mid-life crisis?

Mar. 29, 2006 - 9:06 am

It's not a mid-life crisis, but rather a mid life celebration. I'm alone, divorced, no GF, I've got my house. I bought a new bigscreen, a new kitchen, and last week a new motorcycle.

Can I afford all that? No, not really, but I think I'm done with placating my divorced self with my wallet now... :) And it makes me happy.

Or it would, had it not been raining the last 2 days, taking away the opportunity for me to ride my new motorcycle in to work. It gets 4x the mileage of my truck, and splitting traffic is fun. Not to worry, I'm very VERY cautious on it, sometimes perhaps too cautious.

I've been emailing the (ex)GF a few times since we broke up, and even went over to her house for a bit last week to drop some stuff off and talk. The emails have been incredibly stiff and formal; it's kind of sad after the insane, incredible passion we shared. The talk just cemented in my mind my need to be alone for a while, whether or not she is there when I "get back." The two things that really stuck out in my mind were

1) When I brought her grandfather's toybox in, containing all the stuff she had over at my house (or so I thought) the first thing she said was that the 'string trimmer didn't fit in there, I guess...?" huh? This is the first "talk" we have had, and that's the first thing that came to her mind? Also, I mistakenly thought she had given that to me, else I would have had it. I informed her via email later that I would get it to her next time I was in the area, and suddenly it was no big deal... "just keep it." Passive-aggresshole bullshit.
2) We were talking about "us," after I informed her about how for the last couple months I had been really fixating on the negatives, and how that led me to believe that I truly *did* need this time alone. She asked it I was "enjoying" the alone time, and the honest answer (I am at times too honest; brutally so) was yes. She then stated that she would "need to see a lot of changes" were "we" to go forward, with the implication of course that all those changes were mine to make. Fine enough; that was what really cemented in my mind the alone time... which I have enjoyed even more since then.

She tried to lay a little guilt trip on me, about helping me through my divorce and then me bailing on her, when now is the time she *shouldn't* be alone, what with her mom dying soon and all. I tend to agree that she shouldn't be alone, and needs my love and support. I may well be a bastard by thinking of myself and my need to be alone first, but if I'm a bastard, so be it.

That being said, I have and likely will maintain a cordial, surface contact with her for a bit, replying to her friendly emails with surface shit of my own, and support her with her mom's terminal cancer. But she's not my girlfriend.

At least it didn't take me $230K to get rid of her, like it did for TheX.

There are many things I will indeed miss about her, not the least of which is her *incredible* sex drive. It was almost *too* much sometimes.

But strangely, where am I going to find another woman even *more* politically conservative than me? That's especially weird in that since I took my little hiatus from this here writing I have gotten much more conservative myself, as the political left in this country has gotten progressively more insane. It's just one of the many things I will miss about her, even though our last fight started as an even-handed political discussion. I think it may have started turning ugly when I dismissed some of her conspiracy theories. Not Illuminati level, but some pretty strange stuff I hadn't heard before.

Her treatment of her kids is another story... both good and bad. She is *very* even-handed with them (good), but tends to kowtow to them on important issues (bad). I had a lot to learn from her, but as lot that was really troublesome as well.

As with any relationship, there were positives and negatives. I had been focusing on the negatives, as I said because I was likely looking for excuses to take this alone time. Alone is what it's all about right now.

Along with my new kitchen, I'm getting my house re-wired, and just got a great bid... $6K. Sucks that I need to do something like this which will be "transparent" to everything else I am doing, but very necessary. Along with the $2K to get the house tented for termites, it's starting to eat into the extra $$$ I have put aside for all this. I still have plenty left, but I need to really start sticking to my budget before I *have* to.