Bent

I feel like I'm bent.  Not broken, not incapable of functioning, but there is a difficulty.  I'm affected somehow on a subconscious and every increasingly conscious level that there is a fundamental difference between the way I think, speak, function and they way other "normal" people do.  I'm different somehow.  I don't seem to fit in, but I have many friends.  I don't have a best friend.  I realize at 41 best friends may be an outdated concept, but I just feel strange about reaching out sometimes just to have a conversation.  I'm jealous of people that do have that kind of connection.  I am starting to become more internal and I'm not really sure why.  I have less tolerance for immaturity except from people who are truly immature like children and it seems I'm surrounded by drama queens and Peter Pans.  I want to pursue Buddhism, gardening, and write.  I have a hard time seeing the point in developing any work relationships, because I don't want to work at this job for any longer than it takes to become an independent writer.  I love my friends, but I also can't stand some of them for more than an hour.  I get home and take a shower and thank God I'm not them.  I have ever increasing empathy for all the people I get to know, because it is easier to see their reasons and courage despite their circumstances.  It is easier to understand the why, but my choice is just to not participate, join or belong.  Maybe I just need a different place to belong, different friends, different definitions of normal.  How does a person do that?  What is this pull to someplace different?

I think this bending began a long time ago.  I think I've been bending and bending trying to fit in to what other people's expectations were of me.  I think my divorce was a breaking point.  Either I quit bending or I would break, but I am now forever bent.  My focus is different.  It's like I was standing up my whole life and now I'm in one of those weird yoga poses trying desperately to stretch out the kinks and find some inner peace.  I gravitate toward people that are in transition.  I crave new books, new ideas, new anything.  Maybe this is what mid-life crisis is like?  Maybe I'm just bored with everything.  Maybe I'm just starting to define what is really important to me.

One of my biggest fears of getting older is that my children will grow up and have these wonderful experiences going to college and being on their own and I will just be old and lonely.  I refuse to do this!  I refuse to keep working a dead end good job and eat myself into a 300 pound misery cushion, because all of my coping mechanisms have been stripped away except for food.  I have changed my eating habits, but when travel, art, and age limit you between what is financially possible and what you really enjoy, then you have to really start to look at what you CAN really enjoy right now.  When you begin one life and build up your dreams stacking them neatly on top of each other, you are at the bottom and can't see everyone else slipping their own added expectations on to your pile.  The weight gets heavier and heavier until all of the sudden you're bent.  Even worse when life comes along and rips the foundation out from under you, the stack of dreams falls all over smashing to pieces and you are left bent with nothing you recognize.  I don't mind being bent and rebuilding, but I'm not entirely sure what to build.  The pieces of my dreams don't fit and little slivers of expectations keep getting stuck where they don't belong.  It's like changing your make up for the first time since high school.  You stand back in the mirror and ask, "Is this me?  Can I pull off this pink of a blusher?  Do people wear this color of blue or am I going to look like a total prostitute?"  You want to trust the sales woman who just spent the better part of 15 minutes applying the new product, but you also want to retreat back to the same old comfortable brown eyeliner and lip gloss that carried you through two of the most important relationships of your young life.  Maybe the NEW just needs time to grow on me?  I guess I have until my son's graduation.

I bought a house a short time ago and couldn't be happier with the purchase.  I, however, didn't buy a house for me.  It is a huge debt, huge responsibility, and a huge hassle since I'm not the best at maintenance.  I bought a house for my family.  I wanted the children to have a home.  I wanted to paint their rooms and decorate with their artwork in a space we could truly express ourselves.  I wanted them to feel comfortable an invite their friends over.  I wanted to invest in something that might give me a return or help me pay for college if I sold it.  It gives me a place to practice being myself.  I'm gaining confidence by repairing my broken drain and fixing the toilet.  I feel good knowing that my children think of my house as their home.  I have noticed that the first week excitement has passed and now the reality of being stuck here until my kids graduate high school is bumming me out.  Still, I have decided to use this time for improving the curb appeal and resale value of this house and to really begin to write.  This house doesn't have to be prison, it can still be my refuge until I decide I'm ready to swim for it and brave the unknown ocean again.  I don't know where this restlessness is coming from?  Is it possible that it's just a side affect of freedom?  Do I feel like this because for the first time in my life I'm just not afraid of what comes next?

Being bent is not being broken and I guess at some point we all look within and acknowledge something is different.  I'm not a girl anymore.  I have wrinkles.  My back hurts sometimes when it rains.  My friends are different people and some are exactly the same as they were in high school.  It's harder to maintain friendships and feel that closeness that you had when you told someone everything, because frankly we all make mistakes and might not want people to know everything.  Maybe I am afraid of being that intimate with anyone?  Maybe I don't trust them enough to understand me?  I do entertain a lot of crazy notions and ideas.  I think that is why I like writing.  Blank pages don't judge or mock me.  They are open and friendly waiting to be filled with details.  Unfortunately, telling a joke on paper is not as fun as hearing your friends laughter.  Books don't hug you, although they may tug at your heartstrings and stimulate your brain.  Maybe I'm just bent in a weird direction right now and as time goes on that part of me will loosen and my perspective will change.  I am much more conscious of all my decisions and the consequences of all my decisions now and I like that awareness even if it brings more stress.  Cautious has never been who I am, but I guess that is why it feels different.  It's hard to be the same person, yet different in so many ways.  I struggle with bent.