In the middle of watching Say Anything , I realized I was and wasn't over him.

He was, and never would be, a Lloyd Dobbler.  Holding a boom-box in the rain because his girlfriend broke up with him and he wanted her back--nope, definitely not the type.  He'd move on.  Instantly.  He'd have others lined up as soon as Diane handed him the pen and told him to write.  He wouldn't be at a Gas-n-Sip getting advice from the with the guys on a Saturday night, either, 'cause he'd be dialing some girl's phone seeking comfort and an ego stroke.

It's 4:30 a.m. and I'm awake.  I haven't had my coffee yet but I'm enjoying a bowl of Crispix (remember the commercial:  "It's crispy, times two?")

Actually, I'm awake because my daughter is sick, and I checked on her.  I woke her, gave her Motrin, and make her drink water because she's feverish.  I can't sleep when I worry, and I worry a lot anymore about everything. 

It's powerful to be awake this early on my own volution--not because someone decided to call me because they're up and know I'll be accomodating, but because I wanted to be awake.

I'm over feeling inadequate.  When someone doesn't make time for you but has time for others and still calls you in the early a.m. because he knows you care about him, he's using you.  When he feeds you lines that he can't see you month after month because he's ever so busy--and then it's been, oh, eight months and you learn that he indeed found time to hang with apartment complex friends when he was so busy, he's playing you--and never expected you to find out.

I normally know when I'm being used.  Hell, for that fact, I even know when I'm being played. What suprised me is that I allowed it--welcomed it, encouraged it--on some level.  Is it low self-esteem that makes you think that you only deserve crumbs ("Crumbs are better than nothing, right? " Low-self Esteem whispers to a fractured ego.), or is it something else?

He made his choice.  He chose to spend time with the type of person who is stopped for drinking and driving:  immature and selfish.  Drink all you want, but don't risk a bystander's safety because you are foolish enough to drink and drive.  It's a poor choice--and it's not the choice of a responsible woman; I don't feel drinking and driving can be justified on any level.  

The woman is attractive, and probably if you made a comparison between us, the majority of men would go for the sexy divorced mom vs. the frazzled single mom next door.  A dyed blonde who tries too hard trumps a brunette who doesn't try enough.  However, as my daughter astutely pointed out, her boobs sag.  "She should cover those puppies up because they droop."  I hugged her hard and laughed through my tears.  I would have increased her allowance ten-fold for that type of comment if it was in the budget.  Instead, I opted for the more recession-friendly purchase of the Twilight soundtrack. 

Therapy to get over someone who preyed on your low self-esteem:  co-pay $40. 

Hearing your daughter voluntarily diss An Other Woman, priceless.

Rewarding your daughter for her astuteness:  $13 buks for Twilight CD at WalMart. 

What's good about this mom next door (besides the fact that her boobs do not sag, thank you very much) is that she's not immature enough to drink and drive.  She's reliable, dependable...and learning to love herself.

Crumbs are not acceptable.  They're messy and offer just a hint of something--a something that isn't there anymore.  They're residual, leftovers--and so not worth the time or the effort analyzing where the cookie part has gone.

Now that's saying something. 

I spoke to someone that I haven't spoken to in 9 months, and before that, I guess it was a half-turn of the earth around the sun. This woman is a high-school friend.  As she spoke breathlessly of her 75-hour a week work schedule, I felt for her.

Not because I don't believe in hard work, but because there's so much more to life than that.

Even before Emily I had some balance in my life.  Graduate school can consume one if one allows it, and I always found time for window shopping and coffee drinking with  my friends.  We would talk big ideas, but there was balance because we would talk small, demented ideas, too.  We worked with non-native English speakers to improve their writing at free clinics.  We taught half-awake freshman how to craft a thesis sentence.  We wrote endless papers on mundane topics like Shakespeare's use of gloves in his plays.  We studied Middle English and chuckled and bawdy lines from the Canterbury Tales. We cared, we played, we studied--we lived.  

I don't envy her.  I don't envy the designer clothes, the designer car, the suburban house, the husband she never sees.   Part of me thinks I should envy her, as she has so more stuff than I do.  Plus, she's what men want--the poster-child for late 30s and successful:  brainy, skinny, and fabulous.  Then I pause, and realize, no, not necessarily.

The French believe that a woman is not interesting until she turns 40 because it's then when she has a story to tell.  The lines on her face and her imperfections tell her story. 

Say what you want about the French, but they do appreciate women.  Real women.

What story does my acquaintance have--a work story? Vacationing alone stories because the husband doesn't want to go with her?  Changing her views to suite her husband stories because he's very sure it's his way or no way?  

I don't want those stories.

Tucking my daughter in bed, writing, sometimes teaching, helping others, striving to be better, and learning every day feels like living to me. 

It's not a great story.  It's not even a happy story. The daily struggles are overwhelming, but the moments of joy, well, they shimmer like frost in moonlight. 

It's mediocre or fair-to-middlin', but it's my story.

Having some balance, and not having to compromise who I am or what I believe to suit another so as not to be alone, is not a fairy tale, but there's always hope that wishes come true.

All of us are struggling right now--struggling with this economy and job market, struggling with personal demons, struggling with personal relationships, yet we treat each other like crap because we feel entitled.

Huh?

Enough already!  Be the change. 

You don't like to see litter on the street, then pick one piece of trash up.  If everyone picked up a piece of litter imagine how clean the country would be.  Don't say the city should send a street cleaning truck to do it.  Pick it up--just pick up one piece of trash a day. 

Let someone in your lane who is trying to merge in the highway--don't cause an accident by aggressive driving.  Let the pedestrian have the right of way.

Take care of your neighbor--first by being polite, second by not infringing on your neighbor's rights, and third by trying to meet your neighbor's needs. We all have needed, need, or will need a hand one day--so if you can help, help now.  Don't wait for someone else to do it.  You do it.

Do you have old clothes you no longer want hanging in the closet?  Bag them; call the Purple Heart. They pick up--so you don't even have to waste time or spend gas to help others. Have gently used toys?  Call a local orphanage or a crisis center for families in crisis.

Did you make a big dinner and hate leftovers, so you'll just throw the food out?  Grab a container and share the leftovers with someone who is hungry--either a neighbor that you know who is in need (we all know who is in need--we're nosey enough) or seek out an agency like Aid for Friends who transport meals made by others to the elderly and homebound who find cooking to be a challenge.

Do you know a latch-key kid and you're a stay-at-home parent?  Invite the latch-key kid over for  a snack and help the kid with homework. 

Volunteer.  Volunteer with youth--help with scout meetings or afterschool activities.  Find out where the scouts meet and ask if you can help once in a while.  Help kids stay out of trouble. 

If you're a parent, imagine the example you would show your child(ren) by helping someone who needs it.

At the very least, let's be civil to one another.

Be the change. 

Decency doesn't come from a government bailout.  We can't expect the government to meet all of our needs.  Conservatives shout that we're turning into a welfare society, and perhaps there is some truth to their observation. 

We need to roll-up our sleeves and work to make America better.  President Obama doesn't have a magic wand.  We need to stand straight and embrace the call to greatness that is required right now to make America healthy and strong again.

Let's stop waiting for someone else to do it, and do it ourselves.

Everyone uses toilet paper.  Everyone farts.  No one is better than anyone else.  We don't live in an aristocracy.  There are no serfs, no vassals, no lords.

It's a Democracy--We the People. 

I am humbled when I focus on those three words:  We the People.  How powerful.  How profound.  How utterly true.   

We the People have needs.  We the People are in crisis.   We the People know the work needed to affect positive change.  We the People need to commit ourselves to being the change instead of waiting for other people to lead the movement.

After all, it's We the People...not Other People.

Our destiny, our call to action, our birthright in three words: We the People. Note well it's not these two:  Other People.

"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end."

These words replay in my mind as I sit here and type.

Beginnings--in my life I've pretty much always tied "a fresh start" to the start of the school year in September.  Different teachers. Different courses.  Sharpened pencils.  New Pink Pearl erasers.  Pristine copybooks. Non-ragged folders.  Unblemished academic records.

I probably relate more to the school year's beginning than I do the traditional new year because I'm more of an academic at heart.

Yes, as an adult I should place emphasis on the new calendar year as marking a new beginning: calendars fee of engagements,  resolutions, chances to do things differently.

2008 was a challenging year on many levels, and I'm very glad it's over.

Endings--I lost someone that I loved very much.   I find myself still working through missing that person.  With everything that dies lately--even something so insignificant as a hamster--I find myself not coping real well.

On "losing" other people that I cared about, i.e., having my feelings being trashed by someone that became a part of my daily life, is still disconcerting.  However, I'm healing.  I seem to take more time getting over a broken heart these days, too.  Over the last few weeks I noticed that I feel better about myself; when someone you care about gives every excuse in the book not to see you in person, but then finds time to see other people, well, it becomes easy to think it's because you're flawed or repulsive.  However, in re-reading e-mails that he sent me, I noticed that even from the very beginning we were never on the same page.  I wanted to spend in-person time, and he really only wanted to talk on the phone when it was convenient for him--even if his convenience came before 5 a.m. He didn't respect my needs--even my most basic need for sleep. I was never satisified with what he was offering because I am worth spending time with. I shouldn't have to always be the one suggesting to get together.  I shouldn't have dealt with rejection on a daily basis.  I feel much better about myself--no longer do I feel inferior.  I hope the people he chose over me to spend time with have the same wonderful qualities that I bring to a friendship.

Tomorrow is the first day of work in the new year; I am not looking forward to what the new year has in store for my company.  We'll see how that goes.

Mother-love is all-consuming. You have this person who looks to you as his/her world.

Every need, every hurt, every victory of theirs is somehow felt by you, too.

When your child is sick, you wonder how you can have the strength to deal with things, but you do. When she's happy you feel as if your heart will explode.

Once you consider motherhood thoughtfully the weight, the heaviness, sets in.

Add single motherhood into this equation, and now you need a cape to lift the load.

I don’t have a cape.

I hurt and want to curl up on the bed in a fetal position and not emerge for days.  I don’t want to nest—I want to cocoon where I can hide from the pain, from the feelings of worthlessness and unattractiveness that torment me incessantly. 

Over and over I wonder how this woman was more interesting, worth more of your time than I was. 

Didn’t my taking your calls at 3:30 a.m. when you searched for your ex-fiancee’s shoes put me in a special category?  

Shouldn’t it have?

Obviously it didn’t, and I don’t know why.

I don’t get my closure, so cocooning is where I want to go…but.  But I can’t do that; mothers don’t do that. 

Instead I busy myself with some mundane chore.  I cry while doing it, and Emily is confused.  She pulls Halloween decorations out and hangs crystals on a chandelier that I never got around to hanging just to please me, to make me smile.

“Go to bed Mom; you’re tired.  I can watch TV and MooShu will keep me company.”

I take her suggestion as an imperative and grab my too-quiet cell phone to dial those intimately acquainted with our story.

I'm logical, but it doesn’t mean that I didn’t have hope, that I didn’t fall in love.

I want to scream "I wasn't blind to the reality,"  but I don't.

See, they didn't hear you whisper the things you whispered.  They didn’t see your hand caress my cheek gently when you thought I was sleeping, nor did they feel the lush weight of your calf you placed over mine when I rolled away.

I was there, remember?

I heard the whispers, received the caresses, felt the weight.

It was real, wasn’t it, for a time anyway?

Please tell me it was.

I just keep swimming, but damn how I wish I had a cape.