The Thinking Other Woman

And Why Was I Supposed to Exist?

Don't get me wrong, I know why we exist. We are supposed to be born helpless human babies on Planet Earth, get messed up and deeply psychologically wounded by parents who were wounded themselves, and then spend the rest of our lives consciously growing ourselves up and fixing the wounds we grew up with.

If we miss this fact, the signs that we need to do this work come up and slap us so hard we can't possibly ignore them. (Such as an affair.)

The rest is just ancillary.

But, I already did that.

I know why all this shit happened. I know what I was supposed to learn from it. I've tried to share what I've learned, with varying degrees of success.

So: What if it doesn't feel like enough, somehow? This hasn't led to any sense of purpose or happiness.

It’s really sad to let go of a dream you’ve had for thirty years. (It’s sad to let go of one you’ve had since 1999.)

I keep telling myself that a person who really loved writing would just lose themselves in the story they’re telling themselves, and go on and do it anyway. Who cares whether anyone cares or not?

I find when I go back to my novel, there’s just an awful lot of bad feelings hanging around. 

I wonder what I was supposed to have done.

It’s clear all the plans I made in my youth have come to nothing, and I’m on a completely different track than I thought I was.

I’m no fiction writer. My last writer’s group informed me in no uncertain terms my last novel sucks. I don’t have any more ideas. I also have no yen to spend nine years (yet again) struggling with all my wits to complete something that will be absolutely no use to anyone.

I suppose it would be different if I were so in love with my characters I just made up a story and wrote it down to spend time with them, but I’m not.

So there you go. If you can’t fall in love with your own characters, nobody else will, either.

So, that’s it. I’m done with fiction writing for good.

I was never, ever, ever, ever meant to be a novelist.

Unfortunately, I spent thirty years believing that I was. I was glad, because unlike many other pasttimes, all you need to be able to do to write is think and type, making writing something you are much more likely to be able to do into your so-called “golden” years, when old pasttimes like running and rugby have to be given up for good.

In my case … um … well …

I remember dating my husband and feeling pretty sure we were going to get married. I had that to look forward to as what my life was going to end up looking like.

It was reassuring. I have a medical problem that used to lead to panic attacks, before I had the health insurance that paid for the medical problem to be diagnosed. I used to lie in bed alone at night, while my then-fiance was in Michigan, fending off a panic attack and reminding myself that soon he would be here, we would be married, and I wouldn’t be alone at night anymore in case something really happened.

I am ashamed and sorry to say that I spent much of the past eight years the same way.

Word of advice: When studying astrology, don’t just read the whole chart; also read ALL your transits. String them end to end and see if they tell a story. Be aware, there might be more than one! And look at the character of the person you imagined you’d be with. When a person is telling you right up front they are too weak to do something and that path is there in their transits, don’t look at the storyline you wanted, even when that is also in the transits.

It doesn’t end well.

Basically, my whole life evaporated years ago, and I don’t have another one.

What’s going to happen to me?

Well, not much. I can’t come up with anything else to do.

The rest of my life is going to be this: I get up and go to work to pay bills that allow me to eat and live indoors so I can get up and go to work to pay bills.

What’s the point in that?

It’s very hard to motivate myself to do anything anymore. Exercise was a necessary evil; so was the odious housecleaning and the making and cleaning up of health food.

I did all this because it was a means to an end: I was going to be a novelist, and if I wanted that to work, then all the behind-the-scenes stuff had to, also. For a while, I had a husband who really WAS a novelist, and if I wanted that to work, then all the behind-the-scenes stuff had to, also.

I had Dreams to carry me through the work of daily living, and a sense that it was For A Reason.

Now I understand that Dreams not only do not come true, but they are The way an average, ordinary, nothing person sets themselves up for huge, HUGE disappointment.

Do Not form Dreams around an outcome. It may make you happy for a while, but Dreams About Outcomes are kind of like affairs—they end in broken circumstances and sad, sad regret. Except for a few little people, like, oh, J. K. Rowling or Donald Trump or Julia Roberts.

And Do Not form Dreams around other people. Bad, BAD plan.

So, I don’t have Dreams anymore. I recognize that whatever outcome I set as some kind of goal, it’s going to pay me back in heartbreak.

And I’ve had enough of that.

So, what was I supposed to DO, here, exactly?

Here’s what I’m going to end up doing:

I will go to work and pay bills so I can eat and live indoors so I can continue to go to work and pay bills. If I don’t do that, I will end up homeless and starving on the street.

Another two decades of this will pass. I will get older and more feeble. One day I will trip over the cat, or fall in the shower, or have a heart attack alone in here.

Days will pass. Someone will figure out that nobody’s seen me in a while, and police will be called to do a welfare check.

They will find me naked or half-dressed, lying someplace unable to move. It will be decided that I can no longer care for myself. Social Services will be called.

I will be relocated to a nursing home, where I will sit staring at TV until I have another heart attack, or get cancer, or come down with an infection, and then I will die there.

That’s what’s going to happen to me.

Was there something else I was supposed to have done, here???

If there was, something is going to have to tap me on the shoulder and get me back on the right path. Isn't that what happens when people are successful? They do something, the world responds, and something just happens. Some opportunity. Some path. Then they do that, and something else opens up. There's a way to keep going, and the path feels good and fits and feels right.

You know ... I have never had that happen to me. Not in a career sense, at least. It happened when I started dating my late husband. For a little while, at least.

Not anymore.

As people get older, they basically end up just existing. I guess that is all that's left.

I've gotten good at existing. It's cozy. I watch movies and write about infidelity.

I guess it's worth something. I've made $561 this month so far and it's only the 17th.

I can't become this old person who's unhappy because It's All Over. Sooner or later, we're all here.

Sooner or later, It's All Over for everyone. We are supposed to accept this in serenity.

Okay.   

The problem in this life is, I don't expect anything good anymore.

I really, really don't.

I guess when you've spent your entire life weaving wildly unrealistic and improbable scenarios for yourself, that's what you get.

Unfortunately, the realistic ones aren't very palatable.   

You know, this is really miserable.  I'm likely to be alive at least twenty more years. What an awful way to live.

What was I supposed to have done??