When does old ladyhood begin?!!!    I want sex and kisses and dancing and wild romps under the covers.  I want to go bicycling and play tennis. I want to swim and travel and play and why am I so obsessed with old ladyhood??!

When does it start?!

Is this a panicking moment?  Am I screaming inside with the panic that love has not found me yet?  Maybe I’m scared.  I’m just scared.  And I don’t want to be scared because inside the word scared is hidden, and not that well hidden either, is the word des-per-a-tion.  Yes, desperation.  Oh god, I must be desperate.  I wouldn’t put it past me.  It could even be inevitable.  It’s probably fairly obvious to eveyone around me that I am desperate and I may be the only one in denial.  Maybe I do know that I’m desperate and that’s what makes me even more scared.  It quickly becomes a viscious cycle.  It’s possible.

So today on the bus, I am one of “those”,  the immensely aware people, and this perfectly lovely gentleman, he’s in my age range at any rate, and I seem to be getting in the pathway of each other at the bus stop.  We end up getting on the same bus.  But then he chooses a seat that has a view of me, and I have a view of him as well.  It’s an almost empty bus.  He has choices.  I sat first.  And so what do I do?  I don’t even pull out a book.  This is in case, well, to make myself  approachable (as if…).  Am I insane?  I am so insane.  I must be desperate.  He pulls out his little electronic gadget and puts in his headphones.  I put in my headphones, even though they don’t plug into anything that has an output, it just looks good.  And eventually the bus fills up and someone sits next to him and he cannot see me, and I cannot see him.  And that’s the end of that except that I can see his ponytail running down his back.  And I just find myself wondering, was he flirting with me or wasn’t he?  And why do I do this to myself?  Seriously?

So, I did actually flirt with him on my way off the bus.  He’s good looking.  He has a friendly smile.  And nice, friendly eyes.  And a wonderfully symetrical face. And he’s good looking.  He’s tall and slender.  What’s not to like?  He looked up at me from his seat.  He knew I was coming up to pass him where he sat and yes, he purposely looked up from his seat at the moment that I walked past.  He knew…and I did smile at him.  On purpose.  And he knew it.  And though he didn’t quite smile back he did show that recognition.  So I was feeling pretty good when I got off the bus.  Hey, I flirted.  And wasn’t that fun, and I’m feeling pretty good.  And if nothing, at least I made his day.

And yet here I am driving home and the thoughts running through my head have turned one-eighty, mostly because I checked myself in the rearview mirror and all I see are saggy jowls, and tired eyes and messy hair.  What was I thinking?  I look absolutely beat.  And yet…we kinda smiled.  But, I can’t help but wonder if he is thinking, “Oh my god, that old lady tried to flirt with me on the bus.  I might think about taking a different bus tomorrow.”

Am I a freak?

I find so many men wonderfully good looking.  Why is that?  There’s plenty of abhorrent, ugly, intolerably bad looking men as well.  But there is a wonderful number of fabulous eye-candy, so many I want to openly stare at them.  What is wrong with me?  I was brought  up better than this.  And it is so embarrassing to be caught staring.  Otherwise, yeah it’s great to stare.  What’s the problem?  I guess I never really thought about being alone.  I never really thought about being old.  Old.  Of course that always means something different depending on what age I am.  So that’s kind of distressing.  But being old and alone, I mean that’s the biggest fear.  And then there’s the fear of my mother moving in with me.   Or my best friend.  I don’t know.

I want my hair cut short.  I like it short.  I think it’s cute when it’s cut short.  When it is cut the way I like it.  Not like it is right now, but when it’s done right.  It’s called a Pixie cut.  That just means it’s really short.  But I feel like if I leave it short it will always be a flag, waving in public, letting men know that I am old and alone.  Not in a good way.  I still like it cut short, damn it.

According to The Book, (capital T, capital B) I am supposed to wait for the gentleman to talk to me.  And I totally understand the reasoning behind that.  If he isn’t interested, then why would he talk to me.  It does save my humility, often.  But it doesn’t keep me from wishin’.  And I am always wishing.

Back to things I worry about…I worry about not being the good friend that I like to think I am.  She is my best friend and yet I do not take care of her the way I would like to take care of a best friend.  I can’t exactly say she’s taken care of me the way I’d want to be taken care of by a best friend.  It just reminds me to be my own…  I suppose we do the best we can.  But I still worry that I’m not as good a friend as I would like to think of myself as.

Other things I’m scared of – I worry about looking like an old lady.  I don’t want to look like an old lady.  I don’t want to dress like one.  I don’t want to wear make-up like one. I don’t want to walk like one.   I don’t want to frown like one.  I don’t want to be one of those testy old ladies, that just tsk, tssk, tsk, you just can’t get anything right.  My mother is like that.  And yes, I understand I am destined to be my mother, but right now?  Already?  Don’t I get more time?  Don’t I get some kind of free  go round the board, or ten?  I am scared that I am not a very good friend.  I’m scared that I am getting old.  I am scared that no one will love me.  Or love me again.

It kind of gets down to that love thing.  I thank my lucky stars that I have family.  Oh lord, I have family and they are everything.  But they are grown.  They are doing their own thing.  For me to call more than once a week is interfering and some kind of mother complex that I just don’t have and would drive them each nuts anyway.  I did not bring them up for that.  It is romantic love, not familial, that I crave.  Familia, say that with an Italian accent.  I love the whole idea of family, and it will truly get me through on the times that really matter.  But the romantic love…ah, an affair.  That is my entire wish list in a word.

Relationship, re-la-tion-ship.  God, anything that takes more than two syllables, what the hell were we thinking?  I want a lover.  You know, a romantic thing.  Something that sets my imagination off.  Something to savor.  That’s what I’m afraid.  I’m afraid I missed it.  I blew it.  I won’t get one.  And I want one that will last for a little while.  Something that will wrap me up.  I want the cover of love.  It sounds silly, and drivel.  But, I really do want that thing.  And there’s nowhere else to go with this kind of drivel.

I am a hopeless romantic.
I must be impossible to live with.

I wish you were tender.
I wish you were tender towards me.

IF I were to do it again-
I would end the day curled up behind you
as you turn your body away to sleep.,
with my arm under your neck
another arm over you body
and my chest drawn tight against your back
hugging you to sleep
to let you rest assured in my arms.

IF I were to do it again;
I would stop you from saying self-destructive things
guide you to nicer topics
Show you that I am safe.

Today I don’t want to do it again.
As you walk ahead of me, turn your back to me
and choose topics only you will know how to converse.

Nov.20,2009

I too am
just what I am
On the surface.

I am hiding behind my skin.
I am couching my disappointment
that you say
exactly what you mean
by celebrating
that you say
exactly what you mean.
No more than.

I don’t understand
why my brain wants to continue
to dance amid fancy
of something never spoken.
I am ashamed that my brain waited quietly
to sabotage me after the fact.
That it had wanted you
to provide music.

I found out that I do hope
for a word
I didn’t dare hope for.
This makes a liar out of me, to me.
This makes this woman feel ashamed
that she cannot keep her mind behaved.
I am mortified that my brain
would dare to
dream unmentionable fairy tales
dishonest with myself.
I am left not empty,
but wilted.