distortions

Today, Rich’s reflections on maternal ambivalence and the struggle to lay claim to one’s own experience are familiar. The women’s health movement did much to rectify the medical field’s paternalism toward women, though anti-choice politics have threatened this progress. But as the backlash against feminism took hold in the 1980s, discussions of private and public became distorted. The notion that the two spheres might be reorganized has disappeared from public consciousness, and the question has become whether women can “have it all,” or whether those spheres can be “balanced.” There is now more possibility for humane relationships between the sexes, but little economic and political support for alternative family or communal structures. Discussions of the social dimensions of relationships run constantly up against the idea of “choice.” Feminists concerned with economic and racial injustice recognize these injustices as the limits of choice. Yet even these discussions are often more focused on recognizing those limits than thinking about how a different social context might change things.

- See more at:

http://jacobinmag.com/2013/04/the-problem-of-sex/#sthash.3hGePrBz.dpuf

servitude

I’m enjoying listening to Julia Sweeney’s new book, which is about her adoption of a baby in her forties and subsequent marriage:

http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/04/02/an-excerpt-from-julia-sweeneys-if-its-not-one-thing-its-your-mother/

At the end of disc 3 she discusses all the confused and ambivalent feelings she has had about romantic relationships over the years, from strong feelings of independence to desperation. I could relate!

Things are smoothing over with my roommate, although I’m still amazed at his laziness. He does work all week, but yesterday he literally laid on the couch and watched television the entire day. I went swimming and grocery shopping and met up with a friend and cooked and cleaned the apartment in that same amount of time. He’s paying me for the food service, so I can’t complain, but it’s been eye-opening.

I’m not saying all men are lazy– many are quite hard-working and productive. But it does strike me as funny that so many (admittedly, not all) women do so much in the way of self-improvement– from dieting to exercising to traveling to spiritual awakening to hair removal to relationship seminars to career-building etc.– in the hopes of meeting a mate who may just, in the end, want someone to do all the work of maintaining the home and perhaps bring in most of the income to boot.

the ultimart

Dr. Oatman, please pick up, pick up! It’s Martin Blank! I, I’m standing where my, uh, living room was and it’s not here because my house is gone and it’s an Ultimart! You can never go home again, Oatman… but I guess you can shop there.– Martin Q. Blank, Grosse Pointe Blank

It’s surreal being back in town. Some people look and seem exactly the same and are living the same lives as they were before, while others have married and had children in the few years I’ve been gone or moved away and moved back themselves. Interestingly, a lot of my hunches about people have been confirmed now that I’m back. In one case, I discovered that a man I found quite difficult to deal with, someone who surprisingly married and had a child after I left town, got divorced soon after the child was born.

Just like with people, some places are exactly the same, while at the same time new projects and developments have sprung up with remarkable rapidity. I can be on one block where everything is completely familiar, and then turn a corner and everything has changed.

There’s a lot of creative activity here, but it doesn’t seem to have the same sort of ambition behind it as you find in L.A. Do the musicians and comics and other performers here eventually want to go professional? Or are they content to stay local or even just perform for fun? Imagine that. I’m trying to wrap my head around that concept again– doing something just for the hell of it.

I do find that I get flirted with a lot more here. A lot more. As well as just chatted up more in general.

The job interview went okay, but they did emphasize that they are understaffed and overworked, so I may be going from the frying pan into the fire. Half my friends think I should take a job to have a job, the other half are bummed I’m not pursuing my dream of time off and a career change. For the most part, the latter half are struggling with the same issues of career dissatisfaction and inability to find something else, so I don’t have confidence they have the answers either. Maybe I should have held out longer before applying for something; I don’t even know anymore.

Sometimes I think it was folly for me to imagine I could “go home” again. I have changed, and this place has changed, and I had mostly settled into L.A. But I don’t think I could have started over somewhere completely new in my forties, and I don’t think I was meant to be in L.A. forever. And perhaps this place has enough of the familiar and the unfamiliar to be the best compromise all around.

attitude adjustment

I’ve been doing some googling on “midlife and depression” to get tips on how to cope with my recent spells of anxiety and low mood and have come across numerous articles on the spike in the suicide rate among the middle-aged.

The comments on this article are worth reading and offer a grim counterpoint to the relatively jaunty tone of most media articles:

http://health.usnews.com/health-news/blogs/on-women/2008/10/22/some-thoughts-on-suicide-in-middle-aged-women

http://health.usnews.com/health-news/blogs/on-women/2008/10/22/some-thoughts-on-suicide-in-middle-aged-women/comments

I bring this up because after reading the comments I feel like I should be more thankful about the opportunity to re-enter my career.

In terms of dating, though, ack (to echo the comic-strip character Cathy). It does seem bleak.

Also, being “overworked and undervalued” is exactly how I felt the last decade or so:

Dr Andrew McCulloch, chief executive of the charity the Mental Health Foundation, explains why women like me are at particular risk. The reason so many ‘older females’ are suffering from common mental health disorders (depression and anxiety being the most common) is because we are both overloaded and undervalued.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1135410/Middle-age-depression-Why-IS-rise.html#ixzz2W6aGhCDT
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

raisins

I’m amused and impressed by the millennials in my community college classes. They are smart and resilient in the face of what seem like difficult odds. Many are planning to attend grad school in order to get a toehold on a career path, and they are struggling to keep up their GPA so they can eventually transfer into a good university or they are already taking grad school classes while enrolled in community college classes on the side. Most are also working.

I don’t think I’d be up for the daunting task of parenting in such a competitive climate. I don’t have the resources– financial, emotional, familial– that seem necessary to give kids the leg up they need to compete. I am starting to feel relieved that I don’t have that burden.

Today in class I was greedily thinking of all the subjects I would love to take in the fall– more Spanish, more sewing, guitar, Quickbooks. My original plan in moving here was to give myself a break from the workforce for a year and to just take classes while doing some career exploration. Having just completed two decades in the workforce and looking at another two, a break felt warranted.

Then I crossed paths with the old friend who scared me about the job market. Additionally, this is a small town in terms of careers, and if the word spreads that I’m “taking a break” and turning down opportunities, it’s possible it might affect my chances of getting hired in the future. Really hard to say. Finally, when I look at what the millennials are facing, I’m wondering if I should just be thankful I have a career I can jump back into.

I also did think long and hard before passing on those opportunities in L.A. If I end up in a low-level position here due to all these circumstances, I can’t pin it on my roommate. I even refrained from applying for a close-by management job here because my roommate applied and I was hoping for his sake he would get it and hoping for a break for myself.

Some of his behavior has grated though, such as the petulance he displayed while I took some time to consider the opportunities in L.A., his nonchalance about the big step down the ladder I may be embarking on, and his comments about his boyfriend making his life here worthwhile. He had his interview this morning for the management job, and he was whistling (whistling!) as he got dressed. I can’t help but feel that, at bottom, his attitude is “I got mine.” He now has a relationship, a place to live for half the price, and possibly a better job, while I may be facing the shit end of the stick for a year or (God help me) longer. He’s made some ageist remarks in the past that lead me to wonder if the thinks that, since I’m over forty, it doesn’t really matter what happens to me anyway.

There’s really nothing he can do to make this situation different, but showing some grace and compassion would certainly help. I’m wondering if he lacks the maturity I need in a friend.

Long run, I think I’ll be okay here. The job will probably lead to a better one, there are financial advantages to living here, and I’ve got several activities coming up that I’m excited about.

Whether our friendship will be okay is another question.

if onlies

http://www.salon.com/2013/06/11/one_and_only_author_it’s_like_i’m_suggesting_that_people_should_have_aborted_their_own_children/
Hundreds and hundreds of studies, both qualitative and quantitative, have been done over decades trying to ascertain how only children are different from anyone else. In just about every area studied, we’re not. And where we are the news is good: We tend to be higher achievers and have higher intelligence scores. But because the world has always told us who we are, we tend to understand ourselves in only child terms. If we’re antisocial, it’s because we’re only children. Of course, if we’re incredibly social, we also explain that characteristic in terms of our only childhoods. It’s quite a totalizing narrative. I have found in my own upbringing, and in the scores of interviews I’ve done, that it’s indeed an intense way to be raised. But that intensity has little to do with the stereotypes. I’d also add that only children tend to have parents — especially mothers — who make their lives more about a life outside of a domestic bubble, or incessantly juggling the demands of work and child-rearing. And I think that’s a very important environment for kids to grow up in — one in which the people raising them are more than just workers and parents.

strategic moves

Despite the short-term discomfort, financial loss, and loneliness, I do think that moving back will turn out to be the right decision for me long-term. I may have to get through a difficult year of transition though.

When I was debating back and forth about the move, my current roommate was putting the pressure on, and I tried not to let him influence me. I had lived here before for almost a decade, so I knew the downsides to the job market and the dating scene, and I had to carefully weigh leaving behind a well-paying job and a large urban area for a smaller place with less opportunity.

I don’t know what will happen with the job interview, but chances are I will be working again soon at a much lower-level than I have been for a good decade. My roommate had to make the same adjustment, and he’s still unhappy about it. He has a boyfriend though, and now that the relationship is going well, he’s taken to saying how it’s the only good thing he has going for him and the only thing that makes putting up with the job bearable.

Reader, that does grate, as I am facing the same job situation now but with few romantic prospects of my own. It is further proof that I should never make a decision based on what someone else is pressuring me to do.

Ultimately, though, I’d been plotting out this move for a long time, and although I might have made it later, it would most likely have happened eventually. I also wrote long ago that I wouldn’t make the move for social or romantic reasons but for an easier life and more time for my own creative projects, and that part is proving true.

the woods

Midway this way of life we’re bound upon,
I woke to find myself in a dark wood,
Where the right road was wholly lost and gone.

–Dante’s Inferno

During my last few years in L.A., I managed to keep myself distracted with cultural events and various Industry happenings, but a feeling of “lostness” was creeping up on me nonetheless. A lot of that had to do with coming to terms with not having children, but I think I’ve crossed that bridge now. In fact, one of my friends who is a single mother told me that she is beginning to have that same sense of being “lost” because she doesn’t want to make her whole life about her kid and has yet to find other sources of meaning.

Now that I have a break from the busyness of working and am without my L.A. sources of distraction, however, I am intensely feeling that crisis of meaning. I’m trying to be okay with it, trying to accept that I currently have little in the way of a compass, trying to honor this phase without getting too down about it.

I am enjoying my foreign language course but am not passionate about it. I’ve been getting out and about, and people couldn’t be friendlier or more welcoming, but it may be a while before I find my social niche. I’ve come across attractive men but don’t know if any of them hold potential.

In short, my brain is not currently engaged with any particular thing. I am making sure to eat well and get exercise and meditate most days of the week. It’s still uncomfortable, and my sleep is affected, but all I can do is acknowledge that I’m in a liminal space and hopefully won’t be forever.

How many other middle-aged women feel this way? It seems that these are the crisis years. Hopefully my move was a step in the right direction of being less isolated:

http://www.today.com/id/43714272/ns/today-today_health/t/suicide-spikes-among-middle-aged-women/#.UbZDABbvy8o
Loneliness and depression are also suicide risk factors. “Older women especially in the U.S. are more isolated and separated from daily human contact outside of work and the internet,” says Ellyn Kaschak, Ph.D., emeritus professor of psychology at San Jose State University and the editor of the journal Women & Therapy.

trump card

“What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.” – Kurt Vonnegut

My roommate, after a long period of singledom, has a boyfriend. I’m happy for him. He is gay and a decade younger than me, so perhaps that makes it easier on me than if he were a female friend my own age. We don’t tend to hang out socially so it’s not as if I’ve lost a wingman.

The only thing that has been difficult is when he sleeps at his boyfriend’s. I’ve been spending some portion of every night gripped by anxiety and loneliness, and with him gone last night, all of that was dialed up to eleven. His presence in the next room doesn’t completely ameliorate those feelings, but it helps.

Perhaps there’s a good lesson for me in his newfound love. I could actually drop all my activities, spend my free time on the couch watching TV, occasionally surf OkCupid, and have just as good a chance of ending up with someone!

My recent OkCupid date was not, however, a romantic match. He was in his fifties, I think never-married, and it crossed my mind I might get the impression that he is gay. I ended up having a very strong impression that is in fact the case. That happens to me surprisingly often.

I settled into the date despite the immediate feeling it was not going to happen for us. He was smart and interesting and kind and recently moved here himself. I wouldn’t mind hanging out with him again, but I’d have to delicately move things into the platonic realm.

I am so touched by kindness these days. It trumps so many other things.

straight to the heart

I lived in L.A. at such a weird time. I was vaguely drawn to the comedy scene initially and then pulled in fully once Facebook and podcasts exploded (almost simultaneously). Then the fame game took over. I knew them, but they didn’t know me. It was all so seductive, especially for a single woman alone in the big city, but ultimately, for me, it was a tease.

This is not the fault of the podcasters, although I think they are playing with fire by producing such intimate shows. After all, if I had been socially embedded in a group of like-minded people, I would likely not have been listening to podcasts at all. When I was in college, for example, I never turned on the TV or paid attention to celebrity culture. I didn’t need to– I was surrounded by drama and fun and fascinating peers. It’s only when we are alone that we turn to the media to fill that void.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/why-podcasts-are-comedys-second-241769
Maron: Look at Howard Stern, look at [NPR Fresh Air’s] Teri Gross, the medium is more versatile than radio now, where you decide what you want to listen to and when it. People can listen in their car, in their cubicle, at the gym. I get emails from all around the world. I’ve got soldiers in combat listening. I’ve got Americans abroad. They can listen wherever and however they want but I would say 99 percent of the time they’re listening to it in solitary. You’re in their head. You’re talking directly to them. Their relationship with you is very personal. It’s the nature of this medium. Then when people come to my shows and they’re waiting in line to meet me or take a picture or buy a t-shirt or a CD, I know they have an honest and candid relationship because of the type of radio I’m doing. And I respect that. I also realize that I don’t know them at all, and they know me very well, so I try to make myself as available as possible.