Baggage Claim

She's feeling a bit lost and sad.  She knows she doesn't want to be where she was but she's not sure where Next is.  She feels like maybe she doesn't deserve a Next.  She tells me all the reasons why not.

"You're being too hard on yourself," I tell her.  Junior Counselor to the Free World kicks in.

Nobody's perfect and anyone who expects you to be can go suck an egg. There is no such thing as normal, don't try to compare yourself to anyone else.  Just be the best YOU.  I love you.  It will all be okay.  Just breathe.  Really, some days breathing is enough.

I try to tell her that so many times.  No negative self talk.  Nuh uh.  Not around me.  Admitting faults is fine but not to a hyperbolic degree.  You are good enough, smart enough and doggone it people like you.

And yet.

Left to my own devices?

I'm flailing too.  Panicked gasping sobs and eyes wide shut with imagined social terrors.

No man will ever truly love me again.  I will die alone.  I don't deserve to be happy.  There is no hope.

I don't feel like that right this second but just the remembering of that feeling finds me big blinking and swallowing sad.  but I can't tell you that.  because who wants to hear that.

It's preposterous in the first place, right?!  I'm fearless and bold!  I jump out of planes for fun!  well, just the one so far but I'd do that again in a heartbeat.  I write my self to thousands hundreds tens of readers on the internet just because!   And I'm funny!  And pretty!  and stuff.  I'm all those great things people remind me about all the time that I don't hear when it's late at night and I'm alone.

Alone.  Again.  Still.  For the howeverymanyth year in a row.

The loneliness used to not get to me but every so often.  Now it gets to me about every day.

tears over time drip trickle stream gush torrent and the lonely carves a canyon right through me.

But canyons are a wonder, aren't they?  People like to hike around in there.  See the striations.  Marvel at the depth.  Whatever else people do in canyons.  Camp?  I've never been to one, so I don't know for sure.  All I know is that the steady force of even the smallest thing given enough time can create something I can't find the right word for.

And maybe that's part of my problem.  I can't quite find the right word for me.  For where I am.  I feel pretty proud of what I've accomplished since I've been divorced.  Just about everything I've done in the last 7 years would not have happened if I were still married and hiding behind a husband.  But I wonder if I've missed out on love.  I never positioned myself in a place to find it.  That wasn't my focus.  I had my own concerns that didn't involve putting myself on the back burner.  Again.  Not that that's what love is about.  I know that.  now.

And that's where the problem lies.  Logically I know better but emotionally I'm in a weird place.  Now I'm lonely and that's a terrible time to seek out a relationship.  It's like going grocery shopping when you're hungry.  You start putting everything in your cart because all you want is something and it ends up a godawful mess.  I can't do that now.  not NOW.  I've come too far for that fortheloveagod.

So, I'm feeling conflicted is what I'm saying.  I'm pep talking people into feeling great about themselves and convention be damned, love who you are and don't worry about anything or anyone else!  And then I cry myself to sleep because why can't I just fit into the box that so many other people fit into?  Why do I have to be this awkward thing that doesn't lend itself to a container?  Like I'll be found only when I'm tripped over as you're looking for something else.

But I was telling my pen pal the other day that the alternative to this is being one of those boxy, Glitterati people.  You know the ones, most likely out on the display shelves?  And I really don't want to be one of them because those people annoy the hell out of me as a general rule.  I mean, I can make small talk at a buffet table with them just as well as anybody else but the second I see an opening, I'm probably going to seek out someone with some texture who has something real to say.

So anyway...where was this meant to go...?

Oh.  Right.

You, you presently unclaimed piece of baggage, are zippers full to bursting with valuable content.  You will be found.

me too.

just breathe.