I am settling into another routine – as much as anyone can who works retail, that is. The store I work for yanks my chain so that I am constantly forced to adjust my routines. Yet I’m up for that challenge!
I have to stop to see how I feel about the changes and how I can work around them. For example, suddenly I will be put on the schedule to work Sundays when I haven’t been asked to do that before. At first I am kind of pissed about it. “How dare they encroach on my Sunday?” I think.
Then I realize: it doesn’t really matter.
Roger Moore Really DID Have a License to Kill
On Sundays I usually have my son and his fiancé over for dinner, or head over there, so we can continue watching every James Bond movie ever made. You cannot know how painful the 70s James Bond really is until you watch them again. STILL, they must all be watched, in order, before we get to be rewarded with the new ones! So this is what we’ve been doing for the past several months. This has dragged on as we can’t always get together for one reason or another. We are on Pierce Brosnan’s slick Bond now. Predictable and somehow comforting because of that.
We can move our dinner and Bond night.
Not Interested
There is really nothing else I do with other people on a regular basis. I have one friend I meet every two weeks or so for coffee. She asked me if I’d gone out to a pub or a restaurant yet and I admitted I had not. So maybe I’m holding a bit of a grudge. Yesterday I wasn’t good enough for them and now they want my money? Meh.
This Town’s Not Big Enough for All of Us
This place has two degrees of separation – not six. Sometimes even that disappears, especially for someone who has lived here her whole life.
While at coffee, a guy I’d dated for several months a few years ago came in. Awkwardly, he’d also had a naked hot tub with my friend after we split up – not my story to tell but hey! Ho! We got through that fairly well and with as much class as possible under the circumstances. He went to sit at a table behind me.
Then another guy I’d gone out on one dinner date with entered the place. This had not gone well and we had not seen or spoken to each other since. At first I didn’t recognize him but soon enough I did. I was able to hide my recognition and pretend I didn’t see him. He was with a woman who laughed and wanted all his attention so this was easy. Actually, they were both laughing too much and looked strung out. He was thin and much more tattooed than he used to be. At least he’s lost the weird goatee. He sat at a table that directly faced me.
Now, I went to high school with both of these guys – different schools so they don’t know each other. I know too much about their past love lives and things they’ve done to be comfortable around either one. But yeah, we run into each other from time to time over the years.
Then another guy came in that I knew. I didn’t date this guy but again, I know too much and someone (bless their pointed head) told me he had a crush on me so there’s that awkwardness. He plays bass in a local band and has a job that used to bring him into the office I worked at for several years. He nodded “hello” – this was nice but I wanted to run at this point. Actually, I wanted to move away from this crummy little town….
Coffee ended abruptly after that and I flew out of that place, making it to the sanctity of home in record time.
Work: Is This Fun or What!?
So my routine is: I work and then I have a day off. On that day off, I mow, I weed, I water or I work on projects (mostly gifts I want to make but sometimes things I need or mending for others). What I have not been doing is writing posts. More on that later.
We hired a new person at work and she is fun, fun, fun! Unfortunately, she told me yesterday that she’s not enjoying all the conversations with customers and is going home depleted. I enjoy the conversations but I have a quiet and empty house to come home and zone out in. She has a family still at home. I was disappointed but began to think about a few of the things she’d shared with me: she’s working at another job and has invested in a lot of training and education already. She has also been offered still another job in a different line of work that she thinks might be fun. I notice that she changes her mind on products and returns many things she buys or quits a cleansing plan several staff were doing as it didn’t work for her.
Who Are You? Who…who…who…who?
I think she is not sure who she is yet and she’s exploring what she wants in life. This makes committing to any one thing nearly impossible. It’s important to try new things in order to narrow down our likes and dislikes to find out who we really are so I totally get it.
I remember feeling like many different people during most of my life. If I was with my newer friends, I’d be wearing old berets and talking about obscure music and books and then, going back home, I’d be dependable wife and Mother, gardening and cooking from scratch. I had friends that encouraged me to try alternative things like organic food co-ops and attachment parenting so I’d go to potlucks and eat Gado Gado and fight to keep fluoride out of our water.
Then there were friends I’d had since high school, who knew me one way and people I met at work who knew me another way. Just for kicks, now and then I’d go to an audition and try something else out, join a band or choir, or volunteer for yet another thing.
Tolkien Knew Me Only Too Well
Now I feel like I am just me. I have integrated all the other “me’s” and we are now one. This is the gift that age is giving me. I don’t need to pretend to be anyone I’m not anymore – I don’t even want to.
However, I am seeing the downside to all the integration and it is this:
“Soul-destroying”?! That’s what I’m talkin’ about!
My reaction to an attempt to get me to go on a date last night was definitely Bilbo-worthy.
Is This Really Necessary?
At work yesterday, another of my coworkers tried to set me up with her ex. Normally I would be flattered but this guy is 15 years younger than I am! I was horrified! Can you imagine being naked around someone 15 years younger? Not a frickin’ chance! I politely declined after some serious joking.
He has just ended a relationship and is looking to jump back into another, asap.
Of course he is.
Well, not me, Baby. I am terrified.
And that’s when I realized: I am terrified. 😉 Not of the pain of an ending – at this point, who cares? I have very little fear of endings anymore.
Chances are, I have ended better relationships, left better jobs (by choice or not), sold better houses than this one, lost better cats, or had better friendships end. I’ve also had more fun than I’m having now and have looked way better (the odd time).
I Am Free
The terror is the disruption to my routine. Do I need to share my space, my foibles, my life with some random dude? To give up my hard-won freedom and for what? Awkward sex with a stranger who may (or may not) help me switch my tires over in the fall? What if he eats crap and then snores loudly or is addicted to something? I’ve been down those roads before.
Waiting for Godot to Die
There is a joke my parents enjoy telling, nearly every time we meet. When I was 13 or 14, I became absolutely restless in the house and just wanted something – anything – to happen. It was like my life was about to start and I was so impatient for it. I remember that feeling so well!
My parents led a very stable and routine existence – they still do. One of the things they liked to do was to each take a section of the newspaper and read it in the evenings after supper while sitting in their comfy chairs. I came up from the basement, where, let’s face it, I hung out like a troll doing what I’m doing now.
Placing my hands on the bars of the stair railing and peeking through, I stared at them for several minutes in frustration. They ignored me, as they most often did. Finally I couldn’t take it any longer and I burst out, “You guys are just sitting here waiting to die!”
Needless to say, I did not get the reaction I was hoping for and they still laugh like hell every time they tell this story.
Well! Whose waiting to die now, eh?!
No one comes through life and reaches 56 unscathed. If they do, they must be very dull and not at all someone I’d want to sit and talk to, let alone spend five minutes with! I am proud I’ve survived so far. Man! It has not been easy! (Bullies and Bastards: How to Get Fired and End Up Alone, for example.)
Purpose? What Purpose?!
Thinking about becoming my parents – repeating their lives – is incredibly discouraging to me. Especially since I don’t have a partner so am even more of a loser! I go through the things I have or do that are different and cling to those like life preservers in the North Atlantic. (Which I hear is very cold and inhospitable. I hope I never feel those waters.)
Writing is my biggest and best hope. I happen to enjoy it, too. The trouble is, I write every day in my journal but don’t always make time to write on the computer. I really dislike the technical aspects of uploading it to WordPress because there are parameters that get flagged by the program like paragraphs or sentences that are too long or headings required. I have to attach tags and correct links, and so on and so forth when really, all I want to do is write. This is why there aren’t too many photos on my blog. Too much work!
What I want to do – feel compelled to do – is let you inside my head. I know I’ll never be a Hemingway or a J.R.R. Tolkien. I’ve let that go, like so many other things.
My Name is Kathy and I Have a Routine
I need the safety and security of my routines right now. It is undoubtedly unhealthy long term. I know this. Watching my coworkers experiment with various ideas and pathways or up and move away to follow a dream shows me how much of a rut I’ve carved out for myself.
But haven’t I earned this boring routine? I have had so much happen over the past 8 years that I think I deserve a little break from the world.
The trick will be getting me out of this house to actually go for a beer (cider?), let alone a full-blown adventure anytime soon. It will undoubtedly take Gandalf-like magic to get me to do so.
In the meantime, I’ll be checking my front door for weird marks of any kind, keeping my Gram’s dishes safe in their cupboard, and hoarding food. Don’t bother coming over unless you are wearing a cloak and have a really good map of Middle Earth.
