Happy Birthday to Me

     You ever wake up one day (or fail to be able to sleep) and realize that all of a sudden you have no idea what the hell is going on? It's like having Alzheimer's while still functioning at your normal level; you're getting to the airport just fine, you just can't seem to make your connections. Add to that the teenaged angst of "everything is about to go kaput at any moment", and you're caught somewhere between old and young: You're middle-aged, whatever that means.

     I don't feel like I'm in the middle of anything. Some things may be beginning, others ending, but this is not what the middle should be; if it was, no one would bother to stick around for the unhappy ending. Maybe I'm a sleep-deprived worry wort, but that's life from my side of the heart.

     Your kids are becoming teens and no longer want the bother of you, your husband is going through the same middle-agedness and busy with his own life, your mother is too old to remember when your birthday is... Anyway, you begin to realize how the hormonal shifts of this time of life affect your judgement and you see how you've become dependent on those outside yourself for your feelings of self-worth. It's as sad as an empty room after someone dies when you are no longer safe in casually taking those closest to you for granted.

     I'm not a good person when I'm nervous, when that constant low-level of terror is present. I'm great in a crisis: Someone else's crisis, but I suck at my own. Cried upon shoulder, heal thyself! The only thing I know to do is reach out to my friends.

     I remember being at one of the many Metaphysical Faires I used to attend and hearing a woman speak about the circle of six. (You know, like the pottery candleholders with six identical figures rounding the flame.) Her idea was that it takes six people to fulfill all your social needs and that the mistake many of us make is in putting too much "work" on any one person. I didn't know I was doing that, but I would imagine if I polled my "intimates", they'd agree. Still beats hell out of the complementary theory that we have to go around in six bodies before we reach enlightenment. I don't care which figure I'm at this time folks, when I die, I want to be very, very dead. It's exhausting to think of doing this again. The possibility of an afterlife is the only part of death that scares me. Screw enlightenment!

     But whatever the reason for the predicament in which I find myself, groggy and afraid, it's got to be my fault. I just read a handful of men's relationship sites and they assured me of that fact. (I don't dare go to the parenting ones.) Seems no matter how we feel or what we do, we are all destined to become caricatures at some point in our lives. Draw me less-than-intrigued.

     Whatever I've done, I'm sorry. Whichever god, goddess, diva, or fairie of aging women I've wronged, I didn't mean it. The dog ate my homework. The man on the tape wasn't specific. Professional drivers on a cleared course. No animals were harmed...

     I feel like running to the desert to watch a sunset. (I'm too old for sunrises, I guess.) I feel like crawling into the woods for shelter. I feel like standing in cold water for way too long. I feel something I'd never felt until very recently: I feel old.