Gone Baby Gone

It starts almost immediately, but is gradual enough that you fail to notice the damage until you're in too deep to care. By bits and pieces you give more of yourself than you should, explain away behavior that should have been called out. You change small truths until they become big amorphous lies you tell yourself to hold on to that rare flutter of excitement and hope you felt within those first moments of electric, illicit kissing.

The pliable acquiescence you tell yourself is compromise eats away at your foundation,until the house of cards you have so meticulously built crumbles in a heap of self recrimination and regret. What ifs litter the floor like a slick new deck of playing cards, hopelessly boxed, with the queen of hearts face down on the carpet.

Is this the universal plight of all women who are still "out there", or simply my particular brand of self sabotage? Can it really be this difficult to navigate the murky waters of a modern day romance?

Probably not.

What this is, this anticlimactic quasi-humiliating silence, is nothing more than a case of unrealistic, uncommunicated expectations on my part, and a total lack of expectation on his. While far more likely, this truth leaves the more dramatic, Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet- part of my psyche in the dry dust of pragmatism. It's not even worth the bottle of wine and tear-jerker movie I have set aside for such contingencies.

It would be so easy to vilify this poor unsuspecting guy who did nothing more than take what was freely and enthusiastically offered. To place my anger and frustration at his feet would be vindictively satisfying; all my sisters, single and married alike, here in real life, and out there in blog land would rally around me with a resounding "Asshole!". But it would be unfair, and would ultimately leave me hollow and cold.

No, I find myself turning my angry gaze and clenched fists skyward, railing at the Universe, yelling and stomping my feet like a petulant child.I've been a good person, dammit! You couldn't throw me this one stinking bone?

All I got in reply was the night sky, and more silence.

Off with her head!

Where is my head these days?
Certainly not where it should be; not at work, dealing with the epic piles of crap that are accumulating on my desk. It's only a matter of time before they notice, or before the fire marshal comes to condemn my corner of cube land.

Not in the day to day upkeep of a life in motion. Phone calls I need to make are forgotten. Yes, I look like I'm having a conversation, paying attention, nodding in agreement to I know not what, but really I'm miles away. My thoughts jumping like psychotic fish in an overcrowded, electrified pond.

My head isn't here either. I have tried to sit down and focus long enough to write something, anything worth reading, and obviously this isn't it. I have failed miserably, my queue is littered with half completed thoughts, paragraphs that run together, but fail to make a point. My google reader glares accusingly from it's corner of my computer screen, but even that simple, usually enjoyable break in my day, sits undone.

Here's the goocher. The things that have me so utterly distracted would make great posts, but I can't write about them. I'd like to, but one mini drama centers around family, and if Family reads of mini drama, Chanda will be in the poo. Nothing makes me want to drink like a Kennedy than family drama and the impending holidays.

The big pink elephant in the room, the source of all recent lobotomized behavior, centers around absolutely nothing but a remote possibility; a shadow of hope warring with a tsunami of self doubt and ambivalence (hard to say who's). I feel like the more I talk about it, the more I jinx it, and the more humiliated I'll be when it all comes to nothing. See, I told you there was pessimism. Suffice it to say; "Yes, Virginia, there is a guy".

I'll stop this incoherent ramble now, while I'm ahead, sort of. I promise I'll be catching up with everyone soon. In the mean time, that girl in the corner muttering to herself and drooling? Yeah, that's me.

It's a Disgusting Process

Is it me, or does everyone on those dating websites all look like they could be Hannibal Lecter's love child? With every profile I read I'm convinced I'm one blind date away from the inside of someone's freezer. It's kind of depressing, when one reaches a certain age, to have to actually go through all that dating crap, not to mention the humiliation that is online dating, just to live happily ever after (if there is even such a thing). Why can't I just blink my eyes "I Dream of Jeannie" style, and have my perfect match standing in front of me complete with flowers, a good bottle of wine, a compilation CD of all my favorite songs, and a book of poetry by ee cummings. Is that so much to ask?

It recently dawned on me that I have had one, just one, legitimate relationship in my entire adult life, and I'm here to tell you, it didn't matter how many times I kissed him, he remained a lifetime member of the frog club. Nothing says "forever" like a thirty something Peter Pan who's primary goal in life is to find a woman to keep him in the style to which he has become accustomed. Sexy! The rest have been one utter train wreck after another.Take for example the gay guy in college. That was a year and a half of mixed signals and hand holding that ended abruptly when he finally came out of the closet. I really should have seen that one coming. He was named after a plant for Christ's sake, and he shared a bed with his roommate because "they couldn't afford two". Seriously, how did I miss that?

Then there were the two married men, one of which went no further than an intense two year phone conversation while I waited for his separation to turn into a divorce. It never did. No, I'm not proud of myself for those digressions, and I realize now that with each "affair" there was a woman who I betrayed right along with the schmuck she was married to. But in both cases I was naive enough to believe them when they told me they loved me, and perhaps they did, but not enough.

All of these pseudo relationships, along with the countless other obsessive, unrequited infatuations have had one thing in common; they were all with unavailable, and therefore, safe men (guess how many years of therapy that charming little realization took?). So now I'm wondering if I will ever have the capacity to have a normal relationship. Will I be able to fall in love with a relatively stable, emotionally available man, and let that person in enough for them to be able to love me back?.

What if I can't?

What if I'm doomed to ride the relationship short bus for the rest of my life?

I know a lot of it is wrapped up in low self esteem, and a poor body image, blah, blah, blah; but somehow it feels deeper than that. It's an innate distrust of men. I don't know if I can trust anyone enough to show them the real me, to hand them the keys to the gun cabinet and give them the ammunition to do some serious damage if they wanted to. Hmmm, interesting metaphor. What would Freud say?

And now I don't know where to go with all this. Ive just barfed up a giant hair ball of a character flaw(sorry 'bout that), and I just can't wrap it all up in a neat-cohesive-lesson-learned-pearls-of-wisdom-bow. It's a mess. Hell,I'm a mess.

I know, I know, I'll never get good at it unless I try. I see others dating, and actually making headway through to their own happy ending, but I think I'm a little worse off than most. Oh yes, here's where the weight thing rears(no pun intended) it's ugly head. There is no way any self respecting man is going to find this attractive. And if they do, they immediately become suspect to me.

Okay, so I'm going to have to work on that.

There is a lot I'm going to have to work on, because I do know I don't want to be single my entire life. I do want to have someone I can share all my bits and pieces with, and the only way I'm going to get what I want is to actually go out and get it. Maybe spewing all this stuff out here is some sort of bizarre first step in making that happen. That's my story anyway, and I'm sticking to it.