patience is a virtue

i've always been told that being patient is something i should think about doing from time to time. and yet, somehow, it's never been my strong suit. i am the most impatient person who has ever lived on this earth. i hate waiting. i want what i want, when i want it. veruca salt, eat your heart out, baby girl; it is i who wants the world, who wants the whole world. i want bows in my hair, and i don't want to share. well, that might be a slight exaggeration. but the fact of the matter is that it is a distinct annoyance in my life that i can't have things ordered as i prefer them. cases in point: the man is still not home, and i still don't know what i'm doing after may 22 of this year. i have no control over anything anymore. i am not a woman who enjoys feeling powerless, and i detest this rootless feeling that's starting to creep in around the edges of my life these days.

i had a job interview yesterday! sweet! that's amazing... until i found out that 42 people applied for the position, which is new-kid attorney at what will be a six-person firm. they're interviewing 14, of which 3 will be called back for a fit interview. uh, yeah. i nailed that interview, i KNOW i did, but i am starting to get the sense that none of it matters. there are plenty of good lawyers in this world. it's just not our market. i will probably not get that job. this is the numbers game i will be forced to play from this point forward, too. this, of course, means that i can do everything 110% perfectly... and it probably won't matter. it will all come down to what some partner wants that day. totally up to chance. and there's no way to control it.

the man will be home sunday afternoon. thank. GOD. i absolutely love how good he is at what he does, and i'm glad he's happy. but i am starting to get the feeling that this is the first of many, many times i'll have to face the notion of him trucking happily off to some other semi-developed (at best) foreign land to work with do-gooders. he'll love it... and two things will be true: i will hate it, and there will be nothing i can do to change it. i have no say in any of this. not that i would, necessarily, invoke a say if i had one. that's the point of adulthood, right? i'm always on about self-determination, so i'd be just the worst sort of hypocrite if i didn't grant that to him. but if i ran things? this would never, ever happen again. i would never have to deal with this kind of uncertainty again. but there's nothing i can do to control this. he's chasing his dream. i'm left to deal with the aftermath.

oh, and there's the place where professional and personal angst meet: what the hell am i going to do if i have to leave this area for a job? what would i do if the only way to make a living doing what i love only exacerbates the separation between us? what then? ugh. there's so much going on right now that i completely detest. all i can do is wait through it, walk through it and live through it. i can control none of it, and i can't accelerate the waiting time. all i can do is try my damnedest to be patient. it's a virtue, i'm told. well, i don't know much about either virtue or patience. but apparently, the world has decided that it's high time i learn.

all right, universe. you're on. let's do this.

firework

pop music and i are usually not friends. i favor alt-rock, alt-country, songwriters with pithy and/or ironic worldviews. (oh yeah - and rap that was released in the late 1980s through the early 2000s. i'm a sucker for a good beat.) but i've been gobsmacked by this hooky little minx of a song. i swear, it's been on an endless loop in my head for over a week now. and for the longest time, i could NOT figure out why. there's nothing special about the beat, the words or even the sentiment.

but then i got to thinking about the lyrics again...

you just gotta ignite the light and let it shine
just own the night like the fourth of july
'cause, baby, you're a firework
come on, show 'em what you're worth...
come on, let your colors burst...
you're gonna leave 'em all in awe, awe, awe...
boom, boom, boom, even brighter than the moon, moon, moon
it's always been inside of you
and now it's time to let it through

kinda sounds like an anthem for someone who's been pent up, repressed (by herself or by others) and wants nothing more to live up to everything she's always wanted to be, eh? yeah, and another word for all of those concepts is divorcee.

i've met a lot of women, both blog-friends and life-friends, who are divorcing, considering divorce, or have finished the process. though the experience is harrowing (even for those of us with no kids and no stuff to fight over), and it causes pain and unexpected levels of sorrow, the end result of the whole thing is... lightness. you feel like yourself again, but better, improved, forged in fire and tougher than steel. you survived, you made the right choice, and the world is your oyster.

i got the following statement told to me a lot when i was back in my louisiana homeland: you look so much lighter these days. and you know? i am. i feel free, unburdened. the troubles that weighed me down and made me dour, dark, and angry are gone. in their place is this sense that, hell, i got through it, and i lived. i can do anything i want now. i feel like the joy of getting back to the life i wanted to live shines through every pore, making me glow in the light of my own strength. and i think that's why this stupid little pop song is so stupidly life-affirming to me. i am here to show y'all what i'm worth, let my colors burst and shoot across the sky. i own the night. i let it shine.

boom, boom, boom, y'all.

love is the drug

my head hurts. my plan to address the issues in my life through excessive alcohol consumption was a smashing success (please pardon the pun). i got a buzz on and smoothed out the rough edges... mostly.

but the problem with my choice of venue for my mini-bender was, well, it's a place i love. worse, it's a place WE love. the lyric goes, every inch of this city reminds me of you. everywhere we went, through the swirl of people and activity, all i saw was the times we walked the streets of our beloved new orleans. hell, if you want to get right down to it, that's the city that made us fall in love with each other. we met in our hometown, we flirted on neutral ground, we had dalliances in our current city, but it was new orleans, with its dark, dusty magic, that drew the lover out of him. i sat down for a drink at our bar, where our bartender noted his absence. his aura was everywhere; thus, the escape, though pleasant, was incomplete at best.

i went to bed last night, having successfully wrangled some semblance of peace for my jangled nerves through heavy yet controlled imbibing, tired, but feeling pretty confident that i could at least get some sleep without him. nestled in his t-shirt, still smelling of him, i drifted into a slow, light sleep. buzz. hmm. that's my phone. who's texting me? everyone's either here or asleep. i picked up the phone to investigate further.  

guess who...

and just like that, the clouds lifted. we only texted a few times, but just seeing those words on the screen soothed every raw edge in my body. and as we parted company for the night, he left me with one last message, apropos for the evening i'd had: don't do anything i wouldn't do. love you. as i wrote back that i love him, too, all the angst, the hurt and the sheer worry of the day fell away. it was just that simple, just that quick, and just that powerful. loving him really is a drug for me. when he's with me, or even when i'm able to be in touch with him, it's a form of comfort that i can't articulate. when he's not around, i go through withdrawals. consider yesterday's sturm und drang to be my own personal boyfriend-related DTs. i just need to know he's available, especially under stressful conditions such as these. all i need at times like this is that little, tiny reminder. love you.

always, my dear. love you too. :)