I'm So Tired of Being Alone

Last night when my kids and I got home, we realized that when we left, the garage door had closed most of the way and then gotten stuck on top of a flowerpot. Since the garage door lacks the reversing action, the power was dead by the time we got back. It was super frustrating, and I didn't know what to do about it, so I used my tried-and-true strategy of sleeping on it.

I awoke early in the morning with an insight: maybe I just needed to reset the fuse in order to restore power to the door!? I crept down to the basement with my flashlight and tried it -- but to no avail. I didn't know what to do. After I took my son to school, I went over to the neighbors to ask for help. So far I haven't identified any neighbors at this house like I had in my old neighborhood: People (mainly dudes) who'd come over and fix things whenever I was in a jam. I tried a different house than the one where I struck out last time, but she just gave me the name of a company to call. Not what I was hoping for, but I was pretty desperate, so I called.

The dude on the other end of the phone was not the helpful type either. He told me that he couldn't work on a door that doesn't reverse or have photo sensors. I said I really needed to get it working again and he said to detach the cord and pull it up manually. I didn't understand what he meant by "the cord" and I started to get upset.

I went into my room, both to cry, and to try to figure out the next step. I decided to call a handyman who'd previously done work on my house. I was hoping I could remain calm when I talked to him, but I ended up breaking down on the phone with him, which was embarrassing, but effective. He came over within the hour, and was up on a ladder trying to help me as I recounted my story about waking up early with the insight that I needed to reset the power, but I'd tried that, and it hadn't worked. And then we both glanced over at the mechanism for the door on the ceiling, spied a little black button, pressed it, and voila! Up went the door. I was super relieved. I thanked my knight in Carhartt profusely and off he went.

Back in the kitchen doing dishes, my inner jukebox pulled out the perfect song to express how I was feeling through this ordeal:

I'm so tired of being alone
I'm so tired of on-my-own
Won't you help me girl
Just as soon as you can?

And I realized that I've been basically alone with my homeownership for the five plus years since I left my marriage, and I'm tired of it. In this, too, I want a partner again, because:

I'm so tired of being alone
So tired of being alone
So tired of being alone
I'm so tired of being alone
So tired of being alone
So tired of being alone
I'm so tired of being alone
So tired of being alone
So tired of being alone

All My Days

Listening to this song tonight confirmed what I've been feeling and writing about these past few days: My story is only partially told. Makes sense -- after all, statistically speaking at least -- I have probably only lived about half of my days.

Still, I can relate to most of the song:

Well I have been searching all of my days
All of my days
Many a road, you know
I've been walking on
All of my days
And I've been trying to find
What's been in my mind
As the days keep turning into night

Well I have been quietly standing in the shade
All of my days
Watch the sky breaking on the promise that we made
All of this rain
And I've been trying to find
What's been in my mind
As the days keep turning into night

Well many a night I found myself with no friends standing near
All of my days
I cried aloud
I shook my hands
What am I doing here
All of these days
For I look around me
And my eyes confound me
And it's just too bright
As the days keep turning into night

All that I can really relate to, but this next verse definitely speaks to a destination at which I have not yet arrived:

Now I see clearly
It's you I'm looking for
All of my days
Soon I'll smile
I know I'll feel this loneliness no more
All of my days
For I look around me
And it seems you've found me
And it's coming into sight
As the days keep turning into night
As the days keep turning into night
And even breathing feels all right
Yes, even breathing feels all right
Now even breathing feels all right
It's even breathing
Feels all right

I haven't found the man I'm looking for, or he hasn't found me, or at the very least, we don't know it yet. And that doesn't feel ideal, but it does feel ok.

What doesn't feel ok is that breathing doesn't feel all right or even alright right now. When I try to inhale, I can feel the knot in my back -- right behind my heart -- that won't go away. My exhale also feels limited.

It feels like all this is telling me that I have more grieving to do. I wish I didn't. I'm sick of grief. But I want to be able to breathe easily, and I have to think that my ability to breathe easily and finding the man with whom, with any luck, I'm going to get to spend the second half of my days, are linked.

Guess I know what I need to do...

All That She Wants

One particular line of this song keeps running through my head:

She leads a lonely life
She leads a lonely life

It sounds, inside my head, just as it sounds in the actual song -- oddly upbeat. It doesn't feel like a bad thing, necessarily, but when my babies aren't here, my life outside work and yoga is a pretty solitary affair.

Another reason that those lyrics never bring me down is that they remind me of the nights in Kings Cross -- the red light district in Sydney (yep, Australia) where my friends and I would dance to this song at the KCH in the wee hours of the morning (no such thing as bar time there):

When she woke up late in the morning light
And the day had just begun
She opened up her eyes and thought
Oh what a morning
It's not a day for work
It's a day for catching tan
Just lying on the beach and having fun
She's going to get you

All that she wants is another baby
She's gone tomorrow boy
All that she wants is another baby
All that she wants is another baby
She's gone tomorrow boy
All that she wants is another baby
All that she wants - all that she wants

In those days -- I was 22 -- all that I wanted wasn't another baby. I didn't have any babies yet, and although I knew I wanted them, I wasn't ready. Fast forward a couple of decades to find me now -- at 42 -- with two babies, and although it isn't accurate to say all that I want is another baby, I still dream about it, and I know that my experience with mothering in this world won't be limited to the two children I've given birth to so far. Maybe I'll become a stepmother, maybe my next partner and I will adopt or foster, or maybe I will have another baby.

Who knows? All I know is I'm excited to see what's coming.

I love the next verse, so I'm gonna close with it even if, as astute readers will recognize, trapping a man into being my babydaddy is NOT one of the options I'm considering:

So if you are in sight and the day is right
She's the hunter you're the fox
The gentle voice that talks to you won't talk forever
It is a night for passion
But the morning means goodbye
Beware of what is flashing in her eyes
She's going to get you

All that she wants is another baby
She's gone tomorrow boy
All that she wants is another baby
All that she wants is another baby
She's gone tomorrow boy
All that she wants is another baby...

This Time

I was talking to a friend last night who is also in this in-between space -- kind of out there again -- she'd like to be -- but also still dealing with all the feelings that come with the dissolution of a marriage.

It's difficult, when things don't go our way with one love, not to close ranks around the heart in order to protect it the next time around, just like Tracy's singing about in this song:

This time
I won't show I'm vulnerable
This time
I won't give in first
This time
I will hold out with my love
This time
I will not be hurt

I'm gonna love myself
More than anyone else
I'm gonna treat me right
I'm gonna make you say
That you love me first
And you'll be the one with the most to lose tonight
This time

This time
I won't let my emotions rule my life
This time
I'm gonna keep my heart locked safe inside
This time
I'm gonna be my own best friend
This time
I'm gonna be the one

Methinks some of her vows are healthy, others not so much. In my last relationship, I can honestly say that I let emotions rule longer than really made sense if I were evaluating what I was being offered in that relationship versus what I was getting.

I loved him truly, madly, deeply, and knew that he felt the same about me, only he wasn't prepared to do with that love what I wanted to do with it: treasure it, protect it, nurture it, prioritize it, keep it. I knew that, in my head, but I let my heart, which stubbornly chose to focus only on the madly in love part, rule for as long as he was here with me, and even for a few weeks after he was gone.

I try to have compassion for both of us, to know that we were where we needed to be while we were there, but sometimes that's easier to do than others.

In any case, this time, I won't keep my heart locked safe inside -- I know that letting myself be vulnerable is a huge part of what made my last love so significant for me -- but I will allow my brain to check in every so often and ask how it's going. I will be my own best friend, but I'll talk to my other best friend too, and try to really listen to what we're both saying. And if I know something's not quite right, I'll have the guts to do something about it.

Yep, Tracy, this time, I'm gonna be the one. And so is my friend. With just the right man for each of us.

I just know it...

Kandi

I've heard this song a bunch of times on the radio lately. I rather like the whole thing, but it's the first line that seems to be on repeat in my head:

You've been my queen for longer than you know
My love for you has been
Every step I take, every day I live, everything I see

It's sort of a similar theme to last night's post -- the thought that somewhere out there someone is imagining a life with me just as I'm imagining a life with him. It's not a date for a movie, which would be nice this weekend, but it does keep me just a little bit warmer as the cooler temperatures begin setting in.

My friends seem to think I'm in different spots in terms of my readiness to be out there again, with some saying I am ready and some saying I'm not. I'm not really sure myself. I'm getting there, but I'm not sure I am there -- if I were, I'd probably have a movie date this weekend.

I think it helps that anyone I date who is close to my age is pretty much guaranteed to have been through the sort of heartbreak I feel like -- or at least hope -- I'm at the tail end of:

And it hurts beyond hurt
It was a love that blinds and a love that stings...

I know he called you, baby, baby, all night long
I know he called you, baby, baby, all night long

That's going to help when starting something new, I know it is, but for now, I'm content to wait until the Universe decides I'm ready to meet my match:

Does my love ever touch you?
Does my love ever reach you?
It's never enough, ah, is it never enough?

The one with whom I share a life that is more than enough -- so much better than the feeling of trying to share a life with someone with whom it never was enough. We all deserve more peace than that...

Dream a Little Dream of Me

My kids and I got back from visiting my sister for my nephew's birthday this afternoon, and I was just kinda feeling like hanging at the homestead this evening. But I'd been invited to what seemed like would be a pretty cool party, so after I finished my dinner, I decided to venture out.

After all, I told myself, I've been asking the Universe to hook me up with some new peeps -- and I can't very well expect that to happen in my living room.

The evening didn't disappoint. I saw lots of people I knew and met some new ones too, including a group of people who invited me to a weekly ski event this Winter. Many of the people I talked to were very tall men, too, which is always a plus, though most of them were married.

Not all of them were, though, and as I was walking out to my car at the end of the evening, I heard the first verse of this song...

Stars shining bright above you
Night breezes seem to whisper "I love you"
Birds singing in the sycamore trees
Dream a little dream of me

...and hoped that some tall, lovely man was doing just that!

Beautiful

Tonight my son and I had dinner together, and he was talking about what you can learn from TV, even from shows that at first glance may not seem educational, like his fave: South Park. I had to agree with him, and though both my kids think it's goofy that I am into Glee, that show does an amazing job of tackling tough topics such as teen pregnancy and body image.

I've been thinking about the body image issue a lot lately. As my daughter gets older, I want to be sure I am a good role model for her of both healthy diet and exercise and healthy self image. There's really no more powerful messenger on this topic than Mercedes from the Glee cast singing Christina Aguilera's Beautiful:

Don't look at me

Every day is so wonderful
Then suddenly it's hard to breathe
Now and then I get insecure
From all the pain, I'm so ashamed

I am beautiful no matter what they say
Words can't bring me down
I am beautiful in every single way
Yes, words can't bring me down... Oh no
So don't you bring me down today

To all your friends you're delirious
So consumed in all your doom
Trying hard to fill the emptiness
The pieces gone, left the puzzle undone
is that the way it is?

You are beautiful no matter what they say
Words can't bring you down....oh no
You are beautiful in every single way
Yes, words can't bring you down, oh, no
So don't you bring me down today...

No matter what we do
(no matter what we do)
No matter what we say
(no matter what we say)
We're the song inside the tune
Full of beautiful mistakes

Now I'm not saying it was a mistake to chop my hair off -- I did it because I really needed a dramatic change, and it delivered. But I will say that with winter approaching, I am missing my hair. I miss the way it both looked and felt under my hat. I don't like the feeling of being exposed -- either literally, to the elements -- or more figuratively -- by no longer having the masculine ideal of long hair. And it's not just that. I prefer it that way, both in terms of how it looks and in the convenience of being able to put it up.

It's ok. I know it'll grow back. And as it does, I know that I have an opportunity to embrace a beauty that is much deeper than the kind associated with the length of one's hair:

And everywhere we go
(and everywhere we go)
The sun will always shine
(the sun will always, always shine)
And tomorrow we might wake on the other side

Loving the body we're in by being kind to it -- both by not bringing it down with harsh words and by eating well and exercising -- is one of our main missions on this planet -- because it helps us be all we can be in the world.

It would be great if it were simpler, but it just isn't. Not for many of us, anyway. At the hotel gym in Milwaukee I got to talking to a woman who oversees 6 companies now -- by one measure super successful -- but her yo-yoing weight is a never-ending struggle. I reckon the answer to such struggles is to spend more time looking inward, which is a big reason I both practice and teach yoga.

I stumbled on this video a while back online, and along with Christina and Glee, it feels apropos to post it here. It's all about how women see themselves compared to how they look to others, and it's good motivation to connect with the light within so that we can both see and feel it shining, regardless of the length of our hair or our weight on the scale...