So I will be 41 on Saturday - I am a Gemini through and through. I suppose I could spin some thoughts about how I am feeling but I am not sure it is all that different from when I turned 40. Maybe the real difference is now I am ready to take some action and stop whining and complaining about things that make me miserable or depressed. I think that 2007 is meant to be a good year for me - 7 is my lucky number after all.
I will share some of my post P-Town thoughts from this memorial day weekend. I want to move to Provincetown Mass as soon as humanly possibly. Going up two or three times a year just isn't enough anymore. It was glorious! Commercial Street, the dinners at Lobster Pot, the drinks and amazing appetizers at Jimmy's Hideaway, the dunes, our friends who feel like extended family, the lobster on the pier - all of it is filled with life and beauty for me. I also feel that I observed this about myself - I am obsessive. Maybe I have always known it, but I really saw hard conscious examples. I need to let some of it go and I am certain that some of my anxiety an depression will be released with it. The trip also underlined my continued loneliness in my current relationship. Talking to people who have seen us year after year and mentioning 15 years seemed almost surreal to me. We are certainly best friends and enjoy doing certain things together, but there is no passion, no spark - we are not in love. And frankly, I miss that. I want to find it again.
So yes, it feels a bit like 40 but this year, I will take action!
Let me share another observation from my book - on turning 40!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
I'm often lonely. It's no ones fault really; no one to blame. It is by choice, I suppose, at least some would say. I remember the days when crowds of laughter surrounded my banter. It didn't matter if they were laughing with me or at me; at least we were all having fun. I was the life of the party once ... have I told you that already? I don't care for parties now. It all changed when you showed me that the world was fool of fools and we two were the exception. My fault was in believing you and in the world proving you right. I imagine our dinners with Zinfandel, almost ice, and tastes of magnificent meals and conversation that kept my eyes from my watch. In the end, it wasn't enough, and I strayed and you disconnected and we gave up. After all, we were young and had our lives ahead of us. Better to go it alone. Better to go back to being who we were. Impossible I think. Now there is this mess I've made with these last twelve years; stumbling and searching for something, God knows what, and taking him along with me. The challenge of making him something he's not. It has failed miserably. We are lonelier together I think. In my consciousness I understand it and yet I can not pull the needle from this record. I did with you, didn't I? But age does have a way of stiffening our bones. I lied before, I think. I do know what I've always looked for, what I have always wanted ... perfection. And I've found everything, but. I know what you're thinking. How dare I be so bitchy and miserable; sharing my life as if it was agony and the glass was empty! Of course, you're right. My childhood was filled with loss but also so much life. I love school and knew it while I was in it. How rare is that? Travel and theatre and food and wine and culture and life, just fascinating and enchanting life. And maybe that is why I resent where I am now. It was then that everything was mine to touch and taste and be. I was a sponge and everything around me was fluid. I took it all in and cherished it. I ate and drank and loved and played and heard the roar of thousands, literally, and I think I miss that. Maybe I blame him for being a project that took me away from that journey, but that is not really fair I suppose, and certainly not his fault. Maybe I blame you, for changing my view, my perspective, which had always been so bright and abandoned. I could blame mother or brother; after all, they are dead. Truthfully though, I can only blame myself. I have always made my own choices and done exactly as I want. Spoiled by life and now I am angry with it. It should have given me more I think. It's all so trite, even this, as I write it seems so whiny and lame. There are a few joys now. Music makes me sing, sometimes, though I long to share it with more than just my thoughts. Movies move me, to tears mostly, when I am swept to reminiscence by similarities in character or plot. Therapeutic conversations stimulate my intellect and make me feel alive for a few minutes now and then. The Muscadet and pate in Paris was wonderful and the time in Italy was a dream. And trips to the Cape have kept me sane I suppose. The house and gardens keep me dreaming. But mostly, as droll and dull as it may seem, the reality of life at forty is loneliness. I hate it and I don't want to feel like this anymore. And it's not about being physically alone; it's about making a choice to find happiness ... to look for it and find it, or make it if it's not there. It's about letting things go and not giving a damn about the small stuff, and changing my life, not to what it once was, but to something it can be, something better than this. And I'm not having a mid-life crisis, I had that at thirty. I'm just tired of feeling this way, tired of being alone even when I'm surrounded by people, tired of missing out on whatever else is out there to learn and explore and experience. I want to smile again, and not like the cat or the hyena, but like the boy holding the balloon and eating the ice-cream and holding his mother's hand as they walk along the river to the ferry. That is what I long for. As I blow out the candles on my cake, that is what I wish for.
I will share some of my post P-Town thoughts from this memorial day weekend. I want to move to Provincetown Mass as soon as humanly possibly. Going up two or three times a year just isn't enough anymore. It was glorious! Commercial Street, the dinners at Lobster Pot, the drinks and amazing appetizers at Jimmy's Hideaway, the dunes, our friends who feel like extended family, the lobster on the pier - all of it is filled with life and beauty for me. I also feel that I observed this about myself - I am obsessive. Maybe I have always known it, but I really saw hard conscious examples. I need to let some of it go and I am certain that some of my anxiety an depression will be released with it. The trip also underlined my continued loneliness in my current relationship. Talking to people who have seen us year after year and mentioning 15 years seemed almost surreal to me. We are certainly best friends and enjoy doing certain things together, but there is no passion, no spark - we are not in love. And frankly, I miss that. I want to find it again.
So yes, it feels a bit like 40 but this year, I will take action!
Let me share another observation from my book - on turning 40!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
I'm often lonely. It's no ones fault really; no one to blame. It is by choice, I suppose, at least some would say. I remember the days when crowds of laughter surrounded my banter. It didn't matter if they were laughing with me or at me; at least we were all having fun. I was the life of the party once ... have I told you that already? I don't care for parties now. It all changed when you showed me that the world was fool of fools and we two were the exception. My fault was in believing you and in the world proving you right. I imagine our dinners with Zinfandel, almost ice, and tastes of magnificent meals and conversation that kept my eyes from my watch. In the end, it wasn't enough, and I strayed and you disconnected and we gave up. After all, we were young and had our lives ahead of us. Better to go it alone. Better to go back to being who we were. Impossible I think. Now there is this mess I've made with these last twelve years; stumbling and searching for something, God knows what, and taking him along with me. The challenge of making him something he's not. It has failed miserably. We are lonelier together I think. In my consciousness I understand it and yet I can not pull the needle from this record. I did with you, didn't I? But age does have a way of stiffening our bones. I lied before, I think. I do know what I've always looked for, what I have always wanted ... perfection. And I've found everything, but. I know what you're thinking. How dare I be so bitchy and miserable; sharing my life as if it was agony and the glass was empty! Of course, you're right. My childhood was filled with loss but also so much life. I love school and knew it while I was in it. How rare is that? Travel and theatre and food and wine and culture and life, just fascinating and enchanting life. And maybe that is why I resent where I am now. It was then that everything was mine to touch and taste and be. I was a sponge and everything around me was fluid. I took it all in and cherished it. I ate and drank and loved and played and heard the roar of thousands, literally, and I think I miss that. Maybe I blame him for being a project that took me away from that journey, but that is not really fair I suppose, and certainly not his fault. Maybe I blame you, for changing my view, my perspective, which had always been so bright and abandoned. I could blame mother or brother; after all, they are dead. Truthfully though, I can only blame myself. I have always made my own choices and done exactly as I want. Spoiled by life and now I am angry with it. It should have given me more I think. It's all so trite, even this, as I write it seems so whiny and lame. There are a few joys now. Music makes me sing, sometimes, though I long to share it with more than just my thoughts. Movies move me, to tears mostly, when I am swept to reminiscence by similarities in character or plot. Therapeutic conversations stimulate my intellect and make me feel alive for a few minutes now and then. The Muscadet and pate in Paris was wonderful and the time in Italy was a dream. And trips to the Cape have kept me sane I suppose. The house and gardens keep me dreaming. But mostly, as droll and dull as it may seem, the reality of life at forty is loneliness. I hate it and I don't want to feel like this anymore. And it's not about being physically alone; it's about making a choice to find happiness ... to look for it and find it, or make it if it's not there. It's about letting things go and not giving a damn about the small stuff, and changing my life, not to what it once was, but to something it can be, something better than this. And I'm not having a mid-life crisis, I had that at thirty. I'm just tired of feeling this way, tired of being alone even when I'm surrounded by people, tired of missing out on whatever else is out there to learn and explore and experience. I want to smile again, and not like the cat or the hyena, but like the boy holding the balloon and eating the ice-cream and holding his mother's hand as they walk along the river to the ferry. That is what I long for. As I blow out the candles on my cake, that is what I wish for.
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