Exhausted last night from my whopping one beer, a Surly Cynic which by the way is mighty tasty, guacamole and freezing walk around Lake Calhoun, I decided to head to bed early.
I was sleeping soundly, probably snoring but as I am alone who really cares, when I was awoken by a loud crash. I had no idea what the hell was going on. Both of my cats were now on top of me and staring at the door. I remained frozen, unsure if anything had actually happened or maybe I had been dreaming…really loud dreams.
Suddenly, there was a banging on my door, three or four loud hits with something other than a fist. Then the banging continued down the hall. I still remained frozen, and was completely baffled as to why neither cat had moved. No living being in this place has any flight or fight instinct, we freeze and hope what is coming after us is a T-Rex and can’t see us unless we move.
My cats were looking at me, then turning to the door, then back at me. I was hoping one of them would go investigate and I am sure they were thinking the same of me. I started to imagine every possible scenario of what kind of beast was awaiting on the other side of what now seemed like a really thin door.
I finally moved enough to find my phone, yes I sleep with my damn phone, and held it in my hand not sure if I should call 911 or use it to defend myself from what I was certain was some kind of hell beast coming to take me home. I focused on my breathing, trying to not move too much so the T-Rex hell beast could not find me. One cat moved, luckily it is the one I don’t like as much so that was cool.
Eventually, I heard a scuffle and saw the reflection of the twirling lights of cop cars. I held on my phone tighter and finally fell back asleep. I decided if it was a hell beast, I can’t put up a fight so take me while I am sleeping. If it was a human, I am sure the cops have it under control. If it was a T-Rex, that would be sweet, I always wanted a T-Rex with their cute stubby arms!
Leaving this morning was a bit nerve-racking; I had no idea what awaited me outside my door. Possibly there was a dead body; maybe the hell beast took someone else in error. I looked through the peephole, which was useless and then slowly opened to find all was clear.
As I emerged, so did a neighbor and we compared stories. Another neighbor came along who had actually talked to the cops and he gave us the official story that a dude with a pipe broke in by shattering the front windows, damaged a bunch of doors including mine but was apprehended and carted off to jail along with the 3 other randoms that broke into the next door building. While that is the official story, I remain unconvinced that it was not a hell beast as it was really, really loud.
Our conversation continued discussing the hood and all the recent changes. So many buildings have gone up this year and while one would think all these extra people in our before undiscovered corner of the city would be awesome, it is difficult to deal with the traffic congestion and all these annoying people!
Eventually, the conversation bored me and I was off to enjoy the day, ever on the look out for hell bests of course.
The front door with the super secure cardboard and glass still falling.My door. I expected more damage, it was really, really loud!
For Operation Suck Less in 2014™ to be successful, I need to get up off my couch and get moving. I already have my Fitbit and have been slowly ramping up my daily steps to get stronger without reinjuring my various injuries. I have been swimming laps 3 days a week but wanted to try to mix things up so I dove in (not really as it is against the rules) to an aqua aerobics class.
This new class is at the local Y.W.C.A. that I have never stepped foot into despite living within 6 blocks radius of for decades. It is intimidating enough to go into a new health club, but this one was extra scary with all the fake owls in the parking ramp to scare off the birds that like to flock nearby. I parked, looked up, squealed like the girl I am, took a breath and headed in.
Once I got through all the paperwork I didn’t read, tour, and locker room instruction, I got into my swimsuit, pinhead swim cap and headed to the pool. I dipped my toe into the shallow end and immediately shuddered. This pool was over 12 degrees colder than the one where I swim laps and being nearly naked it feels like I am doing a polar plunge.
I slowly kept walking into the chill, staying on my tiptoes as if that somehow kept me warmer. Finally, I just dipped all the way under and popped out covered in goose bumps. I held myself trying to stay warm while I walked about the pool looking for this class that was not materializing.
About 10 minutes after the designated start time, a woman, gonna call her Ava for no good reason, arrived in her parka and boots and random people started to emerge from the locker room, sauna, whirlpool and elsewhere. Everyone was grabbing floating belts and began dog paddling to and fro. I stood around clueless.
Finally Ava, began barking her instructions. Swim dog paddle to the deep end. Breaststroke to the shallow. Row your boat to the deep end. Army-crawl to the shallow. Once she got past the 4 swim stokes I know, I was completely confused. I have no boat to row. What the hell is an Army-crawl? I tried my best to pick up what to do from the fellow oldsters but most of them were just flapping about and crashing into each other.
My first class was basically just me flailing about trying not to hit anyone and pretending I knew what I was doing. I even stayed after to swim laps as I wasn’t sure I had any real exercise in that hour.
Ava never gets in the pool; she sits on the side and yells half instructions. She also gets up and goes to chat with other staffers leaving us to indefinitely row our boats until our boats say screw you I don’t want to be rowed any more.
Most of the exercise moves have names I can eventually figure out. Bicycle, twist, cross-country ski but I was particularly confused but this “tire run” nonsense I was supposed to do. Eventually I gathered I was supposed to pretend I was running through tires keeping my knees high and going in and out; I tripped a couple times just to make it authentic.
Ava has an issue with counting. She is good at “4, 3” but neglects “2, 1”; I am never sure if I am supposed to do 2 more of one move or jump to the next. I am not sure it matters, I just keep moving.
Maybe this is true of regular aerobic classes, but seems half the participants are there to chat. And chat and chat. Eventually, Ava will jump in and there will be a group discussion of the news while I am still doing my tire run trying to coordinate my arms and legs and not drown.
My favorite part of the class is when Ava will try to get people to switch up the obvious ways to move our arms and legs and get our minds to get our limbs to do something new. Everyone looks perplexed and the loudest of the talkers will go on and on about the impossibility of this new move. I try to tune it all out and do as intended until Ava gives up and has us go back to the familiar.
The class mixes in some resistance moves and eventually ends with some stretching and a race from the pool to the awesomeness awaiting in the warm showers.
I have been to 4 classes now. I have remembered to bring a towel 3 times and underwear twice and the time I forgot both presented some unique challenges with my departure. I am still not used to the chill but I am getting the moves down a bit more. Not sure if this is helping much with Operation Suck Less in 2014™ but I am certain it is not hurting.
An aside: When I began writing about My Crappy Breakup and Operation Suck Less in 2014™ I was doing so for myself as a way to process and organize my thoughts. Now that people, including my ex, have read this I find myself hesitating and wanting to filter what I write. But I have decided not to do that and continue just writing for myself…typos and all; it would be pointless otherwise.
I woke up this morning before my alarm and for the first time in weeks not from an unsettling dream; I even had a morning earworm although the music selection was a bit odd. I managed to get to the pool before my allotted time so I could take advantage of the full hour. I even exceeded my goal for laps.
I am having an awesome day and I haven’t even hit happy hour with my friends yet. It has been so long since I felt this way, I want to cry, but for completely different reasons than the last 350 times I wanted to cry. Note to self: get more Kleenex.
Yesterday was a crazy roller coaster ride of thoughts and feelings, I am not sure how one person can cram so many into a single day but I did it. Go me?
I finally had contact with my ex. It was such a relief knowing I was not hated and it made me feel better having a connection with him once again. But it did send my mind and my emotions racing…of course.
Now that I had gotten what I said I wanted, I started to imagine what could be next, what kind of friendship we could possibly have; I miss my friend terribly. As I was thinking about this, I dawned on me that what I really want is my boyfriend back. This frustrated me and scared me as I thought I was past that feeling. My mind began swirling faster.
When I picked this notion apart in the harshness of my reality, what I actually want is the guy who pursued me 3.5 years ago, the guy who I fell for again and committed to last year, I want THAT boyfriend back. But THAT boyfriend is gone and was gone even before our crappy breakup. Someday I hope I am lucky enough to find a THAT boyfriend v2.0.
His life is moving forward in another direction that does not include me but even before that I felt like I was just an addendum to his life, not a priority. I wanted to be closer to him, I even wanted to move to do it, but I could not get past the nagging suspicion that I was not important enough to him to justify making that leap. Turns out I was right and luckily I am not stuck in burbsville with no one I know going through what I am now.
So what kind of connection can we have now, I keep wondering. I immediately jumped in saying I wanted to be friends in our short email exchange. I am not sure that is what he wants though. Have I ever really known what he wants? He indicated he would write more later, but never did. So I will have to wait and see what he says, if he says anything.
Can he really be my friend, the girl he tossed aside? Can he even entertain that while he is in that shiny new love state, getting engrossed in her interests and making other changes to his life? Can I be a friend with him while he is with this girl who replaced me? Can I stop my mind from repeating the same questions?
When I think about what kind of connection we can have, my mind paints pictures that are in the future. I know these are in the future, cuz I look good and successfully sucked less in 2014. I picture he and I, two people that know each other well and are really comfortable with each other, sitting in a restaurant having dinner, talking, laughing, and catching up on our lives. I see us video chatting and comparing crazy cat stories and him telling me about his kids and their accomplishments. I see us laughing at the things we mutually find a bit ridiculous in the world. It is similar to what we had, yet in my mind it feels completely different without all the fretting about love stuff.
How we get from where we are now to that future point I am not sure, nor am I sure he even wants what I want. I wish we could talk in person, have all those conversations we should have had when I was there last. If he wanted, I would hop on a plane and do just that.
I don’t know the best way to move forward but at least now I am a participant. I could not participate in our breakup, but I can be an equal partner in what comes of it. I have my power back and it feels amazing.
Granted, I always had my power even if it felt a bit muted. I could control my actions and reactions to the situation, I didn’t always do it gracefully, but I did it. Now I have the power to shape what happens.
I also have some clarity. I could never reconcile this strong connection we had with his erasing me from his life. It did not compute and it left me questioning everything. After our emails, I was able to regain my bearings and know, at least for the friendship parts, I was not completely wrong.
After swirling about this all day and finally coming to realize what I want and that I can help shape getting there, I exhaled. A deep exhale. It may have been partly due to that silly yoga class I was in but not particularly “being present” in, but it was a cleansing exhale and I felt some peace.
I sent him an email sharing a bit of my thoughts, cuz why wouldn’t I want to send him an email to tell him I will wait for him to tell me more instead of doing just that..ugh. Now, I have to be patient, not my strongest attribute, and he has to be honest and willing, not always his best attributes either, and we will see where things go.
I slept well, I enjoyed some music, I swam, I put some words together and overall it is a good day.
I finally found some music that is working for me and it is Prince! “Let’s Go Crazy” is my current anthem and it reminds me of some crazy times in college too. Oh, and stalking Prince at a bar once to try to get him to dance with us….good times….good crazy times.
I have a thing about bananas, not a good thing either. I make people throw their peels away in garbage cans on the other side of the building and double bagged. They make me shudder. My nightmare has come to life:
So after writing a lengthy email to my ex, swirling about sending it or not at a dizzying pace, the craziest and most unexpected thing happened, he reached out to me.
I was pacing in the hallway working to hit my daily steps goal as measured by my trusty fitbit, when I heard an alert I had not heard in weeks; I had an email message from him. I stopped so suddenly I think I threw out my back and immediately read it. It was nice, it told me some of what I needed to hear and it lifted the black hole of dread that has been hanging on my shoulders for weeks. It doesn’t make up for all the bad behavior but it made me feel better.
Unexpectedly, he found out about this blog and read it. I had not planned to make this public when I first set about to process all my crappy feelings so what I wrote was not filtered. Well, there were those fairly creative revenge fantasies I chose to keep to myself just in case I decided to implement one; I watch “Law and Order” I know only idiots leave a digital trail of their crimes.
I have mixed feelings about him reading these thoughts but maybe it is a good thing. It could not have been easy for him to take in the words but still reading about the results of his crappy behavior is probably easier than actually facing it as it occurred.
What comes of this now, I have no idea. It would be nice if we could build some kind of a friendship but I got what I wanted at this point; I have a connection and I know he does not hate me.
It occurs to me my blog now has magical powers. Maybe if I try posting something else I hope to happen, it will come true as well. Here it goes
I want a time machine so I can go back and hang with some dinosaurs
I want to finally master the force
I want a pet shark or a dragon or a sharkdragon
I want a separate planet where I can send everyone that bugs me and where it is always humid and hot and there are no natural fibers or creams to relieve rashes
I want a smaller butt without putting in any effort to get it
I want calorie free chocolate cake that is full of protein and all those good things we supposedly get from veggies
I want to Suck Less in 2014™
I will be satisfied if I only get the last one but I am trying to think big. C’mon Universe!
I have a strong urge to do something I would absolutely tell anyone else not to do: emailing my ex.
The committee in my brain cannot reach a consensus as to the appropriateness of this action. Each voice is making a strong case for doing it, not doing it, or going shopping, which is really off topic.
Pros: I want to have a connection of some kind, I want him to know I forgive him, I want to apologize for a few things I did.
Cons: He wants you erased from his life and it is called breaking up for a reason, he doesn’t care about your forgiveness or silly apologies.
Shopping: You need stuff.
My gut is saying go for it reminding me I tend to regret what I do not do or say much more than what I actually do or say. My gut is all DO IT! My gut is loud and obnoxious.
My heart is unsure and abstained from the voting or providing any input.
I want him to acknowledge he received it and tell me he doesn’t hate me and that someday we can try that friendship stuff. I need to be okay with getting no reply at all or getting one that tells me to f**k off. Not sure I can be ready for that one though.
I have written the email, reread it too many times and I guess now I will just ponder.
I am so stinking jealous of normal humans that can just move forward without all this swirling nonsense. They are probably the same people that can glide across the ice without falling on their butts. Hate em.
A friend posted this on Google+ Seemed appropriate.
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
I now have bifocals,
And my eye doctor is a tool.
I have been going to the same eye doctor for over a decade now. My first visit to him was due to my goopy eye infection and the fact he had a wide-open, newbie-doctor calendar and ever since I have not been able to shake him when setting appointments; it is amusing.
Dr Ted, not at all his real name, is awkward. Beyond awkward really. Every visit is like the worst first date with a smart, hot guy that you wish had a personality but doesn’t. He accidentally insults me, he talks about himself, he goes on random tangents that make no sense, he leaves the room with no explanation while I just look puzzled, furrowing my brow which just makes it more difficult to insert all the eye drops.
Many years ago, Dr Ted was commenting on how my prescription barely changes and went on a random tangent about LASIK surgery when, as he was selling me on this procedure I never asked about, he glanced at my chart and said, “ohhhh” in a rather sad voice as if he just noticed I had a terminal disease. Turns out I did, he noticed my age.
“Oh, I was going to suggest LASIK but you are getting up there in age so that would just be a waste of money; you’ll need bifocals soon.” The look on his face was so sullen, like everything was about to fall apart for me and not just my eyeballs.
“That is okay, I wasn’t interested in LASIK but good to know it would be pointless,” I replied with a shrug as my mind began to race about my inevitable demise.
I was able to turn “my rude eye doctor calling me old in a roundabout way” into a funny story to entertain the co-workers, but the horror of his face left me worried.
Here are my new glasses, it is so hard to tell what is up or down now . I call this “Blair Witch Bifocals”
Flash forward a few years and I began to notice changes. The computer would get blurry as the day progressed. I started taking off my glasses when I read which luckily is hardly ever. I placed my phone next to my chin so I could look at it under my glasses. My eyeballs felt strained at times.
It was obvious it was time for bifocals, so I avoided the eye doctor for a couple years. Really, that is the smartest way to handle all such situations, ignore them until they go away or just blow up. Finally after my beloved Internet time was being reduced due to eye strain and a bit of family mockery, I headed to see Dr Ted.
There was the usual intake stuff with the nurse. Then the doc showed up, then he left, they he came back told me about his trip to Boston, then he left, then he came back and told me in great, mind-numbing detail about why old people need bifocals, I mean progressive lenses which seems to be the politically correct term now, and eventually we were in full eye exam mode.
The exam it self is always boring. I try to make out letters I can’t really see and just guess. I try to determine which view is better when they pretty much look the same. I get drops to numb my eyes, drops to dilate my pupils, and others to turn them yellow; I let him do this when I really have no idea why but it seems to serve a purpose. I rest my chin on a thick pad of blotter paper, look at the cheesy bunny sticker while the brightest light known to man shines in my dilated pupils and blinds me. I look at his ears, look down, look left, have some machine shoved into my eye and finally I am done
Here is what I will look like this summer if I ever go to the beach and need to protect my fishbelly white skin from the sun. BTW, “Fishbelly White” is my rap name and that Roses are red, ditty is my best work..
He explained more about these fancy schmancy lenses but I was too busy enjoying all the cool colored spots floating around to really listen. He left the room and eventually the nurse came back to let me know I was done and led me to the optician dude for all my new glasses needs.
After 5 minutes with the optician, let’s call him Analdy, I began to think that maybe Dr Ted was not so bad. Analdy was so, um, particular. I would find a pair of glasses, put them in a “maybe” pile, grab another pair and the previous pair was gone.
Turns out most glasses, according to Analdy, make me look angry…grrrr. The cool ones do not sit on my face right. Stupid face. The smaller ones would not work for my new lenses, which is good as they are going out of style and I am nothing if not stylin’!
Analdy, loves to use the royal “we” to the point of wanting to punch him. “WE” did everything together, until WE had to hurry up and get to lunch, so WE picked the one pair of glasses WE found acceptable. However, WE did not pay the bill that was all ME.
HOLY %^&^%$ BALLS PROGRESSIVE LENSES ARE EXPENSIVE!
Anadly neglected to mention just how much more these fancy schmancy lenses were going to set me back. Especially since he convinced me to get the prescription sunglasses as well since they were 50% off as a second pair and I would be losing money if I skipped them. Sigh.
When I returned to pick up my ^%$# expensive glasses with the fancy schmancy lenses, I was treated to a very detailed fitting with a tutorial on how our human heads are square until they are round in the back. Um, okay. Also, I learned that when WE want to see something WE have to point our noses at it so the fancy schmancy glasses will have the right part of the lens for the failing eyeballs. WE heard this about 8 times and WE wondered if this concept is really that difficult for us oldsters to follow.
So far the ^%$# expensive glasses with the fancy schmancy lenses seem to be working nicely. I can see my computer, TV and phone, which covers all my needs.
I only have one issue: walking. I like to look down and be very careful on where I place my feet to reduce the opportunity of landing on my butt, which is not good for us oldies with replacement parts. With the new glasses I have to point my damn nose at the ground or it is just a blur. So basically I can look like a moron, in stylin ^%$# expensive glasses with the fancy schmancy lenses or look like a moron spread eagle on my butt on a sheet of melty ice. Kind of a toss-up.
So now I have bifocals and a bionic hip. I still think about the look on Dr Ted’s face and wonder what is coming my way next and how much it will set me back to correct. Now that I can see in the mirror more clearly, I may have a clue and it rhymes with *&^%$ krinkles.
Here are my new fun shoes to compensate for my old lady glasses.
Yesterday was unexpectedly emotional. When I made my blog public, I was hoping a few people would read it and maybe I would get a like or even a comment; I clearly underestimated the lure of a post about punching an old woman in the face.
I have been overwhelmed with the kind words of friends and the amount of time people spent clicking around and reading my words. It was much more than I expected and very cool.
What really touched me are the side conversations I have had with others that are also going through crappy breakups or climbing out of their own rut. It is nice to have people relate to what I am saying but it is also sad to hear about their pain. If I were a hugger, and let’s be clear I AM NOT, I would give them each a giant hug.
I was nervous about sharing so much but I am glad I did and plan to continue posting about my journey to Suck Less in 2014™ as well as embellished tales of my otherwise mundane adventures.
sugar TANTRUM 