Once when I was traveling alone, at a restaurant I met this woman who had become a native at a foreign land. She had dark skin, and a strong New York accent. She thought that I was strange, a very outgoing, opinionated, non-non-sense business woman with wild, crazy stories to tell. I was fixated on technology and when the restaurant told me that they had wifi but they didn't, I was incensed. She was a fixture of a town full of yogies from the Western world. She served wheat grass shots to yogies and worn local attires.
I learned that she hailed from Oklahoma and lived in New York until she arrived this town 12 years ago. She had been living between New York and this Far East third world country for over a decade.
My look was deceiving. I was more Western than she had imagined. I was tanned by then, and looked a bit Tibetan. No one really bothered me in this town where Westerners often got harassed. Yet, when I opened my mouth I sounded like a California native, to her anyway.
She did not realize that I was married and with children. She thought that I was single and childless. I had been told by many that I looked rather young. When I dropped my weight (due to exhaustion and lack of sleep and yes, depression), I looked like a kid. I was blessed with good genes. The older I got the more I realized how lucky I truly was. I looked easily like someone in her early 30s. I often got twenty or thirty some year olds hitting on me, claiming that they "are old souls" to try to impress me. I was not impressed. I was always addicted to one type of guys, physically.
I told this woman that I was visiting a friend in town. This friend told her that I was always the party girl. A hard working party girl. In my defense I told her that I was not always like this. I was drained, I was careless about my looks and I put on weight for a few years after the kids. She took a look at me and said, "So you got your groove back."
Did I? I asked myself this question. I was reminded by my therapist who said that while I tend to self destruct, where the most important thing was concerned, I seem to be able to save myself from falling off a ledge. I have, from time to time, let my emotions run wild and fallen into a mode of self destruction, but I usually can pull myself out. But at times I feel that I couldn't. Where my emotions run high, and my yearning of someone would go out of control.
I was a wild child. I took control of my hideous past and willed myself out of trouble and focused on what was important.
I was emotionally devastated. I had fallen in love once with a man who was abusive emotionally and took advantage of me. I wish that he could have just told me to never contact him again. That would have been easier. But he told me instead that I would need to do whatever he wanted me to do, and I waited for him to call. Waited for him to email, waited for him to love me back. He never did tell me that he loved me. I don't know what's worse. For someone to announce that he loved me and then disappear or for someone who never tells me that he loves me but still expects me to do thing for him because I told hi that I loved him. I'm no longer 22. I fell in love at 22 and every man since him was a footnote. I fell in love again at 39, and my world had since become a roller coaster filled with incredible highs and lows and I have never felt this alone in this battle against my demons.
What had left was that groove. I had gotten my groove back, said the New York transplant in this remote town in Far East where salad was a luxury and sushi was unheard of by most.
But how does one not fall off the ledge? How to control the emotional ups and downs and know how deep you've dug and how much of a mirage you've built around you? How to manage the insane emotions of longing someone something so bad that you could only cry with the thought of his name in your head? Those are million dollar questions.
I have no answer. I just know that I cannot continue on down this path.
I learned that she hailed from Oklahoma and lived in New York until she arrived this town 12 years ago. She had been living between New York and this Far East third world country for over a decade.
My look was deceiving. I was more Western than she had imagined. I was tanned by then, and looked a bit Tibetan. No one really bothered me in this town where Westerners often got harassed. Yet, when I opened my mouth I sounded like a California native, to her anyway.
She did not realize that I was married and with children. She thought that I was single and childless. I had been told by many that I looked rather young. When I dropped my weight (due to exhaustion and lack of sleep and yes, depression), I looked like a kid. I was blessed with good genes. The older I got the more I realized how lucky I truly was. I looked easily like someone in her early 30s. I often got twenty or thirty some year olds hitting on me, claiming that they "are old souls" to try to impress me. I was not impressed. I was always addicted to one type of guys, physically.
I told this woman that I was visiting a friend in town. This friend told her that I was always the party girl. A hard working party girl. In my defense I told her that I was not always like this. I was drained, I was careless about my looks and I put on weight for a few years after the kids. She took a look at me and said, "So you got your groove back."
Did I? I asked myself this question. I was reminded by my therapist who said that while I tend to self destruct, where the most important thing was concerned, I seem to be able to save myself from falling off a ledge. I have, from time to time, let my emotions run wild and fallen into a mode of self destruction, but I usually can pull myself out. But at times I feel that I couldn't. Where my emotions run high, and my yearning of someone would go out of control.
I was a wild child. I took control of my hideous past and willed myself out of trouble and focused on what was important.
I was emotionally devastated. I had fallen in love once with a man who was abusive emotionally and took advantage of me. I wish that he could have just told me to never contact him again. That would have been easier. But he told me instead that I would need to do whatever he wanted me to do, and I waited for him to call. Waited for him to email, waited for him to love me back. He never did tell me that he loved me. I don't know what's worse. For someone to announce that he loved me and then disappear or for someone who never tells me that he loves me but still expects me to do thing for him because I told hi that I loved him. I'm no longer 22. I fell in love at 22 and every man since him was a footnote. I fell in love again at 39, and my world had since become a roller coaster filled with incredible highs and lows and I have never felt this alone in this battle against my demons.
What had left was that groove. I had gotten my groove back, said the New York transplant in this remote town in Far East where salad was a luxury and sushi was unheard of by most.
But how does one not fall off the ledge? How to control the emotional ups and downs and know how deep you've dug and how much of a mirage you've built around you? How to manage the insane emotions of longing someone something so bad that you could only cry with the thought of his name in your head? Those are million dollar questions.
I have no answer. I just know that I cannot continue on down this path.
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