Since You Asked...

I loved today's column...here it is from www.salon.com

I'm back. It is a beautiful morning. A mockingbird is singing.

Dear Cary,

I am a 35-year-old woman who has consistently avoided serious relationships. Few relationships with men felt "right" or worth the effort, and those that did somehow ended in disappointment.

I have been dating a guy for about 10 months, and until recently, I was not taking our relationship very seriously (I am about to move), but he has been ramping up the pressure. We have fun together, but as with earlier boyfriends, he doesn't really feel like home to me. Previously, I have tried to defer the issue with him, but this weekend I began to think seriously about making a commitment to him -- and I got really depressed. Here's my question -- should I move forward with him and expect the depression to fade with the fabled wonders of coupledom, or should I repeat my previous pattern and flee quickly?

As an aside, I am currently in a difficult place, professionally (finishing a dissertation, job hunting), and am reluctant to take on something that will tax my frayed emotional reserves.

Thank you,

Clinging to Spinsterhood

Dear Clinging,

What if I said that it's fine to date around a little bit when you're young, but by age 35 you'd better settle for whatever man you can find? What if I said, All women eventually must become wives and mothers, so what are you waiting for?

What if a friend of yours said, "Well, the thought of committing to this guy made me feel depressed, but I did it anyway because, hey, maybe coupledom will make me happy"?

You'd be outraged, no?

Is being single nothing more than a dismal holding pattern women occupy prior to being rescued by a man's devotion? Is it every man's duty, when he has been dating a woman for a number of months, to begin "ramping up the pressure" to ensure her swift betrothal?

Imagine being an independent, self-sufficient woman with a number of relationships whose intensity and duration are negotiated according to the shifting needs and circumstances of the individuals involved. What's wrong with that kind of life?

It sounds like a good kind of life to me. It sounds like the life of a single woman.

So I suggest that you declare yourself unabashedly, consciously, deliberately single. Not single until the right man comes along. Not single as a regrettable consequence of a series of failed relationships. Not single as in poor lonesome spinster who can't land a man. Single as in free, self-sufficient, independent, committed to growth, happy and OK with who I am. Single as in maybe I'm free tonight and maybe I'm not. Single as in I control my own time. Single as in I have choices. Single as in I like you a lot and I will try to meet you halfway but this is my bed and I have to be somewhere in the morning.

Here is something about the post-feminist world to consider. Women's gains in the 1970s and 1980s came through personal struggle. Women worked individually and in groups to untangle the mess of unspoken assumptions governing their daily lives. It was difficult, sometimes heartbreaking work. It came between women and the men they loved. It disrupted family lives and work lives. It was personal, messy and dirty. Only after this work was done was it possible to change laws and institutions.

Men also worked hard to change how they treated women. It was not easy. It was like learning how to walk again.

Out of this hard work came new assumptions and new laws. But it didn't wipe out sexism. It didn't change how families raise children or what we learn from our parents and grandparents or how we can manipulate each other's desires and fears to get what we want.

Consider this analogy. Psychotherapy has changed many individuals. But your mother's psychotherapy will not protect you from life's struggles any more than your mother's feminism will inoculate you against the difficulties of negotiating your freedom as a woman. You have to consciously seize that freedom just as women before you had to. It is still necessary for individuals to find their own truths and uncover their own biases and hidden agendas.

In your current and past relationships, when you reached a point of conflict, rather than negotiate or compromise, you fled. I don't think in this instance you need to capitulate or flee. You can negotiate. You can declare yourself a free, single woman. You can say you like things just the way they are and wish to continue as they are.

He may not want you on those terms. That is his choice. But the idea that "coupledom" will somehow make all these difficult choices disappear is nothing but wishful thinking.

Declare yourself single!

Good

Totally gratuitous MadMen photo...I love them both.

Today was fine....feeling old habits trying to resurface and will just have to accept that, and stay aware of it. Stupid stuff, grasping, craving, all part of the human condition, but not helping me right now. Went to spin with Tets and it was , haven't been to one of Maleah's classes since she went to her event, so great to see her, great to have Tets there, made the energy really good, came back to work happy, relaxed. Picked up kids and ate, home and they were well behaved...thank goodness, cause last night sucked. Im'd w SCG today which was nice, covered some other stuff, like WTF seeing each other, but we'll see if he shows in NY.

Went to see Stevie Nicks and she was awesome, I hadn't seen her since the whole TX and weekend after cluster fuck. She was OK with me still communicating with him, with caution obviously. I hadn't been in so long, I needed to get all of that out with her. I also need to save some stuff for her instead of dragging everyone into it...next time.

PS my labels are so depressing. can't keep using them.

Comfortable Grateful and Happy

This has been a really great weekend and I am grateful. I needed it, I saw it happening, I enjoyed it. It happened. I went to dinner with the SHS girls on Friday night which was super fun, they were all so happy to hang out, and connect and it was really super sweet. Made me happy. Saturday went to gym and brunch w Ev which also mad me happy, a little shopping with the kids. Bella's going to be Dorothy for Halloween. Saturday night home with kids, ate what I wanted to eat, drank what I wanted to drink, kids at home with me, watched a movie with Keith. Today Bella had a Bday party Keith and I dropped her off and then walked around Fashion Island, he wanted to take a drive through my old neighborhood so we did...then took him to his dads (he's hating that), picked up Bella took her to her Dads, hopped on the bike for an hour an a half, showered, dinner with Tets,FNG, Dennis and Tiff....now home. I almost forgot the very best part!!!! Emails and phone call with Chrish Chavoya (who is now Ondine Chavoya-FYI) So amazing and fabulous to talk to him, my first BF, my first gay best friend...so many crazy memories and so special to reconnect. He's going to the renunion in a few weeks and I am going with Shelagh. I already warned him I will be monopolizing his time. I cannot wait to give him a giant hug and kiss....so off to bed...trainer in the AM then work. Very very very extremly grateful to be right here right now and know it. Felt it since Saturday afternoon and was so happy for all the little things I've been working on these last few weeks to be able to be where I am and not anywhere else.

Sleeeeepy Sleeeepy Sleeeeepy

Just got home from airport, went for a quick bike ride and now trying to stay awake. I'm going to pick up Bella from school in about an hour, then just try and stay awake until 9 pm. It's going to be a long day. Everything wrapped up fine on the trip, I have to go into work for a little bit tomorrow then some how meeting up with 5 girls from HS....hard to believe. One of them I didn't know very well but the others I did. I'm sleepy and hungry and I need a shower.

maybe I'm on an up swing...the japan stuff went better than expected today, that's a relief. I have been reading and re reading this book on the best Buddhist writings of 2008 and it makes me try and change from the inside which is what it's all about. Reading that what ever pain I'm in is something I caused someone some other time, not in a guilty way, but in a way that says, experience this pain and act carefully not to create it for someone else. Also a lot about craving and grasping, holding on to what isn't there, and I have been trying to experience my thoughts more carefully, meditatively, and seeing how far ahead I am and how that prevents me from being here now...and being anywhere I am really. Also forgiveness, forgiving myself for the pain I have caused my self and others, and isolating the actions of others that I should forgive. I think there is a lot there about the x, forgiving myself for how it was, forgiving myself.forgiving myself. It seems like that is along way off, but rings very true. I do feel like I love myself for the first time in my life, when all the other confusion or pain is on my mind that is a great surprise, a feeling I didn't know before. So not to get all metaphysical, but going back to the simple stuff I know works and is true is a benefit to the experiences I've had over the last few weeks. Beach with kids, books, Buddha, clearing my head, hanging out w Keith, sleeping with Bella when she was sick. Little bits of magic.

im'd with scg for a while this morning (he found me). Daughter is fine, but they are all a bit shaken up still. Tried to be big about it, glad he was able to get the call in time to go to her, vs. when he landed. That is all true. He apologized and we talked a little about why Tets was mad at me, and just chat. Going to remember that IM isn't real communication, and told him my lesson was not to make plans...sometimes things have to happen because they are supposed to not because you make them happen. Working hard to see that going over and over all of it is not helping me experience anything new.

I am not very good at lying around doing nothing, which is basically what's been happening today. I took the bikes back, which costs me $100 bucks. Can't ask Tets for the $ and can't see asking scg either. So that's a the price of what I needed to learn. I am still just achy over this whole thing. Did I make this whole thing up? did I make it all happen? Why am I in such a fucking slump right now? No calls, no emails, no nothing obvioulsy. Oh yeah...I hate facebook, like I wanna see his face and what he thinks right now? I kinda do but only if it's about feeling bad. I want a grand gesture, a big effort, but not gonna happen. I don't want to be a scum and not ask about his daughter, but I have already put to much into it, and that will open the door for me to do more of that. I really don't want to go to Japan tomorrow. This trip has shitty written all over it....I'm just gonna dive in and try and get through it.

Went for long bike ride by myself this morning, and stopped for coffee w Tets on the way home. That was tougher than I thought, the first half of the conversation was good, but then he told me he thought I was childish to cancel the ride and bbq today. I was surprised, because it was his idea to cancel all of it over the weekend, and he's leaving for Japan tomorrow and has all kinds of crap to do today. That made me feel bad. I am unaware when I upset him and it sticks when he says it. So I'm home now talked to scg...need new acronym because that's not gonna work anymore, and it was totally and completely awkward. Obviously he's staying home with his daughter, but there was an opportunity there to say something and he didn't, which he hasn't before either, so whatever. I wish I didn't call him back because now I'm stuck with that feeling too.

I am right back where I started. like Radiohead...15 steps. I guess this is where I need to be, I haven't figured something out yet. It is just lonely. that's all really. I don't want to stay home and watch tv forever, I want some one to care about and someone to care about me. I'm totally OK with it not being this guy, I am too big and have to much to offer for anything less than my vision, but it's far away. It's not visible from here, and being sad and lonely is not anywhere I want to be. UGGG.

Also work fucking sucks. I am not sure I've ever been at the bottom of the cycle like this before. Even when x was here work was good. I need to be humble, I need to accept that this is where I am supposed to be.