The Five Strands of A Sedentary Empress

42 Logical Posivitism Avenue

"42 Logical Posivitism Avenue" 

First of all, let's address the most important issue at hand: Happy Birthday, Cappucine! You make 42 look good!

She is the one who inspired me to start a journal, you know. I read hers a few years ago and was so engaged that I went through every single entry until I felt as though I'd just finished a favourite book, sad that I'd come to the end. Except, I hadn't. She writes. Gorgeous poetry and witty stories. The lady keeps a journal and updates frequently. Her life is far more interesting and dramatic than most of the people I know, and she writes about it as though she's witnessing it from a place of invisibility, carefully plucking out the delicious details, crafting sentences to do them proper justice, like she is out of body, floating above it all.

And, she inspires. She started a new life at a time when so many other women have resigned themselves to their situation. She is a calendar girl for the month of 'Absolutely!'. She is unafraid, audacious and her pen is the one with the hypnotic ink. You can't even find a way to criticize her when she does something naughty because you know you want her to win. She might be the best writer on the site, in my humble opinion, but of course, I haven't read them all. Let's just say then, for the sake of argument, that she shines.

Now, then, let's leave the gushing where it is. I know that the more cynical writers will find that kind of admiration to be saccharine and ingratiating. I don't really care if you do, mind you, (seriously, get over yourself sourpuss) but this entry isn't just about admiration. It's about being positive, looking forward, finding the good in something we were conditioned to fear. I'm trying it on for the first time and frankly, it looks pretty good.

Because I'm sick of all the black. I'm sick of studying my face and seeing the thin lines spring up around my eyes. I am tired of feeling like all the opportunities are done, left behind with the younger ones who will do what I did and ignore them, landing just where I am now. I am bored with the whining and complacency and the 'nothing good ever happens to me' moaning. I only recently realized that you have to make your own 'good'. You have to make a choice to claim it as your own.

As I type, the air is powdered and cold. Crystal flour being heaped on the planet by the almighty handful. I am not so much into this. I don't care for cold, nor do I care for shovelling the driveway, but one has to admit that it's kind of beautiful. It's beautiful in a way that summer could never be, smelling clean and pure, untouched and virginal. You can see the footprints of nature in it, evidence of life in a world you want to hide from. It gives me an excuse to put wood into the fireplace and ignite it, to curl up in a blanket with a book or to watch a black and white film. I can make popcorn while the wee one naps on the couch (long day at school), drizzling a little bit of butter on it before waking her to watch 'Little House on the Prairie' with me (she loves it, and it brings me back to my youth), holding the burgeoning bowl between us. This is called being positive. This is called recognizing the benefits of an otherwise dour situation.

When I turned thirty, I was flummoxed. How was it possible I was an old lady when I still identified with the teenaged version of myself? I was in a relationship which had plateaued, become a series of days lost to tedium, and I was no longer being asked for identification at the liquor store. I thought my attractiveness had bled out of me, that I was looking like a 'mom', despite not being one. There was no hint of anything better on the horizon, and I felt beaten down, bitter and I really wanted cake.

I then proceeded to go a little nuts.

I started flirting with a 'boy' at work. He was in his early twenties, but when you're thirty, this feels a little young. I told myself it was innocent, but deep down, I was playing with fire. I didn't want a relationship, but I did want an admission of his attraction to me. Nevermind that he was in a committed relationship and that he was hopelessly naive. I know now that if he had worked up the courage to kiss me, to profess his attraction, it would have been a very bad thing. Instead, he attempted to be coy, and I did too, and we developed a 'friendship' that no one was buying. We emailed each other after work, and when I transferred out, we kept it up. I decided to keep it a secret, and apparently he did too, even though we were just 'friends'. Cut to his fiancee breaking into his email and discovering that he'd kept all of my messages. Though they actually were mostly innocent, she wasn't a fool and she threatened to call off the engagement. Not only was I thirty, but I was also Jezebel. The friendship sort of tapered off after that, but not before he and I had a major row over who was trying to entice who, an then an awkward attempt to ask me out after I broke up with R. Communication ceased after I refused him, and I still feel terrible about the whole thing.

I look back now and realize I'd been going through an early midlife crisis and I'd taken it out on an innocent. I'd been with the same person since I was eighteen and though I wouldn't admit it outwardly, I was wanting out. Not one of my dreams had come true when I was with him, but I can't blame him for that, even though I tried. I was disappointed with how my life had 'turned out' feeling like everything had been determined and that nothing special was in the forecast. I foresaw grey days and empty beer bottles in the garage, sparsely furnished rooms and smudges of paint on the ceiling from sloppy home renovations. I saw flea markets and cellulite and battles over him not wanting to eat Mexican food. It scared me. It made me feel like it was all over.

Then, it wasn't.

I'm looking forward to my forties, I think. Not with a genuine kind of enthusiasm but with guarded hope. Everyone says you go through all kinds of changes in your mentality once you hit the big 4-0, that you lose a lot of your inhibitions and begin to live a more authentic life. Having just turned thirty-seven, I admit to feeling a little bit relieved that it's still a little way off, but I can't deny that my thirties have been better than my twenties, and I'm hoping that it will only continue from here. Old age frightens me, but mostly because I am worried about hitting it without feeling as though I actually lived. I worry about M. not being there with me, since he's fourteen years my senior. I fear being alone, being forgotten. I think about this and then I realize that I am still young, that I am still able to create my future. If I want a happy one I have to do the footwork while my legs are moving.

By 42, I'm hoping that I have a grip on a profession. I want something that pays enough and stimulates even more. I will have a nine-year-old, a smart, interesting and inquisitive girl with beautiful blue eyes and long, strawberry-blonde hair who likes to read as much as her parents do. She will talk to me, will still idolize me and when we're alone, she'll let me hold her. I will have been married to M., having been proposed to in a highly romantic fashion, and though the ceremony was small, the honeymoon will have involved country walks in France and sipping wine in Italy. My family will be healthy and happy, and I will feel like anxiety is a friend who only occasionally drops by unannounced, but will leave as soon as it realizes that I have other things to do. I will feel awake, content and less bent on keeping the past in my pocket. I might put it in a box which I will hide on the floor of the closet.

So, I am inspired by the looks of 42 because it's no longer about being matronly and concerned about coupons or soap operas. It's about living.

Oh, and the 45 on my username? Someone asked me about it a while ago and wanted to know if it was my age or the year of my birth. Actually, it's the year my dad was born and is a bit of tribute to him, but also, supposedly my astrological (it might be another word) number is nine, and 4+5 is just that. Also, it's just a nice number, one which stands out to me when I'm in the business of selecting them. It's that simple.

Just a number.