A very merry unbirthday to you…to me?

This year, I will be 39 years old.

And I still don’t have a firm grip on who I am, where I’m going, or where I fit in.

I see myself in the mirror, everyday, and I have contemplated my being many times.

Like a mosquito bite that you really want to scratch until it bleeds, because the itch is maddening, but you don’t because of the mark it will leave.

When I was a child, I was perpetually an “outcast”.  I was painfully shy, so all I enjoyed doing was reading, coloring, drawing, listening to music—all activities you can do alone.  I do recall a few “play dates” with some of the other kids from school, but I was in no way “popular”.  I don’t think I wanted to be.  I was content living in the fantasy world of books and read well above my level, such as Treasure Island, the Count of Monte Cristo, the Wizard of Oz (which I must add, is so much more than the movie), Moby Dick, Little Women, and Alice in Wonderland.  Shit, when I was 10, I named my cat “Homer”.  As I got older, fewer of my friends were “allowed” to come to my house and play because it was a small town and people knew that my family was dysfunctional, before that was even a label.

As a teenager, I smoked pot, drank—partied all the time.  Throughout high school,  I managed to keep this up while being in the Distributive Education program (and frequent honor-roll student, although they didn’t hand out bumper stickers back then) AND had 2 part-time jobs!  I graduated about 2 months shy of my 18^th birthday and moved to Cape Cod with my best friend, Holly.

From there and into my twenties, Holly & I moved and lived just outside of Boston and were working for the Phone Company.  We had the craziest parties and knew all the local bands. There is actually a website that chronicles the Boston Rock scene from those days and I am the proud contributor of some old photos and band flyers. However, the Phone Company decided to shut down operations in Boston and asked if I wanted to transfer to Philadelphia.  I went, stayed about 2 years, and then transferred to Arizona in 1997.  I still am in contact with Holly and several friends from Boston and I think I may end up back there someday.  The winters scare me, but I think I could re-adjust.

Since I’ve been here in AZ, I got married at 29 years old and divorced at 33.  I realize now that I rushed into it because I felt the clock was ticking.  Society’s clock. I should be married by now.  Right?  Wrong.

We both worked at the Phone Company and put in 10-12 hours a day, but we were good at what we did. We made a lot of money and went out with friends often, but we grew apart.  When we were divorcing, all I heard from people was “Well, at least you don’t have any kids”. {As a point of reference, this does NOT make a divorce “feel” any better}. I spent about 2 years of that marriage losing my best friend and the plans that someday we WOULD have children. So, at 33 years old, I had to start over.

About 2 years after the divorce, the Phone Company shutdown & laid everyone off and I started a 2 ½ year relationship with a man who I thought loved me.  Toward the end, he showed himself to be a narcissistic, abusive, psychopath (seriously—I had to get a restraining order after I broke up with him). Then, as I started my relationship with Open Salon, I was recently broken-hearted again by someone I thought I had a future with.

Along the way, I have attended some college, ( but never finished a degree,)which I hope to get back to soon (accounting has always been my passion since high school and “for a girl” I am really good with numbers). For half my life, my constant companion has been a cat named Nigel Kennedy, who has become quite geriatric, partially deaf, and senile, but still knows how to love. Many people have told me they loved me, but it simply wasn’t true because they are gone today, and I have been left trying to learn lessons from all of it…without becoming a bitter, hateful person,  like most people would.

On the surface, I know what I look like, and you know what?  I can’t help it. What do people see? Perhaps a 20-something party-girl who people assume works at Circle-K and has a loser boyfriend. Or maybe a very short, meaty version of a Kate Moss-wannabe on a clean day.   [God forbid anyone should think I have a fucking brain in my head, or feelings in my heart, but at times, I admit it--I don’t act like I do—it’s a self-preservation thing.] I have experienced cruelty first hand from strangers based on the way I look. All the while, regardless of how I look, society dictates a path increasingly unreachable for me, specifically: I should already be married with children or have some skill (acquired by years of college), validated on a piece of paper.

But I am none of these things.

I know I am intelligent, clever, bold, crazy, imaginative, independent, and loyal, to those who love me. And I think I’m rather cute. So that leaves me here, at soon-to-be thirty-fucking-nine years old, and while I know I have more than some people (job, home, car), I also feel like I have nothing.  Not very often do I feel sorry for myself, and I don’t now, but everything seems to lead me back to “where do I fit in”?

I have family & friends back in New England, and 1 very important friend left here in AZ (everyone else moved away, or for whatever reason, has faded out of my life). I know that most of the OS community probably considers me occasional “comic relief” and maybe I am disappointing some with this “serious” post. However, I like the feeling I get from OS, in spite of witnessing some ugliness (and yes, it does seem like PMS).  I am staying at OS and will continue to write whatever I want.  I would like to say that I don’t care if no one reads my posts, but that would be a lie. The few people that do stop by, well, that’s  good enough for me to feel like I matter, and belong, here.

So, for my birthday, I will be in Vegas, meeting some of the more illustrious writers on OS,  who have graciously accepted my being.

Who am I?  Wish I knew…Maybe I need to write more.  ;-)