My Plea to the Universe

"...What do I stand for? What do I stand for? Most nights...I don't know anymore." I really don't. Right now I don't know what I believe in or what I stand for. I don't know where I'm going, and I'm fighting really hard to accept where I've been as a learning experience rather than the heartbreak that it actually feels like. Scrolling through my newsfeed on good ole' Facebook this weekend, I found that three dear friends who divorced during and after me (and for similar reasons) got engaged. And while I am ecstatic for each of them, and not anywhere near wanting to get married again to my current someone or anyone, it heavied my heart because I don't think that in my 35 years that I've ever had a romantic relationship with anyone who truly loved or valued me. There is no one who has come along in these past few years who thought I was worth committing to, emotionally or otherwise. And as accustomed as I am to riding solo, that just really sucks. I was just sitting in my dining room chatting with another friend who experienced her second divorce recently, and we agreed that maybe if we put our wishes out into the universe, the universe will return to us with a change in love. I guess it's worth a shot. So, Universe, hear my cry in the form of my wish list for 2013 or at least the near future: 1. I don't put much stock in education level or career success level...but please send me someone with emotional intelligence. Someone who knows what he wants and how to say it. Someone who can listen to me without taking my words as personal attacks, without thinking I'm counting on them to solve every problem or gripe, and without judging me for the moments when I let my emotions or lack of sleep get the better of me. Someone that can deduce that I just need a hug or help with the dishes, or a snuggly night in front of a dumb sci-fi flick. 2. Please send me someone who wants to be included in my life, and not just in the fun parts. Someone who wants to meet my extended family and is comfortable enough sitting next to my brothers-in-law in an Applebee's talking football or music or whatever it is we end up talking about, rather than making excuses to stay away from such events, or showing up but staying aloof and/or staring at his phone all night. Someone who actually shows up to my birthday party...or even plans it! Someone who my friends finally meet and look at me and wink, because they actually like having him around. And likewise, someone who includes me in their life, too. Introduces me to friends, male or female, and is proud of knowing me and being with me. Someone who thinks to invite me to get-togethers, whether it's a kidless weekend for me or not. Someone who gets out of bed at a reasonable hour on the weekends and WANTS to hang out or go somewhere or do something or TALK to me. Someone who wants me around. 3. Please send me someone who understands and respects that I do not want or need a replacement father for my children. They have a dad. I am their mom. Just be a positive role model...be akin to the "cool uncle." Give advice if they ask for it, hugs if they ask for them, be the world's best homework tutor, toss a football around with them. And just embrace it for what it is. Embrace the possibility that two little boys might value your presence and support, rather than assuming that I intend to hold you to being (Step)Father of the Year. 4. Please send me someone who is okay being exactly the age they are, with no desire to move backward. I am no longer a spring chicken, but that doesn't mean I'm not beautiful, fun or spirited. I don't want to be in my 20's again. I don't want to dress like I'm in my 20's again. I don't want to be or act as stupid as I was in my 20's again. I don't want to date anyone who is still in their 20's. I've lived a lot of life...I'd like to meet someone who can relate. Send me someone who feels the same. 5. Please send me someone who wants to be loved, hugged and wanted, and someone who wants to reciprocate. And someone who's never going to take for granted that I want to give the love and physical affection to them. I know it sounds like I'm asking for the moon. I've met only extremes these past few years...immature, stage 5 clingers without jobs who text me all day at work because apparently they don't realize that I can't talk to them ALL. EFFING. DAY. or men so emotionally unavailable that I can date them for months (or hey, how about A YEAR) at a time without them ever expressing any feelings of love or adoration toward me. I am a moderate girl on all levels...politically, musically, culturally...please tell me there's someone out there for me. Please, universe.

Island

I had a great day with my sons today. Just me and them. I called just about everyone this morning and even posted on Facebook where we were headed, in the hopes that someone would want to connect and spend some time with us. We ended up on our own and had a great time. I expected as much, but was just hopeful for a connection to the world outside of my own household. But then as the evening has progressed, I jumped from social networking site to social networking site to see that the world is up to so many things together that I am not invited to. On this holiday weekend, families are swimming and throwing parties and barbecuing and golfing and having a blast, and inviting people who are no closer to them than I am. People who are my friends and family. I am left out, and it's really weighing on me. -My single, childless friends don't include me because I have children. -My married friends, childless or otherwise, do not include me because no one wants to have the third wheel and/or no one wants a youngish single, available woman anywhere near the husbands. I know some of you are protesting, "That's not true!" but I actually had one female friend admit to me, "I don't want my husband to realize how much more fun you are than I am" after I found out that I was the only one excluded from a weekend outing. -At the moment, all of my other single parent friends have significant others. Not only do they have significant others, but they have significant others who don't object to spending time with them even when their children are there. I don't have that. Not even a trace of it. I've been trying so hard lately to put myself out there. I have been participating in after-work activities, attending fitness classes and signing up for things in an effort to meet people who are like me, or maybe even meet a companion who could be something more to me. But tonight, all I feel is lonelier than I did yesterday. I knew being a single mom would be hard financially, but I knew I'd make it work. I knew it would be hard to get over my ex-husband's betrayal of me, but I did, and we're on great terms. I knew that someday I'd long for the love and attention of someone other than my sons, and I've caught and released quite a few fish back into the proverbial sea. But I never really fathomed how alone in the world I would really feel. I grew up with a bevy of cousins living next door to me or within 10 minutes of my house, and I was never short on friends, family, boyfriends and people who wanted to share my time. Today, I am almost 35 years old, and I'm an island. I wish things were different. I wish I weren't so sad.

Gallons

Where do I start? Usually when I wake up with this many thoughts overflowing from my head, I immediately pour them onto paper and try to make sense of them. But it’s been so long since I’ve blogged publicly that I don’t imagine that the overflow of emotions could ever transfer in a way that didn’t make me sound either completely insane or seemingly suicidal.

I am neither. But I am…tired. Just bloody tired.

The kind of tired that sends you to bed early and you fall asleep within seconds of letting your head meet pillow…but with that supersized side order of anxiety that wakes you up from even the deepest of slumbers to send you wading in your private pool of self-pity, frustration and despair. I find myself thinking, the minute the alarm clock goes off, of everything that’s miserable and how I’m going to try to simply push through it with a smile on my face. Just get by. Just smile. Make it a great day. Be your best you. Hang in there.

I’m trying.

But try as I might, I’m drowning in it lately…the despair. The loneliness. The uncertainty. Whereas I used to be able to vent, put things into perspective, count my blessings and then keep plugging along, I just feel consumed lately by the sense that things will never get better for me. I am lonely. I am broke. I am defeated.
I love my children more than any words on paper or on my computer screen could ever express. And essentially, they are the only reason I’m here. I love them more than I love me. Or you. Or anyone. And as long as they need and want me to be here, I am here and doing my best to be everything they need.

And therein lies my heartbreak. “They are the only reason I’m here.” Every mother worth her salt will tell you that it’s enough for them. Because what kind of mother would ever long for any additional or alternate sources of happiness when her beautiful, perfect children should be enough?

But let’s not forget this…I am not only a mother. I am a woman. I am a human being. Human contact is a basic need. I might be punished for saying so, but you’ll just have to forgive me for saying that I want more. I want friends who are present for me. I want a family who is involved with mine and my son’s lives. I want a companion and a partner who sees me as more, loves me and wants to be a part of my life. I want a career and a home that make me feel successful, fulfilled and comfortable. I want a life that is such that, when my boys inevitably move on and my nest is empty of children, it is still filled with or visited by people who want me in their lives.

None of that is happening for me. I never see my family unless I relentlessly pursue them, in which case I hate myself for seeming desperate or a bother. It’s become harder to keep in touch with some friends, and even harder getting everyone to come together. I’ve fallen into love with a man who continually detaches himself from me when I get to be too emotionally overwhelming, only to come back, leaving me wondering if I’ll ever really be loved and accepted fully ever again, if I’ve ever really been at all. My job and the people who work with me are sucking the soul out of me at a dizzying pace, and I am searching desperately for a replacement that won’t feel like I’m just settling. I’m in Purgatory.

All of these things, no matter how hard I try to better or change this situation, feel completely out of my control. I did not choose to be a divorced, financially-strapped, lonely single mom stuck in the middle of a suburban hell that she can't escape. But it’s what I got, and it’s what I’m trying to do my best with…having no one over the age of 6 to talk to at the end of a hard day and outside of work hours. Having a home so far from family and friends in a neighborhood devoid of friendly neighbors, that no one ever just “stops by.” Having no money to go back to school to better my career or get my boys or myself involved in activities that would reconnect us with the world, yet having “too much” money to qualify for any sort of assistance. Sleeping in one tiny corner of a massive king-sized bed, wishing there was a hand there to hold, or someone to giggle with while watching Family Guy. Staring at the stars at night, wishing I were anywhere else, wishing I never longed for anything, wishing I was a better person, wishing I were better-looking, or a better mom, or better at anything that mattered to anyone who matters to me.

My sons should be enough. I am a horrible person. You can say it to me over and over again, call me ungrateful, call me pathetic, call me trite, call me shallow, call me whatever you want. But I just cannot help how empty I feel, and I cannot help yearning for things to fill a void that I’m starting to think will never fill.

Recently I sat in my friend’s chair while she painstakingly flat-ironed my hair, and I bemoaned the latest rift between me and the man who I’ve been devoting the last several months of my life with. She listened carefully before weighing in.
I, according to my friend, am a gallon girl who is living a life surrounded by pint people. I have gallons of love and devotion that I’m handing to people, and they are either taking it and only refilling my gallon by a pint, or my gallon overwhelms them so that they decline any further offerings. That’s why I’m empty, she said. I need to find a gallon guy and gallon friends, or I will find myself carrying around an empty heart forever. I might not give only to receive, she says, but I’m noticing the emptiness nonetheless.

I don’t think there are any gallon people in the world, if that’s the case.

And that makes me sadder.