Je t'aime Paris

Mr. Woods headed off to Zurich for a month long business trip before we could enjoy a “triple play” on our dating score board. Oh Mr. Woods, so international, glad he is keeping the 1% solvent since my paycheck depends on their financial triumphs. However even though we didn’t get face time prior to wheels up we did make plans… hold on – what?! Ok well tentative plans. There are plans to continue our dating upon his return AND plans to stay in touch over the next thirty days. Fingers crossed by “stay in touch” he actually meant “I’m going to fly you to Paris for a long weekend”. I mean, cause really, that IS what he meant. What could top PARIS as a third date venue, the man would be crazy NOT to fly me out.

I finally told Dr. Head about The Invisible Man and as I spoke I saw her eye balls turn into dollar signs and I believe I heard an audible whisper of “ka-CHING!” I’m sure she had been thinking, “sigh…. Middle aged body issues, family issues, dead father… yawn” then I hit her with The Invisible Man assault and she was locked and loaded. Yeah Dr. Head, you didn’t see that coming, I was saving the meaty juicy shit – now let’s DO THIS!

I Don’t Miss What I Don’t Have

It’s been a full week since The Invisible Man vanished and oddly I’m doing super without the 24/7 ridiculousness. Well maybe not so ‘odd’ since I’m sure anybody with a clearer head than I could have predicted as such

 The Invisible Man and I had adopted a communication style that was sometimes supportive and endearing but mostly it was obsessive and all consuming. My weekday mornings were tightly scheduled around our ‘check ins’ while my work days were filled with a constant struggle between doing ACTUAL work and engaging in some all-encompassing  text exchange. Evenings were never truly mine, I was ‘on call’ mostly with either my iPhone or my laptop at the ready so I could continue whatever silliness was begun earlier in the day within minutes of the The Invisible Man “dinging” my messenger with a “YO!”.

Last Monday I tucked myself into bed fully aware that Tuesday morning would come and go without a “ding’ or a “ring”. I told myself that it’s the new normal and that I would just have to ride out the silence as the minutes slowly ticked away, quietly dealing with the title wave of emotions that would surely flow. Well Tuesday morning came and went and shockingly it wasn’t until I was seated comfortably on the 7 train that I realized – HEY I made it through my morning and didn’t even NOTICE the lack of….. everything!  Not only didn’t I notice BUT I woke up 30 minutes later, got out of the house 10 minutes earlier and for the FIRST time in MONTHS I blew my hair out straight!  It’s like my TIME is all rushing back to me, it’s really rather wonderful and freeing.

To continue with the reclamation of my personal time I did my nails last night while watching a Netflix start to finish with NO interruptions or the worry that I would only get half a hand completed before “DING”. Sure our communication habits were a two way street and there was something about our constant virtual connection that filled a hole inside of me but it was oppressive and overbearing and many times I felt suffocated by the weight of being the entertainment monkey – Dance Monkey DANCE – trying to make up for whatever real world ills were thrust upon Mr. Invisible. Now I come home from the gym and all is quiet, all the time is my time, no muss – no fuss, and I’m feeling like I’ve rediscovered my old life again.

Cleaning House

I’m continuing to engage in the vanishing act that was imposed upon me Monday by The Invisible Man. I have dutifully deleted all contact info, removed shared folders, updated passwords and even survived the knife to the gut new millennium true final breakup move of being “unfriended” on FaceBook. But now that the virtual evidence of his existence has been erased it’s onto the more daunting task of exorcising the physical artifacts.

I would assume when most long term relationships die people get more than a 10 minute phone call to work out all the bits and pieces, both practical and impractical. There is time for emotional closure and a wrap up of unfinished business; you know - something like a relationship exit interview. However this was not the plan that The Invisible Man set forth, he instead announced frankly that we were done, just hang up the phone and return immediately to your life without hope of ever hearing from me again. It was so fast and so final, well at least for me, that I had no time to unpack the decades of ‘stuff’ from my head and my heart. I really thought that after all this time I deserved more of an ‘ending process’ in which I was an active participant not just a passive receiver of a final surprise ruling at the stroke of High Noon that left me weeping on a park bench.

Anyways now I’m left with “shared” items that have accumulated in my apartment, items that I need to discard or else suffer the ghosts that lurk behind my closet doors. As I photographed my past life and readied the images for my Ebay postings my body ricocheted through my entire inventory of emotions. 

Wow, whomever my future therapist is, she is gonna get an earful.

Time To Call In A Professional

A month ago after my fifth close friend gentle suggested, “Maybe you should talk to somebody?” I actively began researching my health insurance’s mental health coverage. For about 10 months my usually sunny disposition has been slightly veiled in gray and I have taken to silently sobbing at my desk – that’s never a good sign. Mix that all up with yesterday’s direct blow to my heart and head and we have a perfect storm of emotional devastation.

I can’t ignore it anymore or continue to burden my supportive friends, I have to make the call and get my head back in gear. I reviewed my insurance website and after becoming increasingly overwhelmed by the “Find a Physician” tool I decided to choose my therapist in the same manner as I chose all of my other physicians; Female, Upper East Side, and Jewish last name. I have a short list of three candidates and fingers crossed one will have space in her schedule for my crazy ass.

I’m not sure what to say when I call, do I just say “Hey…. I think I’m broken, can your doctor help me?” Swason told me last night that I shouldn’t feel anxious about making the call cause the receptionist probably gets newbie calls like mine all the time. Swason also suggested that I may want to lead with “Hi, I’m a middle aged single woman living in New York City and I’m sad”, that way I get ‘fast tracked’. She also she reminded me that I’m not gonna be telling the doctor anything she hasn’t heard before, I’m not the MOST fucked up woman in this city. How does Swason know all these truths? She constantly amazes me.

Since Swason has been my lead therapist for the past several years I was hoping she could send my new Doc. her outline for getting me back on track:

1. Tell me I’m an idiot as I enter the room

2. Instruct me to drink at least a half bottle of wine

3. Listen to my problem

4. Tell me I’m an idiot (again)

5. Instruct me to “Kick (insert offending person’s name) in the head!!”

Unfortunately Swason did not acquiesce to my request; however I’m rather certain that she will still imbue me with copious amounts of wine on Monday nights even after my head is properly shrunken by a professional.

Lastly Swason suggested that I re-title my Blog “Just Call me Shirley” considering that the origin of the title “Want My Slaw” is a due to a long ago conversation with the Invisible Man. Why “Just Call me Shirley”? I have NO CLUE, but at the moment it was suggested it seemed very reasonable – it is under consideration.

Abracadabra

How do you make someone disappear from your life? How many contacts and messages and emails and photos must you delete before they are totally erased? With modern technology there is always one more step, one more “saved” addressed that just won’t go away after pressing that huge X in the upper corner. Each time I press it, each time I “confirm deletion” my heart breaks off another piece.

How long does it take for my throat not to tighten when I see that name in my “Most Contacted” or “Recommended Recipients” lists, and will it hurt even more when the name fades away to join the pile of invisible “Unused Contacts”?

There must be a service someplace that can wipe an entire system – a full history of a person’s existence in one’s life so that you can really have a clean slate. But then is that really what I want? If someone approached me this very minute and offered to take all these electronic memories away for five bucks, would I pay them? Or is there something in the back of my head that wants just one little corner of this person to exist , someplace hidden in my phone or my Gmail so that when I trip over it 10 years from now I smile and remember all the perfect beauty and hearty laughs.

Maybe it’s too early to empty my recycle bin….. I’ll do it tomorrow.