Waiting

A good chunk of my life has been spent waiting.  Waiting to be noticed, waiting to be loved, waiting to be happy.  And what has all this hanging around gotten me?  Bitter for one thing.  Disillusioned for another.  No further along from when I started.  So just what keeps me stuck here?

Let's start with the fact that I am a girl and there is a long standing tradition, rule if you will, that girls never make the first move.  It is our lot in life to sit along the sidelines like some never ending dance, forever sitting in a folding chair along the wall of our high school gymnasium.  So here we are at the dance dressed up, hair piled high, make-up just right, and no takers. Then what? What does a girl do when fate has not supplied her with the honey for her generation?  I've been on this planet nearly 5 decades. My looks and the current trend have never yet matched.  Didn't I mention being pretty is the highest standard of success for any girl?  It is so ingrained into my subconscious that it doesn't feel like it even needed to be said.  Oh, don't get me wrong there is a place for the less fortunate looking girl but she is destined to be the breeder, the workhorse of the family, always supporting the husband without a thought for herself, the happiness of her family as her only reward.  But I am not a saint or a martyr either.  I have the attitude of a super model with the looks of a farmer's wife combined with the aspirations of a man all wrapped with the self-esteem of a frequently kicked puppy dog.  A puppy with ADD that is.

Even before I ever even worried about getting married, I was the kid next door beating on your door "Hey you want to come out and do something?"  And realistically that's how I still make my friends.  I see somebody and just keep beating on their front door until they let me in or they call the cops.  Just ask somebody I know named Vera, he'll attest to this fact.  In a lot of ways this worked until I was 10 years old and then somebody changed the rules.  All the crap  my parents had been presenting to me as fact for years, suddenly they're telling me, remember all that fun stuff like Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, yeah, that was a bunch of bullshit and why haven't you figured that on your own by now?  Life is hard, quit being so silly, and grow up.  And growing up for a girl means shutting down all your natural impulses to be the center of attention, asking for what you want, and the willingness to be embarrassed by your mistakes.  Suddenly this very clumsy goofy girl is being told pull in the reins and be worried about your clothes, your hair, your behavior. Okay, I understand this the natural maturation process but not to be given the skills to make these changes makes me call FOUL.  To this brain, this unsophisticated mind, all I heard was you're not good enough just the way you are and you better hope somebody notices you as a diamond in the ruff.  So by 12 years old, I was no longer a person, I was a girl.

The next best thing to getting the cute boy in your class was being friends with the girl who did and this was my lot in life for many years.  God, what a fucking drag, however, being the sidekick did make it necessary to develop a personality, a trait many go to their grave without ever achieving.  This is not to say I did not participate in the "Oh my God did you see what she was wearing today?" game.  Oh no, I was just as judgemental as the gorgeous girls.  You know there's a hierarchy even amongst the losers.  Anyway, I'm starting to bore myself.  None of this new stuff.  All this background to say the following.

As of say 2 years ago I decided to join the 1990's and check into this new finagled thing called the interwebs and not just for shopping but actual computer to computer virtual interaction. And what did I find? A whole new group of neighbors where I could pound on their door and say "Hey, do you want to come out and do something?"  Throw in different time zones and then different countries, you could "Up all Night" just the old USA overnight movie tag line.  Let me tell you, at first everyday was like my birthday.  Balloons, streamers, all the attention and cake, just for me.  But as time passed, I was no longer the shiny new toy in the room and other people had their birthdays and who the hell is this new person infringing on my territory.  Just like little kid who is being ignored will resort to bad behavior to get attention, so does the impatient female.  Virtually jumping up and down in the corner waving her hands wildly screaming "Look at me Look at me!" This resulted in me revisiting those same old feelings of desperation, loss of control, and just being a girl.  A girl who has to be content with whatever comes her way, the scraps, the leftovers.  Believe me when I say this, it's not to be melodramatic or get your sympathy, it just honestly feel like my "buying power" is quite small and my resale value is greatly compromised by today's market swings.

So if we accept the previous to be true, where does that leave a girl? This one speaking has always felt suspended in time, in life's purgatory, not quite hell but certainly not heaven.  Lurking around always searching for someone to come and save her from herself.  To put it simply, life is like a bag Lay's Potato Chips.  When you first break the seal, you get the puff of air from the fresh crispy chips and you grab the first one, the salt hits your tongue, melts ever so slightly, and the snap as your teeth bite the chip.  That's as good as it gets.  At first you don't even need a drink, it's not too salty yet. But as you continue down the bag, you need a little soda to get it go down.  And that Pepsi is tasty, what a nice combination, sweet carbonated cola with the salt of the chip.  But now you get to the bottom.  The chips are getting staler, less whole pieces, the burnt ones are rearing their ugly heads and then finally the crumbs.  And nothings gonna bring back that feeling of the first chip, no soda, no beer, nothing. So if life were a bag Lay's Potato chip I'm staring at a pile of crumbs.