities.  In my 20s, I felt like there was plenty of time for meeting guys and wasn’t too concerned about being independent.  In fact, I was proud of being on my own, and even felt a little bit superior about it. 

Well, then you enter your 30s and think, hey, there’s still time for love and family.  I can still have kids if I want to.  Do I want to have kids?  Is that need that my friends talk about to have children ever going to surface?  What if it doesn’t?  Well, I’ll just let that hand play itself out.  I’ll just see if I meet someone, and see what they want, and see if it fits into what I want.  What do I want anyway?  Hey, the 30s were really fun, don’t get me wrong, but as far as my career was going, it was kind of stalling. 

So, when my career started to take off in my late 30s and early 40s, again, I felt like, well, it would be nice to meet someone, but it’s okay if I don’t.  Not that I spend my time alone, I date, I get affection, I have fun, and I have a great social life.  I’ll revisit the individual guys and those experiences later.  Trust me, there are enough gray hairs to go around where they’re concerned.  Aside from that, I was laid off a little over a year ago, found another job immediately, and then lost my job again.  Now I’m nearing my mid 40s and have no job.  I mentioned there’s someone in my life, and that is making my life without work really fun.  However, it’s relatively new, and while I am happy, it’s not something I can say is the end all be all, at least not yet. 

Besides, that’s not the question.  The question is, was it wise to put off family for so long and to focus on my career?  That would be easy to answer if I had a job, now wouldn’t it?  Did it have to be a choice? Should I have been more actively looking for someone?  See that’s where I have to go with my gut.  Not that I don’t take responsibility for my own life choices, but how much of it is choice and how much is just what’s meant to be?  How much do I really have control over?  Here’s where the 40s are not the 20s.  Here’s where I get to use the last 20 years of experience and personal growth and say something like, I’m happy with my life, I’m good at what I do and I’m a really good and generous person, and I’ve still got a lot of time ahead of me to achieve great successes.  Isn’t that great? 

Today's Gray: Unemployment

Being unemployed isn't that bad.  I like to think of it as forced early retirement, or vacation time, which I rarely had while I was working.  Fortunately, I have a roommate so it isn't that hard to make the bills.  I'm not saying it's easy by any means, but it certainly helps!  Tomorrow I have to go to the unemployment office for a mandatory job workshop.  It's not the worst thing in the world, but I kind of think it's a means for the IDES to justify their existence.  Frankly, I think they need to have more than 3 people at a time available to service the newly unemployed who sit in the waiting area holding their "deli counter" numbers upwards of 300 just to find out that the person at the counter has no interest in helping.  Well, why should they, they have a job.  Last time I was there I waited for nearly 3 hours for someone to tell me there was no way to review and print out my application that I filled out online.  They said, that's controlled information, it's not available to you.  Huh?  It's my personal information, shouldn't it be controlled by me?  I asked to wait for a supervisor and waited for an additional hour, it was just before 5:00pm when they close, there were still at least 20 people waiting to be seen, and the person I had spoken to had not gone to get a supervisor yet.  So, aggravating the people who were waiting, I went back up to the person I spoke to.  With an exasperated gesture she went to a supervisor's office and came out with a copy of my application.  Oh, she said, all I had to do was press print.  Really??? 

Now, I'm not ashamed of being out of work.  It is what it is.  I have some prospects, I've had interviews, and I have personal ideas and plans that I am becoming increasingly motivated to pursue.  With that said, there is no reason when you go to the IDES that they should act like you are bothering them, or that it's a pain their collective ass to do their jobs.  Hey, if you don't like your job lady, I'll do it.  I bet you get great benefits working for the government anyway.  I wonder, what are the qualifications to get a job there?   Is there a "deli counter" numbering system to apply for a job there too?  Was it just that they had the patience to wait in the lobby for someone to review their job application? Is it a first come first serve kind of thing?  I mean, after all, they don't even know how to press the print button.  

You may be able to tell, this particular time in my life seems to be increasing the speed at which I am developing those grays!

This Week's Gray, continued....

Okay, now that I posted that, I've become a little neurotic about it.  I should qualify it by saying, I'm really happy in my current situation and enjoying myself more than I have in a long time.  He's a good guy, a very intelligent guy, and very good to me.  With that said, he is is own breed of person, and I find it interesting albeit frustrating that he feels the need to test limits.  So, if The Boss is reading this, which I can't really prevent I suppose, then know that it's all meant for fun and entertainment.  Alright? okay.

Fast Forward: This Week’s Gray

 I seem to find myself getting involved with people that I don’t really have much in common with.  Whether its an age difference, political views, social interests, or religious views, I tend to be drawn to my exact opposite.  I always used to joke around that my age limit for men to date was 35.  I remember when I was getting into my 30s my brother telling me, “You know, you may want to think about raising your age limit.”  While I’ve thought about it, and have an open mind about it, and have been attracted to men in the 40s, it just hasn’t happened yet.  I’m trying to figure out if this makes me a cougar.  I really don’t care for the term, frankly.  Is there a term like that for men in their 40s and 50s who get involved with women in their 20s and 30s?  I don’t think so, although, I would guess they get a lot of high fives.  It’s such a double standard.  I know this isn’t new information, but there’s no reason why I can’t complain about it if I want to. 

The best part about being involved with a younger man is that they’re a lot of fun.  A man is his 30s knows how to be chivalrous and how to take care of you if you want it, but doesn’t smother you.  Also, they really appreciate the little thoughtful things you do.  Leaving the physical aspects out of it, I think I’ve already covered that things are good in that area… ‘nuff said?  The part that’s frustrating, is getting the younger man to realize that it’s a lot easier to deal socially or practically with a woman who’s ‘been there, done that’.   I don’t care if you want to go out and hang out with your friends without me… in fact, I like that you have friends to hang out with.  Maybe in the past, there were women in their lives that couldn’t handle that and wanted to glom onto them and were terrified of what would happen if they went out without them.  As a result, the guy wants to do everything he can to avoid getting us upset about stupid shit.  The only thing he can think of to do… is lie.  I’m here to tell you, a) it’s unbelievably easy to tell when that’s happening, b) it’s a stupid thing to lie about in the first place, and c) it’s gonna make us angry, which we wouldn’t have been if you would have just told the truth.  Now you have to recover from that incident and prove you’re not going to lie about anything you can think of to lie about.  Really? Was this the result you were looking for?  I don’t think so. 

What happens now that there’s this weirdness looming over us?  Now I have to figure out how to play his game and win.  He is all about winning after all.  First of all, never yell at them, all that does is make them feel like the old lady is yelling at them and impossible to please.   Because, you know, he loves to get a rise out of you by reminding you you’re older than him.  Secondly, don’t play the game.  Just be yourself, let him know how you feel and let him do what he wants with that information.  I’ll let you know how that goes!  So far it’s fine and back to normal, or so it seems.  Finally, don’t let him read your blog.  I mean really, you’re not playing a game, but he is, so all it does it give him ammunition for his next move.   

Gray 1

The first gray would have to be called the hot girl on the outside, with the fat girl on the inside.  What a waste of time that was!  Sorry Mom and Dad, it’s not your fault, but I took everything you said to heart.  I’m sure it wasn’t just you guys, but you’ll probably come up quite a bit in future chapters, simply because you’re my parents and I sought approval in all ways from you guys and whether I received it or not, I didn’t realize that I never really needed it.  The reason this is the number one gray is that it reared its ugly head throughout my life.  I’ve been told there has to be something at the root of it.  There has to be one specific incident, or moment in time, which lead to my terrible self-image issues.  I just can’t find it; believe me I’ve looked for it.   All I know is that I wasted my hot girl years thinking I was a fat girl.  Fortunately, in my forties, I feel like a hot girl on the inside, while I’m a fat girl on the outside.  Funny how stuff like that happens, isn’t it?  I have more self-confidence, more good sex, and a lot more fun in my social life than I’ve ever had before.  Incidentally, for anybody wondering, it is true; sex gets better in your late thirties for women, and only gets better.  Sure, I’ll have to deal with menopause in the not to distant future, but I’m pretty sure there’s a great sex light at the end of that tunnel too.   

Another interesting thing I’ve discovered is that it really is okay to end up accidentally not having kids, or to plan to not have them.  I am so lucky to have many friends who are my age who have not had children and are forty-something.  Thank god for the women’s movement, because if not for them, we’d all be feeling like old maids with shit loads of cats running around.  Now, thanks to them, we get to have cats and be single, and it’s not a stigma!  We just have to be careful not to talk about our cats as if they’re our children.  It’s something we all tend to do, especially me, but I’m working on it.  The last thing you want to do is come across as the crazy cat lady.  It helps to find a man who likes cats, and thinks your cats are cool.  They’re out there, I promise. 

Intro:

They say forty is the new twenty.  Now I’m not entirely sure what that means, but I’ve found in my forty plus years that emotionally, there’s something to that.  I feel now like I am just really figuring things out and becoming the person I want to be.  I mean, does that phrase mean it’s okay to be a single and childless woman in her forties?  If that’s the case, than I would think there would have to be some success professionally and financially associated with it.  Does it mean that women in the forties look more like they’re in their twenties?  I would have to say not from what I’ve seen anyway.  Would it be okay to be a single, childless, unemployed, broke, overweight and uninsured woman in her forties?  I doubt that’s what they mean, but if you meet all of those requirements you would just be figuring out your life and your future, and in that way, forty is the new twenty applies to me.  So with the exception of a few gravity issues, a few wrinkles, and a few gray hairs, I feel like a twenty-something woman on the brink of discovering what she really wants and needs to be happy and successful, just like an arrogant, twenty-something, new college graduate should feel. 

If there is a way to figure out how I got to this point, I guess it would have to be count and label the gray hairs.  At this point I don’t have many grays, so I think I can still account for each one, maybe each 10, and how they got came to be.  For the sake of simplicity, I’ll just label them as one each.  I can’t explain the one white eyebrow hair though, that’s just weird.  I guess it’s the equivalent to the man’s ear hair, it’s just weird, I don’t like it, I keep yanking it out, it keeps growing back, and it serves as a constant reminder that I am, in fact, forty-something.