My Boo Is A Fool

I don't look like my foolish, skittish cat...I suddenly realized our personalities might be reflective of each other just a moment ago.

My Boo (no, I did not choose this name but it stuck in that sucky way sucky things will) is a special case.  He's a feral rescue from my ex-mother-in-laws back yard.  He was the only one that didn't run away.  Standard black, yellow-eyed cat.  She named him Boo.  I tend to call him Isaboo (which is a blending of 'He's A Boo Kitty').  He's the most expensive pet I have ever been graced with.  I allowed myself to be manipulated into capturing him because my oldest son loves animals.  I was hoping Boo would choose him to be his person.

This did not happen.  I became his person.  Yay.  He's a head-case.  He's terrified of plastic bags making noise.  He doesn't like toys with catnip.  He plays with fishing line tied into a whisker shape.  And sometimes a little mouse toy.  His favorite place for the mouse is the toilet or his water dish.  Ohhhhh to be inside his mind...

So how am I comparing myself to the Foolish Boo?  Honestly, now I don't know.  I'd felt upon starting this it would be a good lead in to my own foolishness at this time in my my life.  Thought, hopefully not deed.

But why not?  Why in thought but not deed?

My sons have been gone for two weeks now?  I checked the calender.  I honestly can't remember when they left with their father exactly.  Just before the first of July.  They'll be returned to me the first of August. 

The first week I cleaned.  I've been over to a friends twice for bbq, to Monterey/Pacific Grove for my first over-night with a girl friend.  I've enjoyed this time, thus far, simply not having to manage anyone but myself.

My home has stayed clean, I go to work, I come home and it is quiet, I watch what I want to watch, I'm not listening to or watching Japanese Anime cartoons.  I don't have the pressure of feeding two teen aged boys.  I can come and go as I please with out concern for my sons.

Last night was the first night in my month of freedom where I felt like a pathetic loser.  It was bound to happen.  The home is clean, I have had a few pleasant distractions mentioned above.  I am not wandering from room to room with no purpose because I am finally relaxed enough knowing I don't have to manage anyone but myself.  Yesterday I finished with work early.  Avoiding a late afternoon quick appointment, instead booking her for this afternoon (she'll be my only client today).  My rationalization for this was at least I would shower and get out today.  Otherwise I can picture myself watching a series or two on Netflix and Hulu and not getting off of my couch.

There is nothing wrong with being unwashed and doing nothing, but yesterday I felt a little like a social reject and figured I should set myself up to be forced to get out and do something, rather than allow that feeling to sink in and become a defining characteristic.

So yesterday.  I was cute!  My hair was done.  My eyeliner looked good.  Yes, this is an accomplishment when one applies a cat-eye.  There can be nothing more frustrating in make-up application than a cat-eye.  I smelled nice.  I was wearing a feminine and flowing sort of dress that complimented my build and coloring.

Yep, all for nothing.  I am finding myself more than a little concerned that I don't seem to get noticed.  That I haven't been so much as approached in any way.  I have mentioned this before, this sense that something is blocking me from any opportunity to even give out my number. 

I think this is residual angst from Monday.  Monday I was grumpy and frustrated.  My client CarolAnne, the terrible/nasty/heat crazed aggressive drivers, every freak'n red light... and my not practicing holding at least four second eye contact with an attractive fire-fighter.  Still feeling that even now...

So yesterday afternoon I am off work and I come home and hit the couch and watch TV.  And that is it.  Sitting there watching TV, cat nap one, maybe cat nap two.  Life moving and surging outside my home.  People interacting and living their lives, and I sit.

The other night I could have gone out.  I had plans to meet my friend and maybe listen to some bands or a blues band in another venue...she flaked out.  So I flaked out.  In another time in my past I would have just gone anyway.  Where is that person?

I'll go to lunch by myself, I'll go shopping or just wandering by myself.  Why couldn't I leave my home and go to a local venue and listen to music by myself?  This nagging thought won't leave me.

I think I am terrified someone might talk to me, or someone (anyone) might not.  Or perhaps I'll get tangled up in the little dramas of the culture of the past that still exist in the neighborhood I planned to go to.  I Need a buffer I suppose.

So yesterday afternoon I landed on my couch and didn't leave my home and I felt so damn lonely.  I am past the whole hormonal thing so that isn't an excuse.  I felt lonely, bored, tired of my own company.

In those moments in a single persons life, My single persons life, I feel impulsive and craving and daring.  I'll feel at times I want to be alone, left alone.  Other times I will miss deeply any kind of intimacy that becomes familiar.  And last night, I just felt like a pathetic outcast not worthy of anyone the company of.  Yes, I even cried. 

I've been seriously considering dating.  I often think, lately, I am ready to start.  How does a person start dating in this world?  I get so many thoughts on this subject.  Online.  Oh, hell no! Not online! Going out.  Do Not Meet Someone in a Bar.  Take up a sport.  *insert laughter*  In order for me to take up a 'sport' or similarly defined interest I do sort of need a person that will trigger that.  Meaning, I need my ass kicked or influenced in that regard.  Let's go!  Okay!  Why can't I be that person in my own mind?

I have gotten used to being at home.  Being a Mom, (having been) a girlfriend, relaxed familiar routine.  Yes, I get out a little.  Yes when I am out I will do things.  In fact when I am out I often wish I was with someone that wants to go.  Go and keep going.  I feel that.  Once I am out I want to keep moving, keep exploring, take chances.  It is there in me, I realize it has to come from me.  How do I find her?

How and when will I find her?

I'm tired of being 'Mom'.  Not of being a Mom, or being my sons Mom.  I love it.  I'm tired of being so narrow in my life.  Of perhaps being narrow in my own mind. 

Is that what being an adult is?  A narrowing of self-definition?  Is this why mid-life crisis happens?  Am I on the verge of that?

I always wanted to be more alive than that, than finding myself on that mundane path.  I always wanted to be more like Maude in Harold and Maude. 

Sometimes I find this line of thinking little entertaining, a little philosophical.   Sometimes I feel trapped in its definitions.  Sometimes I feel desperate to break away, or to accept, or to give myself a break and be kind to myself.  To remind myself of who and what I am and where I am despite it all.

Last night my friend messaged me.  The double vibrate alert made me feel less like a pathetic loser.  My friend sent me a meme that enabled me to feel less the pathetic loser and more the hopeful optimist I steer myself toward.  It was a Chinese Parable about a red thread connecting one person to the other that is fated to be their other half, or something like that.  She asked me how I was doing, mentioned she'd monopolized our friendship with her troubles... and I let her know I'd been feeling weepy, sorry for myself.  She said I have been very strong.  I am not sure what that means.  

I understand in this month on my own I will have those highs and lows.  Last night just had me wondering if this is it?  My only answer to that was not wanting it to be and the knowledge that life is a mean bitch that delights in keeping us off balance even when we are frustrated with the status quo. 

Bitch-life has been cruel to another friend of mine.  It seemed she finally gave her the good stuff.  Her life was becoming beautiful.  Until two months ago.

Right when I feel ready to move forward I am reminded that to do so can be awful and heartbreaking.

I question, am I ready to field those plays?  I'm not so sure I am in shape. 

If I go on a dating site I think the creeps will just creep me out and leave me jaded.  Or, maybe it would be fun to practice rejecting creepy guys.  Then I think, it's not the creepy guys that are the problem, it's the manipulators.  The ones that perform their act beautifully while compartmentalizing their dark and disturbing true selves. 

One friend in love with a man that can only sabotage and control and demean.  The man just can't be even a little mutual.  There are so many echos of what my life was like with John it has actually helped me process the last decade of my life, and his death, and my life moving forward little by little.
Another friend suffering the loss of what she, and everyone else believed, was her beautiful life.  Her husband so compartmentalized and so devious and broken he's destroying everything she'd built for herself.  Now she has to rebuild her life, herself again.

So yes, my mind questions.  Is it worth it?  Maybe I am not ready!  Besides...say I do meet someone? If I am not a loser magnet anymore (hey, I dare to dream) I have no idea how I will respond in my psyche in a relationship.  Did John hurt me for a time?  Or did he damage me and leave scars that will impede my ability to trust and have intimacy again?  Because of him, my toxic family... am I just damaged now?  I'm not happy with that thought.  I mean, seriously, that line of thinking really sucks.  I can't accept that I might be broken.  I won't.  I believed I have changed and I have to believe it is for the better.

I have two other examples I look at.  Two men that have moved on from broken partnerships and failures and found happiness.   

Then I feel that darkness start to form in my mind, the thought that maybe I have lost that time in my life to find it.  Then that voice that says,

'Is this really all you think about?  How sad.  How silly you are.  Can't you find something else to consider?  How about fixing your life?  How about that you stupid silly girl?'

So, I guess sitting around and thinking isn't really working for me.  Yet, sometimes this can not be avoided.

I could use a pleasant distraction.

I need to get my head out of the darker clouds and get over myself.