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Crazy cat lady ponderings
Brace yourselves. I actually fired up the PC and am writing a post from home and not the laundromat. It’s going to be okay … shhh … there there – change is scary, I know.
So! This morning, I was reading a Facebook post a friend put up about relationships. Basically about how you have to work at it – push through those times when all the things you used to think were adorable about your partner becoming annoying as hell.
I get it. That first flush of romance can’t last. Or can it?
I know people still madly in love. People married for years and years who still light up when talking about their other half. Makes me smile.
Also makes me want that ease of being with the right person – I don’t want to have to work hard to love someone. Should it be that hard? Seriously?
Then I get to work and a friend sent me a picture of a crazy cat lady cake. Hilarious. And I want it. It’s a running private joke.
I’ve said time and again that’s my destiny.
Here’s one like it – but not ‘the one’
Funny both of these things came up today – because I was thinking on the way to work about qualities I would need to come in a male package in order to change my cat lady plans.
Deal breakers for me …
- Lying
- Vanity
- Laziness
- Neediness – bordering on psychotic desperation for affirmation
- Racism
- Homophobia
I’m going to sound like a huge vain prick right now – but … I would need someone smarter than me, but not smug about it. Someone who has experienced the world, or at least bothered to find out about more than his zip code.
It is what it is – I have traveled. I can spell. I have a large vocabulary. If I don’t know something, I admit it and then strive to learn what I don’t know.
I like to read. I love the arts. Music, painting, writing, theater.
If I were ever to entertain the thought of sharing my LIFE with someone, it would have to be someone who challenged me.
Someone who would step up, (not in a creepy domineering way) and decide that I am what they want and not give up until I was convinced it’s what I want too.
Effort. Patience.
I’m not an easily peeled onion. I have baggage.
And knowing this about myself, I made the smart decision to NOT put someone through that.
I am happy. I am self-supporting. I like myself and enjoy my company.
Besides, if I do get lonely, I can order this. 😉
EHarmonious enough in my house alone.com
There are still single, attractive, sane people in the world you know. For all of us who have at one time lamented “All the good ones are taken”. Oh no they’re not.
They either have ‘I have run out of $#%&’s’ to give about dating’ syndrome.
Or have decided, ‘Its lovely to be able to pee with the bathroom door open and not have to put down my book when I’m reading in order to engage with someone needing attention’
Or both.
Some, like me, started out with ‘I will focus on raising my child first, then worry about dying alone’ then found that peeing with the door open and reading uninterrupted in the bedroom was something she could get used to.
Others, like a few friends of mine, refused to settle and THEN got comfy not having to adhere to anyone elses schedule, cater to anyone elses desires and needs and also, enjoy being able to pee with the door open.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s still nice to be appreciated.
Went to Wal-Mart yesterday, and a man looked at me and said, “What a beautiful woman”. It didn’t creep me out. He said it in earnest and with no apparent ulterior motive. Nice. I told him ‘thank you’ and you bet I posted it on my Facebook page. (At first I left out the part where he said it from his seated position in the electric shopping cart. It was still really nice getting a compliment.)
Received a message from a friend in California that evening. And I quote:
“so, i was at CVS tonight, when i ran into to a guy i use to date in my late teens, early 20’s. I hadn’t seen him for years, we chatted for a few minutes, etc. and he asked i wanted to get dinner sometime. i said yes, as no just seemed rude, and i was intrigued. i get outside and he shows me his ankle bracelet………..he was busted for growing pot last year. He said it was legal for the medicinal marijuana, but they got caught with too much, WHATEVER. he also lives with his parents again…………….SERIOUSLY UNIVERSE WTF, the first time i get asked out in years and this is what i get!”
After I was finished literally laughing out loud, I did point out that at least she got asked out. Besides, he’s self-employed, close to his family and has great taste in women! I then laughed my arse right off.
The fact of the matter is, this friend of mine is drop dead gorgeous. She’s also smart, compassionate, employed, and funny as hell. But is afflicted with the same lethargy as me.
It’s just SO nice to be HOME!
AND we don’t mind being alone. Crazy as it might sound. We actually like ourselves. Neither of us are lonely when alone. We both did our ‘thang’ in our 20’s. Trust me when I say we were no wall flowers in those clubs. So there’s this ‘been there, done that’ factor to toss into the mix too.
(The blog is called debauchery soup for a reason friends)
I have decided that our destiny will be to share a home 50 years from now with an abundance of cats and there will be porch time to spin a yarn or two about our 20’s … and 30’s.
Maybe there’s even a chance we’ll create some stories about our 40’s.
There is someone who has caught my fancy, but long distance things don’t tend to work out. Although, to be fair, at this point in my life, and with my energy level, across town is long distance.
First step I suppose: make the effort to go beyond the comfort of home, and learn to shut the door when peeing.
P.S. I’ll have you know that today I DID have a date. Here I am with it.
“I’m not in love …”
Which is a really silly title for this particular blog post considering the rest of the lyrics, but lets just put that aside and focus on just those 4 words.
A dear friend once (not so very long ago) sent me these words:
“The great wonderful Amanda (where do keep the hearts and souls of the men you collect)?” Ouch.
This was painful on a few levels. 1) I deeply care for this person. 2) I don’t go around entering relationships with the intention of cruelly ending them for recreational purposes. 3) Apparently I had hurt someone.
Here’s the deal. I watch romantic movies and I’m pretty sure I want that. I do!
I want the speech Meg Ryan got at the end of ‘When Harry Met Sally’. I cry every time Harry ends with,
“And it’s not because I’m lonely, and it’s not because it’s New Year’s Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible”.
I want the car to pull up with my suitor holding up flowers and an umbrella like ‘Pretty Woman’. I want the fairy tale.
I want to have my Holly Golightly moment when I realize I don’t have to be caged to give my heart.
But I have not found the person I want those things from.
I have never truly had my heart broken, I have never mourned for the loss of a relationship and I have never had that kind of love. Well – perhaps that’s not fair. I have never felt that kind of love.
To be honest, it’s only been a couple of years since I’ve been comfortable enough in my own skin to be capable of offering anything of substance to someone else. I can’t begin to describe how much the term: ‘You complete me’ drives me up the wall!
How, in the world, does one expect any success in a relationship when one enters it ‘incomplete’? I would hope to offer my whole heart to someone who also has a whole heart. I would hope to offer my serenity, contentment and love to someone who also has that. A partner that compliments, not completes all that is me, who brings differences and experiences to the relationship with their uniqueness.
There are many reasons I won’t go into for my lack of success when it comes to love. Trust me when I say that events occurred to a little girl, a teenager and a young adult that should not have.
Lately, I’ve been noticing happy couples. There is a beautiful woman at work who after decades of marriage is still SO completely in love with her husband. She exudes happiness (which came first I wonder? The happy chicken or the love egg?).
Then today, I bumped into an older couple at the store that I did a loan for. We chatted a while, and my heart swelled watching them finishing each others sentences (NOT the same as ‘completing’ each other people!) – I swear, the lady’s eyes literally sparkled when she looked at her husband. Dreamy. Absolutely dreamy. Of course, I had to point that out to them, which brought about more sparkling from both of them.
I want that. I want to spend the rest of my life with someone who makes my eyes sparkle. I want a best friend to hold hands with, to laugh with.
It’s corny, but when I was younger, I used to imagine what New Years Eve 1999 would be like.
I’m getting ready, putting on my earrings as I smile peacefully into my vanity mirror. I can hear my husband telling the dog to quiet down and greeting the babysitter. I hear my children running around downstairs squealing with delight because the sitter is here and they’ve just been told they can stay up late. My husband walks into the bedroom as I stand up and smooth my party dress, we exchange a secret smile. It’s date night with the man of my dreams.
He never showed up.
I do have the dog – and I do own earrings. I also have an amazing son who is the only man I’ve ever truly given my whole heart to.
But I think I’m almost ready for more. I think there’s still time for a ‘ever after’.
Debauchery Soup 