TheBanyanTree: Starting Over

[Barb Edlen]

You fit in where it's most important, and that's the best part.

✿*ﾟ‘ﾟ･.｡.:*

> On Nov 29, 2015, at 6:26 PM, Monique Colver <monique.colver at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 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.