Life on my terms

I laid awake in bed last night, tossing and turning, listening to the incessant sounds of car horns and fire truck sirens. But it was not the noise that kept me awake. At least, not the noise coming from outside my window. It was the noise inside my head that I couldn’t mute no matter how hard I tried.

It seems I have this insatiable need to be unhappy. I take the greatest things in life and find all the minute negative specs, turning them into life threatening burgs that ravish any and all hope of ever feeling comfortable in my own happiness. The greatest man will never be enough; the best job will always be a chore; the most loyal friends will forever seem distant; and my life will never be my own.

Somewhere in the depths of the female psyche I believe resides an uncontrolled ability to ruin all that is good. It comes so amazingly natural to women that sometimes I think it’s more subconscious than not. Think about it; the first thing we notice about Mr. Right is everything that’s wrong with him. In our free time we find all the hardships in life, even the hypothetical ones, and mull them over in our brains like crack fiends. We can’t not do it. It’s in our genetic make up.

And to prove it to myself, I rented the entire sixth season of “Sex and the City”. (Nothing like cheap inspiration; only $4.99 a week). As I finished watching the fourth episode, I realized that it’s true; women have to knit-pick. It’s our subtle way of showing that we care. I don’t know how that makes sense in a women’s mind, but it does. It just does. But at some point, someone comes along who has the audacity to speak the truth straight to your face. And if you’re lucky enough, he’ll be your Mr. Right, regardless of all that is wrong.

And so, after a long, sleepless night and a three hour “Sex and the City” marathon, I’ve come to terms with the fact that I can now allow myself to be happy. I am who I am, less the world’s expectations (mother’s included) and a job I never liked to begin with; I am who I am, and I love it.


September 5, 2006