My wild & precious life

On what it 's like being 50, female, single and straight in P'town in the winter. Part II

Excerpt from Part I:

So now fast forward to one sunny August morning, I come wheeling into Provincetown, possessions (much of them) in the back of my 'new to me' Jeep Liberty, I had a job, but no place to live, and I didn't know a soul. How brave, I hear you thinking. You bet it was. Brave, or maybe crazy, I haven't decided yet. But I was armed that day with the secret weapon of wanderers the world over: the powerful all-consuming delusion that everything was going to work out perfectly, as it had in the past. (what is it that they say when you first sign up with a financial investor? Something like 'past performance is no guarantee of future results.'  I might have thought of that that day, but I was blind. And delusional.)

On that first starry-eyed day oh so many weeks ago, after checking in at my new job, I stashed my stuff at a temporary location and then spent the next 10 days in a blur of learning the systems and protocols for the front desk. The thing was, I was coming to be the spa director, and so all through that time, I was champing at the bit to get started. Looking back, it was a good thing to have learned what the front desk agents at a busy, elegant, high-end resort hotel go through on a daily basis, but I kept noticing the happy, tanned, relaxed visitors on my way back and forth to my car each night and early morning and wondering , when would I get to look like that? After all, this is Provincetown in the summer, and I was used to feeling a delicious mix of excited, stimulated and relaxed when I was here in the past. As a visitor.

It turns out I am a quite a workaholic. When you are running your own business, it isn't as obvious as when you work for someone else, because flying solo, the line between your personal life and work life is rather permeable. Or non-existent. But being on salary, how can I blame anyone else for my not taking time out to go to Race Point to dunk my Atlantic-starved body in the bracing tide while the water was still warm, to simply stroll down Commercial St. with an ice cream cone, to go for an early-morning hike in the Beech Forest? Loneliness, a desire to feel like I belonged somewhere, the nagging , yearning, questioning feeling I would get the minute I was by myself, the group norm at work of keeping long long hours every day for weeks in a row, all these contributed to my drive to do nothing but work, but the ultimate choice was only mine. My sister had wisely told me years ago, "Jessica, people do what they want to do".  And I tell my phone coaching clients all the time: "you vote for your priorities with your minutes." So what have I been voting for? To be a victim/martyr? yuck. I don't like that script in other people, why would I take it on myself? That is the ugly question. If people do what they want to do, why do I want to play the victim?

You wanna know something scary? Sometime in the last few years, I have recently realized, I forgot how to have fun. There. I said it out loud. It breaks my heart and confuses me, but it's true.

I used to be fun. I used to be wild. I used to make it a priority to bring beauty and music and good food, and friends and laughter and playfulness and joy into my life every day. What happened? What happened? Slowly, over time, after I moved to L.A. and started my organizing business in 2000, I stopped remembering to take time for myself to just be. Work became my mainlined drug, my best friend, my lover, my comfort, my excitement, my God. Sure, I did have some great leisure moments watching old movies at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in the summer time and seeing free Shakespeare in Barnsdell Art Park. And my boyfriend at the time had a lead on free tickets to the Hollywood Bowl, but it didn't happen often enough to deeply soothe my nerves and truly fill me up. I got used to running on empty. To settling for not enough. To going for months at a time without laughing from my belly. To being alone and withstanding it. The scary thing is, in order to do all that, I had to lower my standards and shut down my heart. Now that is scary. That's how chronic disease happens, that's how people lose themselves and can't get themselves back. That's how people get bitter and forget to be grateful. That's how burn-out happens. And when energy is not coming into your life in an organic way, you end up reaching for artificial ways to stimulate yourself. This is when people turn to drugs, over-watching of TV, porn, food for comfort not nourishment, gossip, blame, resentment, clutter, random sexual partners, alcohol, spending money that you don't have, etc. just to get that feeling/illusion of being filled up.

Does it sound like I am whining? I hope not, because for sure the one thing I am for is taking responsibility for myself and my choices. But now it's time to make myself a priority. To committing to a balance between work and play, to having FUN.

I am so fortunate! I live in a gorgeous part of the world. I am safe, I am no longer in debt, I have a great job that I love and that feeds my creativity and stretches my capabilities so I won't get bored, I am relatively healthy, quite intelligent and I have been told, although carrying a few extra pounds, attractive. What is standing in my way?

I am going to share something really fun with you! Several days a week, I get a "note from the universe" via email that reminds me of all different kinds of important stuff. Sometimes it's a secret of life revealed, sometimes it's a prophesy (not the religious kind, the future-foretelling kind), sometimes it's a gentle reminder on where to align my thinking. Here's the one I got yesterday, just before going on a coffee meeting with someone who had emailed me from the internet:

How about I share a little secret with you, Jessica, in exchange for an even wider smile than you're now wearing??

OK? Deal! Here goes... There's someone in the world today, right now in time and space, who you've yet to even meet, who will, before long, fall very, very in love with you.

You decide what kind of love -
    The Universe

[If you'd like to get these notes, just sign up here: Notes from the Universe]

Here's what was able to happen to me at the meeting: I didn't lower my standards. I didn't settle for less. When the guy showed up looking like he just rolled out of bed (I had put on makeup, dolled up and felt kinda good about how I looked), I didn't make it about me. I chatted with him for about an hour and then politely excused myself. When I got home, I thought long and hard about what it is I am looking for in my life right now and communion and heart-expansion top my list. I did not feel that either of those would be present with this man for me. Nothing personal against him, either, it just wasn't a match, and after all, isn't that why we date? To find someone that we match with? But how can you know if something is a match for you or not (doesn't matter if it's a date, a job, a place to live, a friend, a piece of furniture) if you don't have some standard to go by? People dismiss standards as judgmental, but I feel very strongly in line with that hackneyed old saying, "if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything."  I have fallen way too many times in the past for "anything" just because I was lonely or bored or restless or my self-esteem wasn't up to par. Turning 50 allows me to set the bar WAY higher now. Mostly because being on my own is not intolerable to me. I don't prefer it, but I would much rather be on my own than in a relationship that is unsatisfying of my most basic desires.

It's critical to have a standard to live by, because when you do, you can measure each thing that comes into your life and make a decision efficiently. No hard feelings, buddy, it just wasn't a match. I want the sexy juice flowing and easy playful flirty conversation and to feel like a woman when I am with a man. And because I see the world in terms of energy, for me, it is important that when a door gets opened, if it is not going to be a door I want to walk through again, that I close it. Respectfully, warmly and in my integrity. So I emailed him a polite thank you note, and I am certain he was relieved:

Hi, [name withheld], thanks for coming out to meet me. You seem like a sweet man and you are adorable, but I am thinking that there really wasn't enough juice flowing there to take this further.

I wish you all the best in your search, and maybe our paths will cross sometime in another setting.

Warmly,

Jessica

It can be that simple, just release yourself from the invisible strands that tie you to what is not useful, gently, so that you can have a clear path for when the right situation presents itself. Vote for your priorities with your minutes. Clear the path, 'cause something's on it's way!

Talk to me, and let's keep this thread on topic, please, and positive.

~jessica