My friend Angie is a few years younger than me.  I actually hired her at my last job – where we worked together and became friends.  When I left that job we continued to hang out now and then.  Angie was married when I met her, had one daughter while we were working together, and has had two more girls in the time since.

About a month ago Angie emailed to see if I was interested in going to see Sting in concert.  (“Hell ya” was my answer, but that’s not the point of the story.)  She was just three months out from having baby number three and wanted to have some fun before going back to work.  So off we went to the concert.  On the way home we were continuing our “catch-up” on each others lives.  Angie was talking about the birth of her latest and final child, when she said to me, “My family is complete now.  I feel like I have nothing to look forward to.”

My parents have decided to divest themselves of my childhood home and build a new house.  After 38 years in the same place, they have accumulated a lot of stuff – and so have I.

For years my mother has threatened me with the following words, “You need to go through all those boxes of papers and either bring it to your place or I’ll throw it away.”  The boxes are mostly papers and photographs from my high school days.  I’m not even sure why I’ve kept them for 20 years; it’s not like those four years were the happiest of my life, so why would I want to save those memories?

Plus there’s no place to put all those boxes in my 600 sqft condo.

Also in their basement are the souvenirs of my childhood – Barbie dolls, My Little Ponies, Fisher Price houses, dress-up clothes.  All of these things were lovingly packed away decades ago in anticipation of my own children.  As I approach the age of 37, I’ve come to grips with the fact that those children probably won’t be coming along.  So what to do with all those toys?  My niece would enjoy some of them – she loves playing with the Fisher Price houses when she’s at Grammy’s house – but my brother and his wife only have so much room in their house.

I suppose it’s a right-of-passage when your parents leave your childhood home, but I’m not sure how I’m going to handle the last night I’ll spend there.

Recently I picked up a book on learning theory for work, Lost Subjects, Contested Objects: Toward a Psychoanalytic Inquiry of Learning.  It was recommended by a colleague, so I read it specifically to gain insight on my work in the education field.  Second to my three years in intense therapy – this turned out to be the biggest “a-ha” moment in my quest for good mental/emotional health.

“[The] desire for purity compels one to project what is impure in the self onto others…. the narcissist must hate the body of the other because it cannot be the same the same body as the ego’s.  The projection involved is essentially one that returns, but in the form of a threat.”[1]

Three sentences that encapsulate my journey of self-destruction.  I wanted so much to be “good” that what I hated most about myself I projected onto others.  My ego was making me “hate” other people and treat them inappropriately because I was projecting my bad qualities onto them.  What I hated most about myself was making me hate others even though they had done nothing to me.

You often hear these complaints from women over a ‘certain age.’  “Where are all the good men?”  “Why can’t I find a good man?”  “I’m a good catch. Why am I alone?”  Well I think I’ve finally divined an answer.

My friend Kathleen and I were marinating on our dating histories and I mentioned that I dated more living in a small western city before moving to my current home in a big east-coast city, where per-capita there are more men.  So wouldn’t it stand to reason that I would have a bigger pond to play in and more fish to catch?  Kathleen had a different perspective.  Reflecting on my journey into better emotional and mental health over the last four years she said, “The healthier you get, the smaller the pool of men.”

Ding, ding!  Ah-ha.  So true.

I’m not a fan of the “you know you’re old when …” jokes.  Nor am I a fan of pointing out people’s ages – especially as one progresses on the continuum.  However, a recent event reminded me of just how “old” I am in the eyes of younger women.

I’ve finally gotten to a place where I’m happy to own my age – 36.  Sometimes it’s hard for me to recall when asked it – I usually have to do some quick mental math.  I’ve always looked young but acted more mature for my age.  Both of those things really throw people off.

I was getting my eyebrows waxed by Amy, a 24 year old woman.  I’ve been going to see Amy for nearly a year now, and as is wont to happen between an aesthetician and her client, we chat about our personal lives during my appointments.  Sometimes it’s hard to see oneself through another person’s eyes, yet during this visit it became very apparent to me that Amy perceives me as being “older” than her.

While talking about some relationship angst with my friend Kathleen – married eight years to her loving husband Jay – she tossed a film quote my way.  Now Kathleen has been known to cite quips from Jane Austen to punctuate a conversation, but I’ve never known her to quote a cartoon.

She said, “You two can be ‘independent together’.”   As it has been about 25 years since I’ve watched the “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer” cartoon, I had to be reminded of the context of the line … complete with a video clip from You Tube (just search for “independent together”).  The elf Herby says to Rudolph, “What do you say we both be independent together?” acknowledging that their unique qualities can exist mutually and respectfully in a friendship.  Now I’m not usually one to take advice from elves however, I think this guy might be on to something.

I’m not a church-going person.  I was raised in the Episcopal Church, but for about the past 20 years I’ve only gone – unless for weddings or funerals – at Christmas so my mother doesn’t have to go alone.

A few months ago my boss and I went to a conference in South Carolina.  My boss was also raised Episcopalian, and it just so happened that in the 1960s his grandfather had been the rector at a church there.  It’s a very historic church, so I thought that I would accompany him to the service at least to see the building.

The rituals of the service hadn’t changed since my childhood, however this church did have the added bonus of cushions on the pew seats.  As I was day-dreaming through the sermon, reflecting on the fact that in urban South Carolina I was very surprised there were only white people at the service, I heard the minister say something that resonated.

“Hurt people hurt people.”

I had a nightmare about my situation with Frank.  He and I were together and I kept asking, “Who is Amy?”  He would change the topic immediately.  I woke up so frustrated that I immediately wrote to him and said, “You need to tell me who Amy is.  Please don’t ignore me anymore.”

Here’s what he said. “Amy and I were married. She has moved back to New York.  We were together for 9 years.”

Seriously!!!  I wanted to scream.   Not about the fact that he had been married before, but over the fact that he lied to me.  When I asked him why it had taken four times of me asking over a period of one month for him to reply he initially said that he was too busy and tired every evening that he didn’t have the energy to write me about it.  When pressed about the lie he said, “Being divorced is not something I am proud of. I didn’t mention it, because I don’t want people to hold it against me. I don’t bring it up as a part of conversation, but I do talk about it if I am asked about it.”

I would like to take this opportunity to react to a comment that reader Sam left on my recent blog, “When Men Act Like Teenage Girls.”

In the post I was commenting on how Frank, my new boyfriend, was acting eager about our relationship (like young girls are stereotyped as doing) by moving in his razor and toothbrush after a couple of sleepovers, as well as talking about weddings and “married names.” 

Indulge me for a couple hundred words as I muse about why the waiting rooms at therapists’ offices are only occupied by women.  In the last four years that I’ve been consistently attending therapy, the predominant denizen of the outer domain (aka waiting room) is always female.