I think I am really about 52.  My driver's license says 39 (and a half), but I've never believed it.  It's not feeling tired or obsolete or out-of-touch (I mean, it's not only that-lol), I just feel about a decade out of place.  And my hair, no matter what I do with this new short cut, keeps settling into some matriarchal Laura Bush type thing.  WHERE are the whimsical waves and sassy spikes that I gelled and blow-dried into place?  And am I seriously wearing a girdle?  Under my capris?  Well nobody wants a 52-year-old-looking ass, not even a 52-year-old.  But who actually wears one?  Crap.

The 3 boyfriends with whom I got along best were all 10-15 years older than I.  (I should have stayed in Texas with that first one.)  The girlfriends who lasted I inherited from my mom, when she moved away, and are all much closer to her age than mine.  I want to talk big picture, okay, not drama.  I want to discuss retirement planning, not fucking American Idol, for Pete's sake.  And of course, I took my first hit (and my first lover) at Woodstock when it was okay because everyone was doing it.

Okay, I'm kidding about Woodstock.

I got to go to a great concert on Sunday night; music I really like.  I certainly felt old looking around at all the 20-somethings, maintaining carefully bored faces, bobbing their heads in time to the beat.  But I felt no jealousy for that age, oh hell no.  A brief prayer of gratitude for having survived it, yes.  And I'm not oh-so above it all.  I bobbed my head right along with them, but with a big, stupid grin on my face, because I dig the groove, man.  And I got nobody to impress. 

I remember talking to my mom in high school about feeling old.  She said that's normal for teenagers.  No one feels like they fit in. 

"When does that feeling go away?" I remember asking.

"Sometimes," she said.  I waited for more of the answer, but that was it. 

Sometimes,

We fit in our places, smiles on our faces, moving through darkness in time to the beat. 

But often we slip from the novacaine drip and wake up to the morning sun's heat.

That warmth that can feed us, direct us and lead us

Can be instead eyes, ever probing for lies, to judge and then claim our defeat.

Boy, you really want to find a way to hate someone, just let the legal process run its course.  Though my attorneys and I and Frank stated in the beginning that our goal was to work together to find win-win, Frank obviously has someone advising him otherwise, and is taking that advice.  Boy, is he.

I was poleaxed by the financial information he submitted as part of his interrogatory stuff.  It took me over a month to be able to speak to him at all.  It completely stopped me in my tracks as far as my interrogatory stuff, and I had to put it all away for almost all of that time.  I'm getting back into it and hopefully can turn it in this week.  I hate it, I hate it all.

I miss sex and I miss him and I miss sex with him.  Even after I had Noah, we only waited about 2 weeks.  It's been since May 5th, which I guess is as good a day as any to call "the last time." 

Some friends have started to suggest I date; they're trying to fix me up with x or y.  Oh hell no.  O I am so completely warped, sad/mad, and overwhelmed that that would be a completely wrong idea.  I hate not having anyone to talk to about books and movies and politics, world events, daily news, work.  Kids are kids.  Too much the cliché, and too much unsuitable, the single mother who relies on her children as her confidantes. 

I am a cliché anyway, the single woman who can't keep a man or, apparently, a friend.  The lonely cat lady with no cats because her son is allergic.  The all-around loser who now, to stave off the empty evenings, is ever raising her hand to volunteer for more stuff.  I looked around at some of these ______ events this past weekend and saw myself and shuddered:  multiple overweight, unattractive women, divorced with their children moved on, short hair and no makeup, shrilly ordering around other people's kids or the other adults:  put that table there, hang the banner, distribute the programs, pour out the punch.  I pity them but I'm one of them now and I don't see any way out.    Aren't there single, successful and happy women out there?  What groups are they joining, for Christ's sake?

I didn't mean for this to be a pity party, but you know?  I'm pissed.  I should be celebrating:  I don't want him (cue "Wicked":  I can't want him) anymore.  Once I get my financial stuff turned in, the bridge will be well and truly burned... from both sides.