TheBanyanTree: Starting Over

[Monique Colver]

I apologize for the repeat posts. I'll try to stop after this.

There was a time when I moved a lot. Every few years, I'd be packing up and
moving out, whether I wanted to or not. I followed my first husband from
base to base, as he looked for a place where he would be happy, but he
never found it. (He never found it because everywhere he went, there he
was.) I protested the last move, I wanted to stay where I was. It had only
been three years or so, though it seems like more. After twenty years of
this it gets to be a habit, and every few years I start getting itchy. But
I don't want to move, I like where I am, and no way do I want to pack up
again. The last move I made was horrendous -- we were both sick, and on the
drive down one of the dogs got sick all over my car, and the memory of it
is all too fresh still, like the smell of shit after you've stepped right
in it.

But sometimes I want to wipe the slate clean of people and start all over
again. Not you, of course, but other people. Not my husband, of course, and
not my dog, who is fairly certain he's a person. But everyone else. I keep
thinking I might get it right next time.

Here's the thing about me that most people don't know: I'm boring. I'm not
saying this is a bad thing -- it's not as if I'm a serial killer or
anything. I'm a bit of a narcissist, also not necessarily a bad thing, and
I don't like asking personal questions, so people think I don't care and am
therefore boring.

I don't have any interesting hobbies, unless you count writing incessant
pieces of trivia, or watching movies, or scheduling doctor appointments. I
am otherwise a swell person, but with those traits on display people don't
exactly find me interesting. (I am happy to listen to people talk about
themselves, but I'm not going to ask personal questions because that's
rude.)

Recently I ended my membership in a local women's group because after
almost a year of going to monthly meetings, women that I'd met repeatedly
would walk by me without even seeing me if we ran into each other around
town. Who needs that? But this is what I'm up against.

I once tried to erase myself from my family by surreptitiously removing all
the photos of me or with me from the family home when I was visiting. It
was fairly successful, and when my youngest brother got married they
couldn't find any pictures of me to put on their slideshow. Since I hadn't
successfully erased myself I was at that wedding, and as I watched the
slideshow I felt my separateness strongly, and I had to go off to the
restroom to cry. But that was then.

This is now.

Whenever I moved I managed to, after a short time, stop contact with
friends I'd made at the previous location. I was always starting over,
which is a fine thing to do if one doesn't feel like one has started
properly. I believe in do-overs.

Many of the people I know now are in the same line of work I am, and all
they want to do is talk about accounting, as if that's a thing, or
business, or conferences, and while all of that is fascinating, it's not.
Not to me. One would think I would fit in there, but no, because I don't
want to live and breathe accounting.

I know you've heard this before, my inability to get along in the world.
It's not as if I have much time for that, what with my mystery ailments,
I'm usually exhausted, or working, or working exhausted. But over long
weekends I find myself again on FB, talking to other accounting people,
because on weekends is when I notice the lack of people. Not that I have a
lack of people -- we had my cousin over for Thanksgiving, and I always have
the most interesting husband around, but by Sunday I'm wondering who I can
chat with about the movie I saw today, or a book I'm (trying) to read.
(Short attention span.) And that's when I think I should start all over
again.

But there's so much I don't want to start over -- like my entire life. It's
right where it should be. It's nice here. I have a steady job, due in no
small part to being self-employed, and I get to take time off when I want.
I have a great husband. I don't want to be anywhere else.

And I don't much care if I'm hard to warm up to, or if I'm easy to forget.
This is, in fact, a handy trait. There are times when one wants to travel
invisibly in the world, and at my age, it's pretty easy to do so. Every so
often I'll pop up somewhere and people will say, "Hey,when did you get
here?"

"I've been here all along," I'll say, "I was just blending in."

I'm not sure if this is so much about starting over as it is about learning
to exist within the world I'm in. It used to be hard because I was certain
I didn't fit in, but these days, I know where I fit in, right here where
I'm at, and that's enough for me now.