Unless you are a cat or a dog, I do not want a relationship with you that involves any type of "fixing".
It's often said that when women are young they pick out a man with the idea of fixing his flaws. I've reached the stage where I don't want a man unless he is "all fixed". And I do mean that in more ways than one.
I'm in that redline danger zone of life when a woman is just liable to go batcrap crazy. I'm done with the whole "childbearing" thing, but I could still have an "unfortunate mishap". I've been through the vast panorama of "self-improvement" and "soul searching" and I've decided that my soul's purpose at this point is to "have fun and be creative". This means the best guy for me is not a raging alcoholic, a drug addict, or anyone in need of rescue. It's been all I can do to keep myself from running in front of the ice cream truck, I just don't have the strength to sign up to do it for anyone else full time. (After all there are trained professionals for that sort of assistance.)
It's not that I'm not steadfast, loyal, and true. It's just that I'm not suicidal.
If I have a good day, where I don't hurt and I have energy, I hoard it to myself. I don't phone anyone or invite anyone along on my rambles for fear something will happen to break the spell. Sometimes just going to an art gallery or a movie on my own is enough. I savor it and keep it stashed for the days when I don't feel so great.
A great appreciation for my own company doesn't make me totally antisocial. I have a heck of a good time exploring the BJ's Warehouse club with Luv Monkey or attending my monthly alumni association luncheons. But the point is that I don't want to climb Mount Everest or skydive to prove I'm alive. Life has kicked my ass enough that I realize I am on the physical plane and subject to the experiences therein.
I want companionship for fun things, non life threatening things, like taking the steam train through the mountains to see the fall leaves. I'm even thinking of striking Disney World from my "to do" list because it involves strategizing and planning like a friggin' military campaign. The last few grand vacations I took to retreats left me unimpressed. I enjoyed the sunset on the Taos Tribal sacred mountain or the milky way from the cabin porch swing more than I enjoyed the retreats themselves.
I'd like to spend a few days in Venice Italy so I could see if the light there is a magical as Whistler and the impressionists made it out to be. I'd like to take a vacation to Fiji or someplace where I could stay in a guest cottage over the water and spend my days soaking in the water and the sun. I'd like to have a beach vacation where I could body surf and stare at the ocean a lot. I'd still like to go for a 3 day driving course at Skip Barber driving school.
I don't need to ride through the Alps on an elephant or scuba dive over an underwater volcano, I just want some simple old fashioned fun. How about a little time to relax instead of ticking off things on some great pre-ordaned list? Way back in economics class we studied "conspicuous consumption", now I feel plagued by another equally dubious phenomena, conspicuous leisure. There seems to be an unrelenting societal drive for constant "productivity". When we arent' being super achievers at work, or world class women at home, we are supposed to be National Geographic Society caliber explorers on vacation. Somebody has slipped a cog somehwere.
I understand all this productivity and conspicuous consumption drives the economy but what does all this "full tilt" living do for me? That is another dangerous symptom of my life's new phase. I ask, "What's in it for me and do I even want that? " I've adopted Barbara Sher's phrase, "You can't get enough of what you don't really want." as my mantra.
I've seen the bumper stickers and advertisements about "Living on the edge." and "If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room."
I ask, "Edge of what?" and "Too much room where? We're not in airline seats!"
I've been on the edge of reason, the edge of life, the edge of a coma, the edge of a cliff, and a lot of other edges where it wasn't healthy to be.
Hunter Thompson said that the only ones who truly knew where the edge was were the ones who'd gone over it.
I'm all in favor of examining your comfort zone and giving yourself tiny prods outside your well worn path. I'm also to the point where I'm well aware that if you have to jump off a cliff in a flying squirrell suit to "feel anything", you may be spending a good portion of the rest of your life "numbing" yourself against something you don't want to deal with. Do you routinely jump off a cliff because you love the sensation of falling? Or do you do it because it gets you away from a family who you hate? Or do your few soaring moments cancel out the hours the little voice in your head nags at you over and over?
I don't like the sensation of fallling. I stay the heck off the cliffsides. If I don't feel alive, I find an alternative way to suss it out and relieve the situation. It's too easy to spend your life running to or from the past. Facing that down is a hell of a lot scarrier than jumping off a cliff dressed like Rocky the Flying Squirrel. It's more difficult, but in the end it's more rewarding. Once you've dragged that boogey-man out of the closet and had a good tussle with him, he looses a lot of his power.
Yep, I'm at that dangerous stage of my life. I'm starting to be comfortable with me, just the way I am.
This might make me eccentric, unpredictable, totally predictable, odd, average, mundane or incredibly powerful. I don't know. This is a whole new phase for me, like grade school, or puberty, or graduating college. The only thing certain about it is that I can't avoid it. It's what comes next. Nobody talked about it in school, or on the playground, or around the water cooler, or even at the dinner table. But it's what comes next and I'm not about to go dress up like a squirrel and throw myself off a cliff over it.
You know you shouldn't smoke in bed!
