Birthday Presence

Today I'm 46. It's been a year of looking for love. Last year, I went through my usual panic...mid-40's and no husband. All year I have been searching. My moody pessimistic self would look at the past year as a failure. I didn't fall in love. I didn't have much romance. I had a lot of disappointments. I spent a lot of time pining over someone that didn't love me. I saw more wrinkles and gray hairs.

But then I remember all I did find as I was out looking for love. I made more friends last year than I probably have made in the previous 20 years and I have learned from all of them. I've read more self-help books, been on more dates, had more self-introspection, lived more life, had more freedom to be myself, than ever before. It's been a year of growth and love. I have to stop thinking of "love" as only something you get from a romantic partner, and remember it's more about what you give than what you receive. Because with each loving thing I do, I feel the happiness that comes from love, regardless of what I'm getting from other people.

Last week FB's mother died suddenly. When I heard the news my heart broke for him. His father died just a few years ago and he had still been grieving from that loss. He doesn't have many people in his life and he was very close to his mother. We went to dinner on Friday and I listened as he described the pain of watching his mother die. Death is a wakeup call for the living. Life is short. Don't waste it worrying about trivial annoyances. Don't waste it having expectations and being disappointed when things don't turn out exactly as planned. Don't waste it looking for love instead of giving love.

I had been, as usual, a little sad that my birthday would most likely come and go relatively unnoticed. People are busy. I'm not a little kid. There aren't too many presents and I'll be making my own cake. Another year older on match.com which will exclude me from searches. One more year closer to that dreaded day when I think I will no longer be desirable at all.

And then I heard about FB and his mother's death. I had my own wake up call without having to suffer through my own mother's death. It's time to stop wasting energy on negative thoughts. It's not birthday presents that are important, it's my own birthday presence. Today I am going to give my full presence and love to those people in my life with no expectations about what they are or aren't giving me. And I will undoubtedly feel more fulfilled than ever. Year 45 was spent looking for love. Year 46 will be about giving it.

Moving On

I missed my goal of writing in my blog last week. Admittedly, I have been a dead beat for the past two weeks. I haven't cared about any of my goals. I haven't cared about much. I've been in a pathetic, pitiful, feeling-sorry-for-myself-for-no-good-reason mood. My insomnia was so bad I went to the doctor to get a prescription and he not only prescribed a sleeping med, but he prescribed Prozac. I was tempted, but I refuse to go onto anti-depressents when I know it's stupid to be depressed. I've been through the death of my brother, a divorce, problems with kids, parents, health, finances, and work and I refuse to go on Prozac now about something as stupid as the loss of a fantasy that I knew was never going to happen.

Yes, putting things in perspective, life is wonderful for me. I have so much. I think what has so upset me in the last two weeks wasn't necessarily that FB isn't with me...it's that he's moving on, along with so many other people in my life. Almost all my Fisher friends have "hooked up"...either with each other, or with someone outside of the Fisher group. Most of them are revelling in that happy feeling of new love. My older kids are independent now with happy lives of their own. My ex-husband, of course, happily moved on and remarried so soon after our divorce. My girlfriends, for the most part, are busy....either with kids and husbands or kids and boyfriends or just with kids! My flirt buddies are rapidly becoming depleted as they find someone that will do more than flirt with them. I have Scotty, but I know he is quickly approaching that age...the age when friends are a lot more cool to hang out with than Mom. He tells me about the things he does with his step-sister and his step-Mom, and I feel that jealous feeling again...like I've lost even him. I want all these people to be happy (well...I haven't quite yet gotten to the point where I want my ex to be happy) but, I just feel like I'm missing something. And I feel like they no longer need me. They've found the love they need from other sources. Why can't I find someone? And even if I don't, why can't I find peace and contentment with all I DO have?

I know it's stupid. My kids, my family, my friends...they all love me so much and I feel so blessed. I know that I probably have much more love in my life now than when I was married. But, there was a part that was holding out for FB to realize he loved me. He finally had said he was ready for a commitment and I had stupidly thought he meant with me. Now I think he was just trying to psyche himself to "get out there" so he could meet someone he'd fall in love with and marry. I guess in the mean time, he felt I would be good enough to hang out with. And honestly, that's exactly how I had been thinking of him. Little did I know he would be able to find someone to kiss within a day of "getting out there", not to mention when I was "out there" at the same party.

But, two weeks is two weeks too long to mope about something like this. It's a good thing this happened because now I, too, maybe can really move on. I don't want to do the "getting out there" thing again, but I will. I will do my 90-days-to-Mr.Right homework, I'll check out all the online dating sites, I'll put out my "I'm available" vibes, and before you know it, I'll be excited about someone again. And in the mean time, I've gotta make up for lost time on my February goals. Time to get moving! Moving on, that is.

Cathexis

I subscribe to Webster's word of the day and the word or February 2 was cathexis: : investment of mental or emotional energy in a person, object, or idea. I still am a little unsure of how to use this word, but I can definitely say I have invested more mental and emotional energy in FB than I thought possible. Maybe you'd say I have a "cathexis" when it comes to FB. I obsess about our relationship. I bore my friends to death with the analysis. I write about him in blogs. I just can't seem to get him out of my mind and out of my system.

He has been more attentive in the last two weeks than he was when we were dating. He's called me, emailed me, asked me out, flirted with me, and finally on Friday we had the "talk". I had not wanted to pressure him, but I needed to know what was going on. He told me he was getting old and he had to stop spending his free nights listening to progressive radio. He wanted love and marriage after all. I suggested maybe just feeling comfortable with being a boyfriend might be a good start and I told him I'd be available if he wanted to practice. He was cute and funny and assured me that he could be a good boyfriend. Then he invited me to come over to his house but it was 10:30pm and I didn't want to just go over for sex. If he was really going to be a boyfriend, I wanted it done right...a little wooing, a little romance. And I really wanted to be cautious. I wanted to go slow enough that I could judge whether or not this new commitment was "real" or just lonliness.

He had told me earlier in the week that he was coming to the Parents Without Partners (PWP) dance that I'd invited all my single friends to. This was very surprising to me since it is so out of character for him. I have to admit that one of the reasons I go to PWP events is to keep myself open to new relationships. I wasn't sure if the reason FB was interested in coming to the dance was because he wanted to dance with me or because he wanted to possibly meet someone new. I asked him and he had said he wasn't looking to date someone new. He just wanted to dance.

We each went separately to the dance, me with a couple of girlfriends, and him with a guy friend of his. When he first got there things were great. We danced and flirted exactly the way I would have wanted. I still mingled with other people and so did he. But as the evening wore on, he found someone that he found very interesting, apparently interesting enough to kiss. I don't know where this kiss occurred, but FB was so private when he was with me that he never kissed me in public. When we were in public, most people probably wouldn't have even realized that we had a romantic relationship. Yet, here he was, already kissing someone he had just met...and kissing her at party that I had invited him to. True, he wasn't my "date" but we had just talked about rekindling our relationship at a deeper level the night before. I have to say, I was devastated. Three glasses of wine and two margaritas did not help matters. I couldn't stop crying.

I'm angry at him and I'm angry at myself for letting myself get back in this spot. How many times do I have to be reminded that he doesn't love me? Yet, I have once again, grown so used to his companionship. I chewed him out....told him how much I was hurt by this. The pattern will be for him to withdraw. He won't email or call. I have so often kept it from him when he's hurt me because I know that when I'm hurt he stays away. I wish he could just hold me and tell me he would much rather go out with me than this new woman, but he doesn't. He just apologizes for hurting me and confirms what I already know...that he is just not that into me. And he and I both know we can't keep going through this...he hates to hurt me and I hate being hurt, but it seems to be a constant in our relationship. So the thing I feel the saddest about isn't that he found someone new...I doubt it will develop into anything serious. The thing I feel saddest about is that I know I must give up the cathexis and that means giving up the relationship.