Match This.

It has been a while since I've seen the inside of my blog.....

The other day I shared on my FB wall about how I locked myself out of my home at 4:30 am, on a work day. It was a complete shit show from my perspective but I had to find the humor in it because if I didn't find the ability to laugh, I wasn't sure I would get off my front step ever again. Here is the story I shared on FB:

My morning took an unexpected turn when I decided to take the trash out at 4:30am..... in my short little nightgown & bare feet. I only stepped 3 feet outside but I always shut the door behind me because Brisco likes to dart out of open doors.         

I stepped out, made sure the door shut behind me and deposited the trash, turned around, turned the door knob & it wouldn’t turn. Not even a little. It was locked up tighter than a flea’s ass over a rain barrel. In fact, all three doors were locked up tight as were all of the windows. FML. Did I mention there was a thick, drizzly fog waiting to let loose the rain clouds? 

I tried everything I could think of to jimmie the lock but nothing worked. My phone was inside so I couldn’t even call anyone. Finally about 5:30 I heard my neighbor’s dogs outside so I walked, barefooted, through my property to the fence and climbed over the fence, in NOTHING but my nightgown. I continue to traipse through the trees, the brush, etc and knock on the neighbor’s door. My kind neighbor answers his door and after explaining my situation goes to grab his phone so that I can call a friend of mine to bring a key. Then I have to walk through the property again, climb the gate again, and wait for my friend....it starts to drizzle rain......       

See, I have a spare key that I leave outside for emergencies....on Sunday though, I used it to unlock my shed & slipped it into my Jean pocket & forgot to return it to it’s hiding spot. Yes....I’m an idiot. I woke my friend from sleep with a phone call at 5:30am. He arrived at my place at 6am, unlocked my door and went back home.         

Perhaps it was divine intervention. Perhaps my being late helped me avoid something terrible on the way to work this morning. Perhaps it is just as simple as me being a fucking dumb ass.      Anyway, time to call it a morning and go make the donuts.

For more than 45 minutes I tried everything I could possibly come up with to get the door open. After 45 minutes and a long gash through the palm of my  left hand, I finally decided to stop trying to solve the problem of how to MacGyver a locked door. For about 15 minutes before I heard the dogs barking I sat on my front steps. It wasn't too cold that morning, but I was chilled from the fog and all I wanted to do at that moment was cry. I wanted to cry a deep, body shaking, loud, screaming cry. All I wanted to do was cry until there was nothing left of me. It also occurred to me that going to work that day was off the table. I felt so angry and so defeated. It wasn't just being locked out of the house, it was a string of things that have happened recently and right then... sitting alone in the shallow illumination of the pole light in my yard I wanted to quit. Not just quit, but declare that life, my life, was shit and that no matter what I have attempted to do for a better life, my life would continue to be shit. 

Those thoughts, that desire to cry, to scream, to go curl up in a ball and never get up again were fleeting. It took me so much longer to actually type all of that than it took for the thoughts to pass through my mind. Thankfully, the next thought that went through my mind was that crying would solve nothing. Crying wouldn't get me back inside my house, screaming wouldn't bring my husband back, curling up in a ball wouldn't keep the lights on and being angry wouldn't change a single thing. Not one thing. I hated feeling helpless. I hated feeling so alone. I hated feeling sorry for myself. 

I hated feeling so hopeless. 

This life that I am living now, it feels so forced. This life doesn't feel like my own anymore. This life feels like a series of endless motion that leads to nowhere. It feels as though I'm living in a fugue with no hope to ever come out of it. If I am being honest here, I'm not sure I ever will find my way out of this fugue, but I plan to keep trying to find my way through it. People talk about being happy, how happiness is their life goal. I think happiness is a by-product of feeling whole; feeling that your life is full, whole, and satisfying is where our happiness comes from. Don't ask me what I believe the key is to feeling whole, that is a question I cannot answer because the answer is as singularly unique as each person is singularly unique. 

Before Marc died, there was no doubt in my mind that my role in this life was to be useful. By useful I mean that my role was to help other people find their way through their fugue. My life, my thoughts, my purpose had such clarity. Everything held the promise of knowing that I was adding to my quest to be whole and that promise of wholeness brought happiness. Yes, I still struggled with things. My life was by no means perfect, nor was it all "happy happy joy joy" everyday. There were days I struggled to be joyful and grateful but those days did not hold me hostage. Those crap days were momentary in the big scheme of my life. 

The string of events that I mentioned earlier, I won't bog you down with all of the boring, whiny details of them but I'll share one thing with you. Actually, what I'm about to share isn't a part of the string but it definitely has contributed to the state of mind I've found myself in. You have all heard of "Match.com" right? Yeah, so I went onto match.com because it kept popping up in my advertisements on FB as well as in my emails. Those fucking algorithms have weedled their way, uninvited,  into my private space. Anyway, I went onto Match.com and filled out a profile and within seconds of doing so Match had given me a list of 10 so-called matches........ within 10 minutes of creating a profile on Match I deleted it. The matches it showed me, what a joke. The men in my age range who seemed to fit into my criteria... all - seriously ALL of them -  only wanted to meet women between the ages of 25-40. I'm just going to leave that there for you. Think about that for a while. 

The idea that I will ever be able to meet someone who will see past my age, past my extra pounds, past the wrinkles around my eyes, or past their own desire to keep feeling young by having a young woman in their bed, well it doesn't seem very likely. When I saw those matches on the website, the feeling of being alone felt more magnified than it has ever been. So I deleted my profile completely and tried to create a plan that will keep me so incredibly busy there isn't time or space for anyone else to fit in. I'm still working on that plan, I'll let you know if I ever figure it out. Meanwhile I'm giving Match.com the double version of what we Americans call "The Bird". Yes, fuck you Match.com and fuck you for intruding upon my private space, and fuck you for not paying attention to the criteria those men had outlined that didn't qualify them to show up in my so called 'matches". Fuck you Match.com. Sit on it and spin.  

Crying is not an option, complaining does not solve anything, wallowing is a waste of energy and focusing on what I no longer have rather than what I do have is self-defeating. How to end this fugue is still a dilemma for me but I'll keep trying to find a solution. 

I still say to Match.com, "You can GFY. Just sayin'."