how to... stop the yearning

For what, I don't know. Ok, so I'm putting this here. No better place for it. DH has heard it all before, sympathizes, no advice. (He'd go play tennis. ) Yeah smilin', though I'm lieing thru it -- feelin' that lump in my throat....

Hey Sheath, it's the other side of your 'wildthing' thread coin. That coyote guy still around? He had some good poetic things to say. Does poetry help? Or painting? Or lieing in bed with the covers over my head?

Still, got to go on, pick up my son from school, feeling as tender and fragile as a crushed flower and as lonely.... Why? No reason, I 'spose. Now do all the meanies come out and yell at me? Probably, seeing as this could be a chance to do some stomping. Putting it out there anyway. I'm a writer, who doesn't write... right now. Good day for falling asleep on the beach in the fog. Instead I'm going to nursery school in ten minutes, gonna try to smile at all my... acquaintances. Doesn't feel like I have friends right now. No one I want to let in. Pretending you don't feel you know me from other posts. Maybe coffee would help? It's overcast outside -- just like it should be. It would be so easy to find some excuse....

Got work to do. Feel pregnant with sadness. A good day for the garden? Anyone out there feeling alone and blue at 11 in the morning, as if it was a dark 3 am and everyone was asleep but you?

Hmm, those smilies don't make most of my expressions. :/
Usually it's more like this: :> But this one I like: And I've never tried the dancing banana. No dancing banana again today. Need a pouty face smiley for that one. So, anyway... it would be so easy to distract myself with sex. Later. Flowers for everyon who needs one.

Phoenix Stone said:

Hey Sheath, it's the other side of your 'wildthing' thread coin. That coyote guy still around? He had some good poetic things to say. Does poetry help? Or painting? Or lieing in bed with the covers over my head?

<snip>

Anyone out there feeling alone and blue at 11 in the morning, as if it was a dark 3 am and everyone was asleep but you?

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*sigh*

Boy, do I know how that feels. You put it so perfectly with that last sentence up there. Sometimes I feel so small and alone that I can't imagine why anybody would notice me, much less want to be around me. I have moments of feeling so damn tired of being strong. I am usually the one who has a firm handle on things. I'm the one everybody counts on to be the 'constant'. And I am, for the most part, and I love being that...don't get me wrong there, I love it. But dammit, sometimes? I just want to cry and fall apart and let somebody baby ME for a change.

You strike me as being one of those 'constants' in the lives of those around you. Maybe it's the strength you project here, the way you think...whatever, who knows, but it seems like you are the one who keeps it all together.

What helps? I don't know. I get really, really introspective when those hours or days come along. I start to question everything. In the end, I usually sit down and write it out. I started one a few months ago and said "I feel like shit and it is YOUR fault, you bastard", not even knowing who the 'bastard' was, but just wanting to blame somebody for the fact that I felt like shit. If that makes sense.

Reach out to friends. That's what they are there for and the harsh truth is, if they disappear when times get tough, then you didn't need them anyway. When you go through those 'I feel like shit' moments, that is when the true friendships come through. Those are the ones you should turn to. Those are the ones who will pick up the phone and when you say 'my life is on a fast track to hell and I don't know WHY', they will sit down and say, okay, tell me. What's going on?

But I also know how it feels to think there aren't any friends out there. And that makes it hard to reach out. How to answer that little quandry, I have no clue. Other than to try reaching out anyway...give it a shot, at least.

It passes. That's something I can offer that might help...it passes. It really does. You go through it and then one morning you wake up and you feel a little more capable. Then by that afternoon you feel more like your old self. If it doesn't pass and it gets worse and worse, then you know it's something more...but I'm talking about those dips and valleys in a woman who is on a usually even keel. That's what we are talking about, right? Something that happens every now and then and not all the time?

Well, THIS is a ramble. lol

As to the question of "Where's Coyote?", I'm not sure, but he is getting a PM that says his attention is needed here.

And hey...My PM box is open to you.

Hang in there, babe.

S.

Hi, thank you. That helps. You won't believe what I'm gonna do now it seems so silly. Hoping that silly helps. Picking up my daughter next and taking her to the hardware store to browse and shop. Yup. She likes hinges and bolts and stuff and I promised her a creation station where she can tape or glue or whatever all this stuff together. (No, no welding equipment, no matter how much she begs.) She's 7 and makes 'inventions.' Maybe it'll cheer me up. Yeah, it's just one of those things. Raining outside a little, and one of my least favorite relatives is coming for an overnight stay tomorrow, and it was just my birthday, and my husband is sick (bronchitis), and ... on the other hand -- my son is potty trained!! Now there's something to celebrate! 7 years of diapers and we're done (well, not completely sure about overnight dryness but otherwise....)

I dunno, maybe the main problem is having a song stuck in my head for the last few days that happens to be a Sad song. Can't stop lovin' you (though I try), sung most recently by Phil Collins. It's a howler. You do that? Howl in your car? Grownups tell me I have a nice voice but my cat says otherwise. Always looks frantically down my throat, mewing with a worried tone. Haven't figured out if she thinks there's a bird stuck down there, or if she thinks I'm dying.

Well, gonna go pick up my daughter and scare the cat.

Thanks again.

No greater curse, nor blessing

....as being a caregiver. It means you are intelligent, sensitive and always in demand (as long as you are solving the problems of others, after which they treat you as they would an old burger-carton)

You will love with an intensity, given a chance, that no other can understand. You will think with an intensity you would often not, given a chance, but it is you. You will live a life of the blackest black there is also the whitest of white....friends are there for you, I mean real friends, and only a care-giver can know what they can mean to someone.

For all the PM of a stranger is worth (and there are few stranger than I)....mine is also open.

Keep the faith - you know the story, it is the world that lost the plot.

Phoenix Stone,

I am no further away than a pm. Anytime you just need an ear to bend, just let fly.

I think no matter who we are, we all have these days. Sometimes it's great to wallow in them. Other times it just sucks.

Hopefully time with your daughter will help.

I hope so, anyway.

Jeez, well this was really nice. And unexpected. Thanks. Back later.

I feel kind of embarrassed for doing this here but good too. Thanks again.

May have to come back and rant.

well the good news is I'm just too busy today to mope. penciling in moping for saturday on my calendar. Bad news is I still feel like it so it is probably depression, which means I'm getting breakthru depression while on my anti-deps. But it is a beautiful sunny day out. And they are having a birthday party for me and the other April birthday at work today and we're having chocolate. Hey, kids stuff is a good! Just wanted to peek at thread as reminder of nice people who actually invited me to pm or rant. (Some of you do NOT know what you could be getting into. )

Phoenix Stone said:

Just wanted to peek at thread as reminder of nice people who actually invited me to pm or rant. (Some of you do NOT know what you could be getting into. )

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Want to be even more amazed? Every person who offered those PM boxes really meant it. Try it and see.

What a wonderful community this is!

S.

I have a challenge for you, Phoenix.

I bet you can't stand in front of a mirror and laugh for 5 minutes straight.

If you can, I'll write a beautiful kiss for you and post it here. (No cheating now!)

I hope you're feelin' better today.

Chocolate should help with good feelings!

My PM is always open as well. I know I'm a newbie, but just so you know, I'm here if you need to talk.

Hey Phoenix Stone, is that the PS who writes so eloquently, the one who's brave enough to fess up to insecurities and unmet needs, the PS who offers rich and wise advice to others feeling the same way, the adventurer who undertook to travel on a journey of discovery not being quite sure where that journey would lead or end? Oh...it is you, I thought so. Glad to see you.

Phoenix Stone take up the Midwestyankee challenge, I once was the lucky recipient of a public written kiss of his writing, I still swoon over it.


Happy Birthday

too long, don't even bother.

Thank you, 'rain, sweetie. And you too, sxcrgirl, sheath always, and midwestyankee. Problem is I can't. Doesn't work. I can muster up a smile is about all. Tried. Nothing so special wrong. Really lots of blessings here in this house.
So what is it? Feeling lonely. And this forum, these messages really have helped. and the lovely surprise pms from people I'd have never expected.

I'd love one of those midwestyankee kisses, as they are surely lovely, but can't earn it.

Editing to take the rest of this off public forum. It's too digressive, for one thing. Oh, what the hell. came back and put it back again.

It's late and I'm gonna try a bit of telling here. And next I need to risk asking the questions I want to ask on another forum, even though not exactly sure what they are. Something about how do you get from your fantasies to your reality -- how do you connect the dots? And do you even want to?

Also, what is enough? Shouldn't it be enough that I've a lovely man who adores me?
Still want to flirt. there are all these dances in me I never do. Like I've lost somebody. Become earnest. And don't laugh. Even my organizer, the kid who coaches me on social action work, says so.
That I gotta get it back. The teasing and the lightness, the play. Did i ever learn how to play? Throw snowballs? Dress up in sparkle shoes? or is it all for some purpose now?
There was a time I wrote poetry from pain, turning it in my hands from dry flour and tears into dough and then bread, watching it rise. Today, I can't even get a friend to call me back. They are all self-sufficient and independent and I tell them nothing, well very little -- only things that are in the past or that I can take back again -- of pain or unsureness. All my flaws look so tangible right now, as if becoming solid in the air.

Anyway, if I were to say it straight out, and i feel unworthy for taking your time like this on nothing at all that tragic, it feels like just biding time, day to day. Waiting out a sentence. What I want was... juice, and interaction. My husband is a loner by nature, or habit. I'm... what... needy? Always wanting to cuddle at night, making him learn how to spoon. Making him kiss me or hold my hand. He just doesn't think of it, would go thru life looking forward. Is tired. And I whine. Demand. Grumble. Used to get mad at him for nothing because what i really wanted was attention.
Making him look at me. For a whole minute. Just staring into his beautiful eyes, that look so sad and worn these days. Work isn't going well.
I'm jobhunting. It was great to be able to give my kids a mom at home. Even one who is so unsuitable to the cheery Mary Poppins, activity sargeant thing. So distracted. Wanting to be off and change the world. While writing plays and painting.
Still not discovered at 45. No longer 'full of potential.'

Midlife crisis right? Still. And I handled it by allowing, nay encouraging, some flirting with an old ex who found me, then startled by feelings I'd had so long buried, hormones -- and wanting to skate down a mountain at top speed into the ocean, breathless and flying -- I cried, and ran. Looked inward, found an old dusty area, never contained, never explored. Sexuality and the large gulf between my masturbation fantasies and anything I ever did in bed with spouse. Began to explore that. Found I could transfer a bit. Revealed feelings for spouse, healed under where the wound was. And put the book away.

Nothing is finished. Nothing is changed. I want to flirt outrageously. With my husband, preferably. Instead I sing at the top of my lungs in the car and bother, annoy, act cheeky, and fight intellectually, here.
There is something down deep, some disconnect. To the ocean, to the well, of me. I remember what it felt like to find it again. Oh, yeah, an old coin in my pocket, gold and real.
Lost again with the lint and the dust, I just forgot so easily what it felt like to ever go there.

G-d, I felt like such a juicy woman. Moving in my own skin sensual as a cat, in cashmere, smooth and supple against my breasts, the feeling of my own skin and air and life. It felt so good to be back. In my sexuality.
Which is me, in a big way. Dammit, people, even strangers, say it when they meet me. Passionate. First word they could think of when asked. We had to describe each other in a group lesson about living your dreams.
Ever take a class from Barbara Sher? Those other two group classmates, so restrained, so professional, even repressed, I would have thought, and me in my plain dark clothes, glasses, simple, professional I thought too. lol, and yet the first word they could think of, agreeing, nodding, was passionate. Then sensitive and welcoming. Thinking I'd make a great hostess for expensive, expansive parties. As if we ever have those in our house. I'm too shy and nervous and never learned how, yet they couldn't see that. They saw passion. And I felt outrage, thinking I'd hide it so well.

I need it, that juice, and I don't know where to find it for me. I play music and sing at the top of my lungs in the living room with my kids dancing.
But in grownup time there is no place to go.
I can't paraphrase this. Don't really know what it means. Think I'm too selfish.
Do I know how to love? He loves me. But I am so not what he is suited to. For 23 years I did it his way, or tried. Few parties, letting him set the pace. Dressing dark, no cleavage. What else would I have done differently and why? Travel.
This year I'm doing what I always dreamed of in work, perhaps really making a difference. And he made it all possible. He has supported me and filled my gas tank, and fixed things for my birthday. (When I wanted handpicked flowers or poems.) He knows but it takes so much work. And he is so tired. When I was busy flirting on the internet, I happily played good housewife for the first time. Humming while I mopped the floor. Then later, after we repaired that part and I got back to my integrity and promised to be good, and thought we were going to working on it together, serving him made me happy, knowing he'd check and give approval. But he didn't. He forgot or it was too much work or something.

This message is way too long and I haven't even gotten there yet. Wherever 'there' is.

herecomestherain said:

Happy Birthday

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thank you, rain. You noticed! (and why am I crying? g-d I'm pathetic.)

Got work to do. Feel pregnant with sadness. A good day for the garden? Anyone out there feeling alone and blue at 11 in the morning, as if it was a dark 3 am and everyone was asleep but you?

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yep i feel with that statement... I have finals coming up... really needs to buckle down and get to work, study my ass off so I can actually come back to school next semester... and what is the only thing on my mind? How much I miss the friendship of my now ex-gf... it's incredible that the person who made me feel the best about myself in my entire life, is also the person who has made me feel the worst about myself...

it's also incredible how such a little thing as her friendship would solve such a huge case of depression...

I recieved a pm from Phoenix this morning, in which I recieved a post that she was trying to make. This was my reply to her, which she knows that I am posting.

honey this message is not to long. It actually tells me alot. You have decided to explore your sensuality and your sexuality. I think that most women come into mature being at about our age. There is again something magical in the air for us. Especially those of us that missed it the first time around for whatever reason.

I now know, after 15 years of marriage, that I was never built to be with just one person. It actually takes several to keep me happy. I am just not built for monogamy. Sounds like you might be the same. I have several different men for several different reasons. They all fit a need in my life and at any one time, while one might be tired or overstressed, another isn't and is usually more than happy to give me the attention that I need. And I can tell you that as a woman, we all need attention.

Is it a midlife crisis? Nope don't think so. To much of us trying to be the person that we are is explained by society as being a result of some mythical midlife crisis. Dance like noone is watching, be a kid again or if you missed it for whatever reason the first time round, then just be a kid. Have those squirt gun fights, be messy, do all the fun things that you want. Be a little impulsive and do what comes naturally.

I know little of the so-called mid-life crisis - particularly in women. However, what I read in your posts, Phoenix looks like a spiritual crisis. And I mean that in the sense of a crisis of your own personal spirit.

Others here know far more of this than I. Not an expert in such things, I see spiritual crises as events with their own unique DNA. Mine looks quite different from yours and yet it manifests itself in some similar ways. Listen to these around you here who may have walked part of your path. They may help you find a few safe stones upon which to make your way.

So you couldn't make yourself laugh for 5 minutes? I understand. I've known weeks when a laugh was as likely as a date with Sharon Stone.

But you dug deeply and found the outer layer of your crisis. Of that I'm sure. And so...

As we get up from the table, your skirt brushes against the crisp white linen and you look downward ever so briefly to notice and brush the skirt back in place. You smile at the upturned bottle in the wine server and then hold the smile as I reach to take your hand. As we pass through the French doors you squeeze my hand just a bit and pull me slightly to the left, into a shadow. There, you back against the stone facade of the portico and look up to me. I touch your cheek just below the ear and pull you toward me. "Come, it's time." Your eyes close, your head tilts, and your lips reach for mine - all in a seamless motion which fuels my hunger. In the first moment your lips are on mine I know that tonight must surely be the first night of forever. Soon there is no boundary between us, no space that is not us. As I break away from your lips to begin kissing your cheek, thinking I will kiss my way to your ear so I may whisper my dreams to you, I taste a single tear. It smiles to me as I take it on my tongue.

Wow, you're good, Mwy

got a little chuckle out of me -- outloud but sad. Straight to the heart, hmm? pain is -- I know my husband feels like that.

Yes. Outer layers. and spiritual crisis, too. And don't I need those stepping stones. What piece of integrity do you let go to serve need and longing?

stop defining your life from the outside; as if your self-image was a write-up in a lifestyle magazine.

you know which actions have heart and which lack.

and clear out your box.

Re: Wow, you're good, Mwy

Phoenix Stone said:

Yes. Outer layers. and spiritual crisis, too. And don't I need those stepping stones. What piece of integrity do you let go to serve need and longing?

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Who says you have to give up integrity at all? There is nothing more pure and spiritual than following what your heart and soul want. NOT following those things is compromising your integrity. But letting go and finding those things that fulfill you? That is the deepest kind of integrity a person can carry.

S.

rosco rathbone said:

stop defining your life from the outside; as if your self-image was a write-up in a lifestyle magazine.

you know which actions have heart and which lack.

and clear out your box.

Click to expand...

You mean I have to get rid of the one that says 'g -- i wold like to see your photo'? Darn. I deleted a bunch and clicked on move for others -- don't know where they go.

Problem is, I'm either a coward or a liar or a player. Not sure which. My heart -- which one is that again? I look at it from the outside because it's the only way I Can look at it and use my brain. Course my brain is usually wrong... at least when it's in an argument with my heart. Anyone else starting to hear the tune from the Wizard of Oz ("If I only had a brain, heart, courage.")

Re: Re: Wow, you're good, Mwy

sheath said:

Who says you have to give up integrity at all? There is nothing more pure and spiritual than following what your heart and soul want. NOT following those things is compromising your integrity. But letting go and finding those things that fulfill you? That is the deepest kind of integrity a person can carry.

S.

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Even if someone else, someone you love, gets hurt? I feel so icky and awful when i think he might. and when I did hurt him. hurts down to the marrow. at the same time I cant seem to let this go. It felt like ME, damnit. Coasting down the road with my arms outstretched feeling the wind. I'd fish or cut bait if I was sure which was the fishing and which the cutting bait. Does this make any sense? Don't mean to be so metaphorical, just seems to be closer to the bone.

Went outside and helped my son make rainbows with the hose, gave him horsey and airplane and rocketship rides. Those things are real. At least to him, as they are his only childhood. And I'm the only one that can make those memories for him.

I'm looking for a job, which will mean less time with the kids but is necessary now. And will be good. Just so easy to get caught up in what is in my briefcase and head and not live. Biding time. To keep from remembering what I wanted to do when I grew up. Banging my head against the wall, reminding myself who helped me grow up (husband was the first safe place I ever had.) And it's not just gratitude. He can be fun. Is damn goodlooking and sexy. (Just tired and distracted and trying to keep his head above water which can't be fun.) Don't even know what help I need. Or maybe I'm like those others we see here who hear it and reject it? Is there something I'm hearing and rejecting? Does someone want to be blunt with me? When I first came on months ago, someone said I have a storybook picture of romance and sex and love, and need to grow up -- or words to that effect. Maybe. All I know is that I felt alive for a while. And I remember having that feeling, though not quite what it felt like. And i want it back.

Re: Re: Re: Wow, you're good, Mwy

Phoenix Stone said:

Even if someone else, someone you love, gets hurt? I feel so icky and awful when i think he might. and when I did hurt him. hurts down to the marrow. at the same time I cant seem to let this go. It felt like ME, damnit. Coasting down the road with my arms outstretched feeling the wind. I'd fish or cut bait if I was sure which was the fishing and which the cutting bait. Does this make any sense? Don't mean to be so metaphorical, just seems to be closer to the bone.

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It does make sense.

Even if someone else, someone you love, gets hurt? I guess you have to ask yourself if they are being hurt by you NOT being you. If they are just stuck in the same situation you are because nobody has rocked the boat. If maybe, in the end, that person will be happier as well, because YOU are happier.

If you are not YOU, then you are not giving all you can. And if you are not giving all you can, then why are you there?

Just thoughts to ponder...

When you find what makes you who you truly are, what feeds your soul, what nourishes that inner child and the inner woman and everything in between? Then not following that path is a travesty and a disservice to not only you, but all those you love.

My two rambling cents...

S.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Wow, you're good, Mwy

sheath said:

It does make sense.

Even if someone else, someone you love, gets hurt? I guess you have to ask yourself if they are being hurt by you NOT being you. If they are just stuck in the same situation you are because nobody has rocked the boat. If maybe, in the end, that person will be happier as well, because YOU are happier.

If you are not YOU, then you are not giving all you can. And if you are not giving all you can, then why are you there?

Just thoughts to ponder...

When you find what makes you who you truly are, what feeds your soul, what nourishes that inner child and the inner woman and everything in between? Then not following that path is a travesty and a disservice to not only you, but all those you love.

My two rambling cents...

S.

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Hah, you are talking to the Queen of Ramble Road, here.

Thank you for the reminder -- and very nicely put.

Got that on the other hand mechanism going tho -- ever heard that comedian who goes on about how kids would rather have their parents miserable in front of them than ecstatic in Hawaii? He is pretty quick to say that I should do what makes me happy -- in a way that makes me feel I'm supposed to be just as admirably self-sacrificing. Or at least shut up about what's bothering me around him. And I don't even Know what's gonna make me happy. Just a few hints. And he wants me to be a grownup and figure it out myself. So unfair. And prefers I don't do it here, publicly. My friends don't know about this. Jeez -- if I can't tell this to hundreds of perfect strangers on a porn board, where can I?