Scintillectually Yours

I am going to be 45 years old in less than two weeks. In my family longevity is rampant. Three out of four of my grandparents lived well into their 90s, which means I am, yes…just over halfway through my life barring a fatal step-in-front-of-a-bus accident, a malignant disease, or the end of days in 2012. This post could wind up being a very tangential diatribe on the big giant fuck-up that is my life and if it sounds too horribly depressing you can chalk it up to the fact that I have a whopping case of the flu; just lost my health insurance in favor of paying the (now only two months in arrears) rent so that we won’t be living in a cardboard box on a heating grate in downtown Boston by the time the first snow flies; my parents are coming tomorrow for a week and my house looks like it was recently set down my Dorothy’s tornado; and I have a three pages of copy to write that I’ve been putting off for two days because I can’t organize my thoughts beyond this very tangential diatribe.

Where was I? Oh right. Wallowing in misery and self-loathing. So here’s the thing. We all live in a time of economic crisis. Many people I know don’t have jobs at all. Some work for minimum wage. Many are slogging through jobs they hate simply because they have them and don’t want to give them up. I freelance for a living. I used to be an art director. I worked for huge companies for 22 years. Ultimately, I was making six figures as a designer. Then the market tanked and my services in that area were no longer required. I was an aging print dinosaur in a land of 20-somethings who could do what I did better, faster, and cheaper. My resumé was worth only the paper it was printed on. I lost my apartment, most of my belongings and my car, declared bankruptcy. and was literally standing in line at the welfare office when HTB (remember him? The now former Hubby-to-be?) told me to leave everything, pack up my son, and move into his one bedroom in a sleepy little town a good 45 minutes out of the city.

Now I copy edit and proofread math, computer science, and physics textbooks. Occasionally, I get a medical tome or something on global health that consists of 500 pages detailing the ravages of disease in third world countries. HTB left me early in the year. After a particularly nasty scene that involved police at our door at 3 a.m. I asked him to please pack a bag and leave for a few days. He never returned. I have spent the last seven or eight months in an epic battle with my prepubescent son and my now doubled bills.

I’ve been okay with all of it until this weekend. Well, of course I’ve had tough times…moments where I thought I just couldn’t do it anymore. But I still got up the next morning, found I was still breathing, and set one foot in front of the other (yes, you now have that Christmas jingle in your head and you can blame me for the rest of the day) and kept going. I think my upcoming birthday is having it way with me. Not in a good way. I mean this bitch is fucking me up the ass with a 2 x 4 loaded with rusty nails. So…in light of the birthday cunt that wants to slam me hard…here is my wishlist for the coming year.

1. I get published. THIS is my dream. I always thought that art was my one true talent, but I find that I actually am a damn good writer and I want to be a damn good, getting-paid-for-it, published writer. Preferably for something that won’t give my mother an early coronary and break that streak of longevity.

2. I find a way to coexist with my kid. I’m truly tired of the knock-down, drag-out fights. I’m tired of taking my kid to therapy. I’m tired of being IN therapy. I’m tired of always saying no, of throwing food against the wall when I’ve worked so hard to prepare a meal only to have it wasted by an upturned nose and a plea for macaroni and cheese for the fourth night in a row, of falling into bed exhausted at 8:45 p.m. when I know I have work to do or a Netflix movie that has been sitting on my shelf for four months.

3. I get my finances in order. Steady work throughout the year. Something that doesn’t suddenly drop off in October and leave me scrambling to keep the heat on throughout the winter. Would that I had inherited my dad’s gene for squandering money for tough times.

4. A healthier, sexier body. It’s something I have wished for every year since I woke up one morning in my late 20s and discovered that my metabolism had packed its bags and left for Tahiti in the middle of the night. Obviously, I never get around to accomplishing this goal, but eh, maybe being heavier than ever now will spur me into action. Or maybe it’ll be the WII Fit that I’ve asked my folks for as a Birthday present.

6. Love. Yeah, love. This is a biggie for me. I am looking at nothing but a string of failed relationships with people who were, for the most part, alcoholics or potheads or hey, that four month stint with a heroin addict (gee, that was fun. Can you feel the sarcasm dripping from the ceiling onto your shoulder?). I love HTB. I do. I can’t seem to stay away from him. Alas, he only seems to want to truly be with me when I seem unavailable to him. He’s working on his transition. One more surgery (okay, in three or four steps probably) and he’ll have that long-dreamed about penis and THEN he says he can focus on us as a couple and us as a family. Why is it that someone can’t commit to a relationship with the one woman who was there from the very beginning and has an unbridled desire to be there during the journey? The one woman who isn’t really happy about waiting around until $20,000 miraculously shits itself out of the sky, thus enabling said surgical procedures?

Everyone who knows me knows that I can’t stand to be alone. Until this year I had not been single for more than three months since I was 17. I hear everyone saying that I should wait until I’m okay with being alone and then I can finally be with someone else. Bullfuckingshit. You know what? I am okay with being alone—I’ve been doing it, right? I just don’t prefer to be alone. I want to go to bed next to someone I love and wake up with them in the morning. I want to share the good, the bad, the gorgeous, and the ugly. I want that one person who will look at me and think “fuck me…I found a goddess and I am SO lucky to be the one she chose to share her life with.” Because really? Even given all of the crappiest parts about me (see above), I’m so worth it. I can’t tell you how many men and women have said this to me: you are intelligent, talented, creative, spiritual, beautiful, sexy, great in bed, you cook, you enjoy the outdoors, you do volunteer work, you are a writer, photographer, artist, designer, singer, avid reader, mother, friend…” Right. I’m the whole package. So why am I alone?

Thus endeth the tangential diatribe.