Ruby Slippers

Hour number 50 something of not smoking.  we're still in hours.  I'm still unconsciously reaching for the pack and lighter like an itchy phantom limb.  Even though I don't really want it.  I mean, I'm not trying to convince myself I don't, I just don't.  but it's like muscle memory or something.  weird.  So, I'm reconditioning I guess?

I take a deep breath (way easier already thanks), rub the patch on my skin like a touchstone and remind myself this is not my hobby anymore.  I'd pop in another stick of gum too but my jaw's kinda achy from aggressive gum chewing all day.  I don't even like gum, it's just a place holder so I don't bite my nails to bleeding. 

So there's that.

I came across some journals the other day.  Journals I forgot I even kept from when X and I started dating and on through the split.  They were interesting to say the least.  Okay, more like cringe worthy.  At least at the beginning.  Because from mid 1997 to sometime in 2001 I was a zombie.  I can't believe I even had the presence of mind to write during those years.  But seeing what I wrote?  It was like I was on someone else's autopilot.  It was all this dreamy lovestruck knight in shining armor destiny fulfilling absolute motherfucking vomitous trash.  It's like I was lobotomized, but I was the jackass who handled the knife.

I convinced myself that the man I'd met would turn the world into rainbows and butterflies and the dirty tedium of everyday never even crossed my mind.  Or it did but I was going to somehow tra la la to the wildlife in a gleeful magic way that didn't include figuring out what to make for dinner and dealing with whiny children.  And I certainly didn't expect my knight in shining armor to have any other hobbies besides a regular Tee Time then racing home to shower boisterous devoted affection on me and the kids.  Whatever planet my head was on was a far far distance from the one we all occupy today.  Ward Cleaver didn't even live on that planet.  Not even Bill Cosby.  Maybe Danny Tanner, but I never even watched Full House because that show made my stomach turn so why in the...?

OMGWTF WAS I THINKING?!

*ahem*

But I started to wise up in the middle.  The turn is visible in the journals.  I start to question stuff.  Realized money wasn't everything.  Wrote "Better a crust of bread in a hovel than a castle full of strife" over and over again on pages and pages like The Shining.  fucking creepy?  sure.  Also?  true.  And it was pretty much all downhill from there and resulted in catastrophic events I would just love to tell you about except my moral gray area was more a cry for help than anything else and I'm not all that keen on the ruining of lives beyond my own at this juncture if that's alright with you.  thx.

moving on.

So, you'd think that recovering from a self-lobotomy like that, realizing I'd given all my power away for no reason other than I had no confidence in my own abilities and thought, "Hey, you're the most popular guy in the room.  Have this!" and handing over everything that made me essentially me...you'd think that I would figure out to not do that anymore, right?  Yeah, me too.  Notsomuch in the journals.  I met someone.  I was toast after a few emails. there was poetry involved.  it was plzshootme horrifying in retrospect.

Luckily I had something else going on at the time.  A non-relationshippy thing.  My first big special event fundraising project.  I was really involved and became the unofficial chair.  I fell in love with that event.  Poetry/email dude got jealous.  I kicked him to the curb. And the event made almost double the profit for the children's hospital than the year before.  The idea that I directly helped raise $40K was...I mean...I never did ANYTHING like that in my life before.  I rode that high for a while.

Special events became by niche.  I knew what I was doing, developed a pretty good reputation in that regard.  I was getting out in the world on my own.  Not riding the coattails of a popular husband or boyfriend.  And I didn't need anyone else's money or influence.  It was just me.  I changed back to my maiden name during that time and from Silver as a nickname to my legal first name for good and all.

But I couldn't get the boyfriend thing together.  Or the dating thing.  I'd see these charismatic men and be so ready to just lose myself because that was my pattern.  They had what I wanted.  Power.  And they were already established.  I thought if I copied them or did what they told me then I could have Power too.  It never occurred to me that I was wearing the ruby slippers the whole time.

People told me all along that I was smart and capable and praiseful things like that.  I don't know why I never believed it.  I remember telling X years after the divorce, one of the things that drew me to him was that he was the guy whose car would break down in some nowhere town and by the end of the day he'd be having dinner with the City Council and the mechanic would send him on his way for free.  He looked at me with the slow blink and said, "No.  That's you."

Um.  What?  No, but...that's...waitaminute.  I never thought of myself like that before, but it rang true and I knew he was right.  That's when it really hit me that the people we're attracted to in whatever way are just reflections of ourselves. 

So, now I'm riding the wave of this reunion praise and getting some attention from the male population and trying to figure out if I'm ready to test the waters of dating with the knowledge that I don't need to hitch my wagon to anyone else's star.  That I am good enough, smart enough and doggone it people like me and not try to look for someone else to show me the way.  because I know my path for real for the first time in a long time. 

And I've got friends like Audrey and Betty and you, le blogosphere, to keep me in check if I start spouting off with romantical bullshit too soon.

Oh, but no need to be on immediate alert.  I haven't been asked out yet.  Just a heads up if I start sounding love culty or anything.