The Silent Hunger

The midnight hour is silent, the perfect time for the reader to look deep into the writer’s soul.   Maybe the reader cannot sleep, or maybe they are halfway around the world when their day is our night.  Perhaps the reader is looking for something.  The reader wants  to read and wonder, possibly  a bit of titillation or stimulation, a bit that takes them outside their world and into another.  More often than not, the reader is a spy in the world of the writer.  The reader drops in like a cat burgler, silently in the middle of the night, but only stealing what is wants or needs, and only what the writer gives them.

The reader reads and discovers they are are being pulled into the world of the writer.  He sits, putting his fingers on the keyboard, bearing everything and laying it out onto the page. The looking glass can go both ways.  The reader  makes the choice to reveal themselves or remain a silent spy.  The writer wonders, “who is out there?  Is it someone who finds his writing by accident and discovers a common bond?  Is it a man or a woman, keeping their identity a mystery?”  The reader wonders, “Is it fiction or fact?  Are his characters real or a composite?  Is he writing about himself or creating a fantasy of what he believes the reader wants to read? Who is this writer?”

As the writer I wonder,  who is the silent thief that drops in, takes what they want, and leaves as silently as they arrived?  I am none the poorer for this literary theft.  Nothing has come from my pocket that deprives me of what I need.  I am a benevolent victim.  What you take from me I give willingly, but what you learn about me is only what I am willing to impart.  You don’t know of my wants and desires.  You will never see the secrets hidden in my heart.  You can only speculate on the nature of my being.  I will only open the doors of my heart enough for you to get a glimpse of my soul.  It’s not to tease, rather it’s purpose is allow you to see something of yourself.  We are all alike.  We want, need, and desire  the same things:  love, hope, affection, understanding, compassion.  But we don’t always get what we want or need.

For you who sits alone with the glow of your monitor illuminating your face, I offer this to you:  you are welcome to come into my life.  My thoughts and observations are given freely.  My needs and desires are laid in front of you.  Come and feast.  The table is waiting.

Bring On Fearless Freep!

I have noticed something today that startles me somewhat.  My Middle-Aged Head is blank, completely devoid  of those nasty thoughts that clouded my mind and drove me crazy.  This lasted for three weeks.  It seemed that no matter what I did, I couldn’t shake them.  Now, I have or at least can understand them better.

And how did I do it, gentle reader?  I accepted life as it is and moved on.

I realize that’s this is easier said than done.  But what I began to understand is tha I need to give myself a chance to start living.  It’s not about forgetting My Love and what our relationship meant.  I still the twinge in my belly now and then.  It’s about taking those experiences, holding and cherishing them, and moving on.  She is still a part of my life.  That’s more than I can say for the majority of women who have drifted in and out of my life.  I know that there is love out there for me.

Sooooooo………

Attention K-Mart shoppers:  today we’re accepting applications to fill the vacant positon of “girlfriend”.  Applicants must between the ages of 43 and 51.   Experience is a must.  No baggage, please.  Must be willing to take walks, share cooking duties, engage in stimulating conversation, appreciate baseball and golf, enjoy travel and have good sense of humor.  Must be open to exchanging life experiences.  Qualified applicants should go to the service desk.

Ed.  Fearless Freep is an unseen character in a Looney Tunes cartoon, featuring Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam.  He has a high diving act featured  in a vaudeville show.

Oh, Say Can You (Finally) See

Once again, light breaks upon Middle-Aged Head.

The Universe, in its infinite wisdom, has finally revealed the source of my misery.  ME

While pushing my cart up and down the dusty aisles of the warehouse, I discovered why I have been so miserable whenever I thought about My Love.  It wasn’t about who I was thinking of, but rather what they were doing.  Yes, it was because I missed My Love, but there was more to it.    I was bothered by the fact that I wasn’t sharing the experiences in my thoughts.  I want to be sharing with someone, not just My Love.   Say, for example, I was thinking about a romantic dinner.  She and I shared many of these.  My thoughts about this experience should’ve been about me and another person.  What I was missing was being in a relationship and sharing with someone.  I was only making myself miserable for wanting something I couldn’t have.  Rather than remember fondly those experiences we shared, I wanted to bring them back to do all over again.

Does this make ANY sense?

I like the feelings of sharing new experiences with someone.  I like the giddy, butterflies-in-the-belly feeling in the  first months of the relatioship.  I like sharing my life with someone.  I like the touching, hugging, kissing, hand-holding that couples do.  I like to wrap my arms around somone and hold them close.  I want help them feel safe and secure, knowing that I really do care about them.  But I don’t want to have those sensations and experiences just to have them.  There needs to be meaning and substance.  I want to know that, if someone spends the night, she won’t be bolting for the door.  I want to hold her while she falls asleep.  I want to have her linger in the morning.  I want her to want to be with me.

There is much I need to do before I am ready to begin another romance.  I need to become more comfortable with myself.  I need to continue to redefine my life and to live it.  I need to understand that my life should centered around Me, not someone else.

My thanks to The Universe and the Cosmic Dope Slap it provided.  My time for romance will come.  I need to be more patient until the time is right.

What’s Love Got To Do With It?

According to my friend in Minnestoa, there is a new holiday on the calendar.  It’s called Singles Awareness Day.

Actually, it’s her name for Valentine’s Day.

The awareness is not about being single.  It’s more about the fact you are single of a day that’s focused on couples, romance, gifts, flowers and love, and you’ll have none of it.  I don’t think this is a holiday invented by a man.  Rather, it would sound like something created by a woman.  After all, the focus of Valentine’s Day is on women.  Men are bombarded with advertising from jewelers (“the ultimate expression of love is a diamond” or “tell her how important she is to you with a diamond…..”), florists, greeting card companies, restaurants,  and resorts.  The pitch is the same:  the only true expression of love is by spending a ton of cash on your special someone.

As a man, this creates a great deal of pressure to find the perfect gift or expression of love. If the advertising pundits have their way, men are supposed to buy a dozen roses, find an expensive box of chocolates, make reservations for a romantic dinner, and spring for a bottle of champagne.  But who has the kind of money for all of that?  And how many women really want all of that?  The answer to both questions is:  NOT MANY. 

It rare for me to buy a Valentine card.  I like to make mine. They are much more personal than a store-bought card.   I’ll clip words or pictures from magazines that fit the holiday, or remind my Valentine of why were are together.  I’ll then arrange a collage on construction paper with a personal message.  I haven’t disappointed anyone yet. Instead of an expensive bouquet of roses, I prefer a single rose.   Rather than going out to a restaurant, I’d cook for my Valentine.  I’d light some candles, put on soft music and let the evening unfold on its own. 

I remember how I celebrated Valentine’s Day last year.  My Love and I went to Las Vegas for her birthday, which is close to Valentine’s Day.  We stayed at Paris Las Vegas, which is very romantic if you can get away from the sound of slot machines.

What if adults today celebrated Valentine’s Day as they did in elementary school?  Do you remember the decorated boxes for your valentines, the ones you made as an art project?    Sometimes it was a shoebox covered in red and pink hearts, and a slot in the top for the cards, other years it was a decorated folder.  I realize that people do that by sending greeting cards through the mail, but creating a special box for your valentine would be fun.  You also would be running the risk that, at the end of the day, that box might be empty.  At least in elementary school you were required to have a valentine for every member of the class, including some creepy girls.

I’m not sure how I’ll be celebrating Singles Awareness Day, or if I will at all.  Most likely the only Valentine I’ll receive will be from my mother.  Maybe my friend in Minnesota will send me one.  This year February 14 is a Sunday and that’s my day with the kids.  I’ll work in the morning, then spend time with them.  Despite being VERY aware of my being single, I don’t think I’d do anything special.

Maybe I’ll do something the following day when all the Valentine candy is marked down.

Valentine’s Day will be different without love.  I’ve said this about other occasions, but this year will be the first time in 25 years I’ll be without a valentine.

Please, Mr. Postman

The pain of a break-up is like a papercut:  it hurts like hell for awhile and takes longer to heal than you think.    That pain has subsided significantly over the past week.  After driving myself crazy last week, I decided that in order to move forward, I needed to to completely break free from My Love.  It’s not that I wanted to have nothing to do with her.  I still consider myself her friend and I want to have a relationship in the future.  I need to give myself space to heal.  I have done well up to the present, but the real test will be the next time I receive an email from her.  I know that time is what I need to heal.  Lately, though, I have opened my email and hoped to see something from her.  For a very long time, we exchanged emails several times a day.  I would always make she started her day with an email, hoping her day was stress-free, telling her I’d be thinking of her.  Breaking the habit of checking my email several times a day has been difficult.  I would get butterflies in my stomach when I’d find something from her.  I miss that.  I miss her.

Now, the only emails I seem to find are weekly updates from My Son’s school, requests from the booster club for bingo volunteers, and Facebook updates.  It’s slim pickens, to say the least.  I am a casualty of the electronic age.  I choose not to Twitter, pay little attention to Facebook, and carry a basic cellphone to make emergency calls.  I don’t text message.  I rarely IM.  I am so disconnected, compared to the rest of the world — and I want it that way.   Whatever happened to letters and greeting cards?  Does anyone send postcards or are they just collectables?

Let There Be Music

There are times when amazing things are easily seen. Youngsters, ages 4-7, always fascinate me with their innocent, yet inquisitive nature.  Kids really do say the darndest things.  Watching a full moon, like a beacon, shining across the water. That can take my breath away. Music can do the same.

Then there are things which can be easily overlooked.  I found one today on YouTube.  There are some amazing things there, along with the stupidity of people looking for their 15 minutes of fame.  One of my co-workers showed me a video on YouTube, of a Slovenian vocal group, Perpetuum Jazzile.  There are no instruments in this ensemble, only voices.  I could’ve easily scrolled by this video, ignoring their wonderful, joyous sound.

In this clip, they perform Toto’s “Africa”, complete with a rain and thunderstorm.  No special effects, no machines, or synthesizers.  Just the human voice.  It will blow you away. If you can’t see the link, please let me know.

ENJOY!

Up In The Air, Then Crashing Down

Yesterday, I went to the movies with My Daughter.  I love the Daddy/Daughter Time.  We used to do things together when she was young.  Now it’s just when she has the time.  Her tastes in movies are quite different from mine.  She likes anything with Johnny Depp or Heath Ledger, anime, chick flicks, and anything based on a graphic novel.  It’s tough to figure her out sometimes.

We decided to see “Up In The Air”, the latest George Clooney movie.  I thought it was excellent.

It was also quite unnerving.

I found it unnerving on several fronts.  One, that it was about a man, Ryan,  whose profession is to fire people.  He comes in and fires employees of a company, whose boss hasn’t the cahones to do it himself.  It just seemed heartless.  I really felt for the people he fires.

Second, there was a point in the film where he meets Alex, another traveling professional. They become involved with one night stands in common locations where they are on business in the same place.  Over time they start scheduling time together.  He then finds himself making a deeper connection with this woman that he anticipates.  Eventually, he invites her to join him at his sister’s wedding.  It’s there that he discovers that his feelings go further than just the brief encounters they’ve enjoyed.  He shows her his high school and other meaningful locations of his youth.  He opens up to her and takes chances with his heart.  He discovers that he wants something more.  They part and she goes home to Chicago.  On a whim, he decides to take a detour and visit her.  You can sense his excitement when he pulls the rental car up  to her front door.  Ringing the bell, he steps back and waits for the door to open.  When she greets him at the door with a somberly shocked expression, he also sees her children heading upstairs and hears her husband behind the door, asking who it was.  You can see his face, crestfallen as his whole world comes crashing down upon him.  He put himself out there, and took a risk with his heart, only to have it broken.

Been there, done that.

The third unnerving part of that movie was a comment made by the female lead, Alex.  She is giving a young colleague of Ryan advice about what to look for in a man.  Her view is to find someone who definitely makes more money than she does.  I realize that this is a fictional character, and that there is no basis of reality.  Considering recent events, I found it quite timely.  I found it…encouraging?  I mean, is this the prevailing attitude of over-40 females?  Is there prime objective to find the guy with the good salary, so that they can spend their golden years in comfort?  Or are women just trying to weed out the losers, guys with great credentials but coming up short in the financial department.  I know they just want to be taken care of, but

All three of these issues really hit me hard.  Is this what the rest of my adult life will be like, trying to meet someone else’s expectations?  I’m having a difficult time with my own.  This is a raw nerve for me, at the moment.  I could use a confidence booster.

Each Time She Passes I Go, “Ahhhhh”

Yesterday was a day from hell.

After leaving work and going to the library, I went home and shut down for the night.  Off came the work clothes and on came the sweats.  I know I had intended to go to the gym and work off the tension of the day, but I was so emotionally exhausted.  I just camped out on the couch and had a little movie fest. 

Today I am doing much better.  WHen I arrived at work, I realized that only music was going to help set the mood for my day.  I brought up Pandora on the computer, selected the Antonio Carlos Jobim station, and reveled in the gentle sway of samba and bossa nova.  It made me want to look up the Girl From Ipanema.  For those who are not geographically inclined, Ipanema is a beach in Rio de Janerio.  After awhile I found myself moving with a different rhythm.  It was a more relaxed feeling in my hips and my body rhythms were altered to fit the music.

I am in a much better place today. 

I know that My Love and her man are not to blame; this is MY stuff.  Dealing with my emotions and thoughts is a constant challenge.  But for how much longer will I be challenged?

What Are You Still Doing Here?

At the moment, life sucks.  I am SO stuck in a rut it’s not funny.

I think I’m wiggin’ out here – ( I know I’m not crazy) because, no matter how hard I try, no matter what I do, I cannot get My Love and her man outta my brain.  I don’t want them there.  I don’t want to know what they’re going together.  I don’t know why I keep thinking about it.  Is it because he is able to give her all the things I couldn’t, and it’s driving me nuts?  Is it because I never cut the ties, wanting to remain friends.  She told me that I should’ve told her to “f*#k off” and walked away.

The Shrink gave me a couple weeks off and it’s taking it’s toll.  That’s why I’m venting here.  I am trying to follow the program The SHrink set up for me, but this crud is getting in the way.

I don’t like how I’m feeling.  I’m frustrated.  Why is all this so challenging for me?  Why should she be the one who gets to move on, and I’m stuck here?  I don’t want to be here.  I just want to get outside myself and run.  It’s a part of me that doesn’t  want to deal with the pain and is tired of dealing with the pain.  I want to just make it go away.  I want to put it all behind me.  I wish I could.

It just isn’t fair that My Love can just put me out of her head without any regard for what’s she’s done to me.  She says she’s sorry, but do thoughts of me continue to pop into her head?  Does she see my face when she’s kissing or making love to him?

And that’s another thing.  It’s been seven, almost eight, months without sex.  That has made me tense at times.

Ooh, Ooh

Nothing profound or profane today, gentle reader.  Lately I’ve run dry of things to write about, so if you don’t see a post that is the reason.  I would rather write when I’m moved to do so, than write for the sake of writing with nothing to say.

If anyone, who has given a passing thought to putting pen to paper, has done so because they were inspired by good writing, most likely they have read J.D. Salinger.  He died today at age 91.  My friend Kathy always had a soft spot for”Franny and Zooey”.  I took me awhile to “get” “Catcher In The Rye”, probably because I had to read it for English class.  I was too busy filling out the study guide to absorb what Salinger was trying to communicate.  I wasn’t a particularly disgruntled or disaffected.  I was just the opposite.  I was, however, aware that this was an adult writing in a teenager’s voice.  The story was for adults, but it was in a voice I recognized.  “Catcher…” was the only Salinger book I read.  I believe it deserves a second reading in this turbulent time in my life.

I realize the posts lately are shorter.  I have gone to The Gym after work every day last week and this week.  Up until yesterday, my routine was strictly cardio on the stationary bike.  Yesterday I set up my routine for lower body and abs.  Today it’s the upper body, and the “official” cardio instruction is next week.  The Gym has been crowded the last two weeks.  I expect the crowds will thin out once the “resolution breakers” begin their disillusion with their workouts.   I will say the views have been nice; there are TV monitors on every bike so I can watch ESPN.

What did you think I meant?

For the longest time, I had viewed my apartment as a temporary situation, a jumping-off point to something better.  I neglected to bring  certain items items out of their boxes because I didn’t think I would be in my apartment too long.  I have come to the realization that it’s time I made my apartment “my space”.  It means bringing in things that reflect who I am as a person.  My apartment bears no resemblance to my college dorm.  There are no Farrah Faucett posters and no illuminated beer signs.  I have wonderful prints from Edward Hopper and Jack Vittriano, and framed vintage postcards.  All my books and music are on display, but not alphabetised.  I make my bed.   This is not a kid’s apartment.

 But there is something missing.  I can’t put my finger on it, but I have a sense that there is something that should be in my apartment that’s not.  I suspect that it’s a feeling of emptiness.  What I can’t figure out what it is I need to eliminate that emptiness, or if it’s anything I have control over at all.

Be gentle with yourself, dear reader.  We are all doing the best we can with what we’re given.