TheBanyanTree: Copy Cat

[Maria Gibson]

There is a certain type of woman I know how to look like.  I want to
look put together so I wear makeup but not too much because nothing is
worse than the forty year old trying to look twenty.  I don't wear
t-shirts, I do wear nice shoes with jeans.  I walk with my head high,
wear fun earrings to share my flair and generally try to appear
confident to the roots.  This is the formula, not in the whole but these
are some basics.  I can paint by that number and dot that i but I still,
somehow, find I am an alien invader.  This, this is most assuredly at
the bottom of what is quite definitely *got* to be a mid-life crisis.  I
see who I want to be but can't find me and I don't mean on the surface.
Although my description will leave that flavor on the tongue of some who
wander by.  So be it.

I've been dealing with anxiety for some time now and felt I had gotten
that bull by its slippery horns.  Even as I rode the waves I was quite
proud of myself for the ability to handle it and talk myself out of the
tree when needed.  Well.  The tree branches grew arms and not the warm
loving kinds, no, the hateful kind that squeeze your breath away and
laugh as you struggle in vain to free yourself.  Mm, not a fun way to
spend time.  So, I went to my doctor and at great emotional expense,
poured myself at his feet.  Mm, another not fun way to spend time.
Still, I came away with something on the chemical side with which to
deal with life's little irritants.  That was Wednesday and, although
still a little on the weary side, I do seem a little more like myself to
me which leaves me back where I started which is to say I'm not the me I
want to be but I know she's in here.  With us.

I have lost not only a lot of weight at the middish point in my life,
but also an identity.  I knew how to be really fat, it was quite easy,
actually.  I had done it practically forever.  I still struggle with
being not fat although I'm still not slim, slender or thin.  A voice
from somewhere is letting me know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that
there is still plenty of weight to lose lest I forget that for myself.
Anyway.  So, I've lost an identity.  I am also preparing a child for
college who has been the exact opposite of the child before him.  Of
course, they are individuals, I know, I know, but the point is I go from
wondering where I went wrong with boy number one to wondering when my
world will come crashing in on my happy time with boy number two.  The
insanity of it is pointless to point out to me as I already. Know. It.
I am developing a friendship with a person that I am enjoying but only
when I can stop wondering when she'll start hating me.  If you knew the
ins and outs I have been through with people purposed to be my friends,
you'd know I may have something to be concerned about.  I have, quite
simply put, please hide your eyes if you're shy, been fucked by many a
pal.  I dare not bend over for the soap.  You can uncover your eyes now,
shy people.

I have a wanderlust in me that just won't stop.  I want to go
everywhere, see everything, do all there is to be done.  I want to run
and jump and fly and be free.  I still find the prospect of that year in
the Peace Corps tempting; just me, a journal and a Bible working hard
every day for the good of someone else.  I want to live in DC for a
couple of years and be a pedestrian most of the time when I'm not being
carted around by the Metro.  We have lived in this house for nearly
seven years...SEVEN YEARS.  We never lived anywhere that long, I always
knew I was going to get to move and see some new scenery, meet new folk,
have new experiences.  I've seen babies become *people* on this block,
for crying out loud!  How the hell did _that_ happen?!?  The vet I went
to for years (that never happened before, sport fans) got married and
then last month *died* on me.  What did she long for, where did she want
to go, how long had she lived in her house?  I wonder if she'd have
needed drugs if *I* had died????  She was in her thirties.  Young,
beautiful, full of life.  And then.  Not.  Just like that.  If I had
left on our previous schedule, had I pulled away with a trailer full of
precious crap when I was supposed to have, I'd have never known the most
kind and caring veterinarian in the whole wide world had died.  Nope,
I'd believe she was still here happily sticking thermometers up doggie
and kitty butts just doing her happy little vet thing.  But no.  I had
to hang around for the insanely sad news that she died.  I'm not very
happy with her for that.

Ok, so here I am.  Mid-life crisis composed of wanderlust, identity
failure, parental angst and misplaced anger at a dead woman.  I'm not
even sure if that's all of it but it's all that comes to mind at the
moment.  I'm pretty sure I used to eat the anxiety disguised as cookies
and brownies and huge portions of everything else.  My eating life is so
in order now it's a little disgusting how healthy I eat and how happy I
am to do that.  It's boringly easy to do because I actually changed my
habits, almost despite myself.

This all leaves me I know not where, to be a little wordily creative.
This I will say to you, though.  When you see the woman on the street,
take a moment to wonder what she's thinking as she seems to go by
without a care.  Because if she's me, or I'm her, there's a lot more
than meets the eye going on in there.  Here.  You may even see her stop
and supposedly look in a shop window to look at what's on display and to
some degree, she is.

She's wondering who her reflection belongs to.

Maria