Green With Envy

About a week ago, my son and I kicked off our summer with a movie, one of the several things that we wanted to be able to do this summer. He picked the new 'Shrek The Final Chapter' (or Shrek Forever After). We decided to not see the 3-D version, which worked well for me because those 3-D glasses had to be worn OVER my own glasses, which is awkward.

The movie was great, I laughed out loud through a great deal of it. It was the basic story of 'you don't know what you have until it's gone', done Shrek-style. There was a part of the movie where Shrek had basically gone back in time and things had changed. He had never met his true love, Fiona in this alternate reality. When he did, he knew who she was but she had no idea of who HW was. When he told her that he was suppose to have rescued her, she told him that (in HER reality) she waited and waited but he never came. That she found out the hard way that fairy tales are a waste of time, that she couldn't rely on anyone but herself, so she gave up and rescued herself from the tower. That part of the movie wasn't funny. It touched on some very hard points that really hit home.

For far too long, I've been waiting for my true love and for too long I've been let down. Fiona is right, fairy tales don't exist. If you want to be 'rescued' you have to do it yourself. Period.

Sooner or Later

Alot of people saw the movie 'Avatar' recently. The graphics were amazing although the storyline wasn't really all that new. Jake was, in real life, crippled and confined to a wheel chair. He was given the chance to go to a foriegn planet where he was given an avatar with which he could walk with the natives of the planet as one of them. He did this by basically having his body go to sleep and his mind transfer to the avatar. While he was in his avatar, he could walk again, learned a new way of life and as in most movies, fell in love. When he woke up, he was back in hius real body and again, crippled. I understand his wanting to remain asleep and in his avatar. The dream world offers what reality can't and that can be pretty appealing.

I'm to quick to trust and to quick to love. I would rarely admit this in person, but it's true. I have yet to understand whether it's out of being naive or desperate. Niether one is good and leads to a lot of heartbreak. Maybe it's due to the learned fact that people go away, vanish, move (or at least I do) and for whatever reason, just break the connection. It's been said that 'it's a dog eat dog world' and I have found that to be true. Do unto others before they can do unto you is basically what it means.

I used to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, I truly believed that everyone was honest with me. Why wouldn't they be? What reason did they have to lie? I was a regular Pollyanna when it came to such things. Young and stupid. Well I grew up. Even though I still have a habit of trusting people way more than I should, I do have boundries and only trust them so far. I would say that women and men are the same in the battle to tell the truth, but my experience has taught me that men tend to have a bigger problem with being honest. Maybe it's because I have more male 'friends' than I do female ones. I use the term 'friends' loosely. My definition of a true friend is someone who will always be there for you no matter what, and be up front and honest. Support you, be your shoulder to cry on and your arms to fall into when needed. Maybe that's being to demanding, because I've never had many and lately they're dropping like flies. Of course that's probably my fault as well. It's those boundries that I have. I truly long for someone to just hug me tight and tell me everything'll be ok. Not anylize me, not judge me, not even try to to fix what's wrong, just hold me. People lie about so much, why can't they lie about that? About everything being okay?

That broken connection people give me would usually signal that it was getting close to time for me to up and move. Since I know that's not the case, it bother's me about how many people have become well, less than what I expected from a friend. That's gonna make the next few years here pretty difficult to say the least.

When I was little, I was often accused by my mother of living in a dream world. She was right, I did dream a lot. I wasn't happy with being the ugly duckling, always the new kid in town, never any really good friends to hang out with for years and years. I was a wall flower, the skinny girl with braces that always got picked last for any team. I never had boys flock after me and put up with relentless teasing. Reality sucked, who WOULDN'T want to live in a dream world? Well reality still sucks. I'm not as much of a wall-flower as I used to be, I'm no longer that skinny, my braces have been off for decades and I no longer get teased, but other than that, life's pretty much the same. I still have my dream world though. I'll act out all kinds of scenarios from giving my ex what-for to accepting a Golden Globe (or at least just have the honor of being nominated, lol). Of course, just like in the movie 'Avatar'.....sooner or later, you have to wake up.

At Last

I grew up with a plan...to be an actress. When I entered high school, my mom sat me down and told me it was time to start planning for college, so 'what did I want to be when I grew up?' I said an actress. She laughed and said "I don't think so, actresses are thin and pretty and talented, you need to find something more realistic for you" I thought for a moment and came up with 'an airline stewardess', with which she retorted "The same principles apply with that one, what else?" I wracked my brain and finally came up with 'a teacher'. She came back with "Well, you better start studying harder". Secretly, I still wanted to be an actress or a singer the most. I would 'perform' in front of my mirror and even do pretend interviews with Johnny Carson as well as acceptance speeches for various awards. On the outside, I never let on again that I wanted to be an actress.

In college, I even started out majoring in French so I could be a French teacher, taking a minor in theatre. Later on I would switch my major to Theatre, of course, maintaining that I would simply 'teach theatre'. Well, we moved out of state to a city that out of several colleges, NONE of them offered a BFA and decent theatre courses, so I entered the job force and put my college on the backburner. I soon met the man who would become my husband for just about a decade and my plans changed drastically. I sunk into the role of housewife and mother. With each passing year, the girl I once was drifted further and further away until I was simply a shell of my old self.

In 2006 I finally got a clue and left him, we were divorced in 2007 and now have split custody of our son. Currently I'm stuck in Clarksville until my son is old enough to decide who he lives with full-time (or he graduates) Either way, I face the fact that I'm gonna be here for quite a while. I'll be 40 on my next birthday, when he graduates I'll be about 45. Until then, I'm rather stuck in Limbo.

Limbo is a funny place to be, makes you think crazy things. There for a while, I still had my heart set on getting my fairytale....remarried, maybe have another child and living happily ever after. Besides, my ex had done just that, and in record time after the divorce I might add. Maybe that added to my lunacy, that 'keeping up with the Jones' way of thinking. I've been back in the dating pool for a while now and after a hard long look at my life, I am finally pretty clear on what I want.

I want to have my cake and eat it too. Yes, I want a man in my life (WANT, not NEED), someone whom I can be there for and stand beside. Someone I can go places with, hold hands as we walk through the crowd, laugh with and grow old with. Someone who understands that we will both be there for one another and love each other whether we're rich or poor, sick or healthy. A husband? Not so much. I love my last name and I love the thought of still maintaining some freedom. Besides, I was married and while so, I STILL did family vacations with just me and my son, outings, school functions, shopping, everything. I actually wouldn't know what to do if I had someone come with us (or me once my son is away at college) I'm not afraid to go out by myself, I've done it for decades. But I still just want to be loved.

Having another child? Seriously, who am I kidding? I don't want to be mistaken for the child's grandparent when I attend their high school graduation. And how will I ever afford college at almost retirement age? It's crazy! Besides I really want to start to travel more. I'm renewing that passport and USING it! That's really hard to do, for me it'd be impossible to do if I had another child. I would have to spend the rest of my life raising the child and never get to go anywhere. I have my son and then I have my dogs :) Man or no man, I'll be just fine....although a travel buddy would be awful nice! But hey, I've got several more years to worry about that. Now back to my evening alone.......