November 24, 2003

9:38 p.m.

I took the password off. In fact I changed the whole diary to make it more "anonymous" from my public self. I don't know who I think will be reading this anyway; but I have a notion of my two lives staying disparate, the public and the private one.

This could be a function of my entirely loveaffairless life, I suppose. There has never been a time that I recall, in my adult life, where I went so LONG without the slightest possibility of an involvement. Let me tell you, your forties can get really different. Just when you think you have your decade figured out, the second column on your odometer turns over and all the rules change again. But you get different kinds of wisdom, I think, as you go. My twenties were about adventure and a willingness to try and an innate optimism that things would fall into place (this was all in between depressions, of course). My thirties (aside from the fact that I spent half of them with a bipolar wildman who ultimately became abusive and then destroyed himself) were about finding a depth of self and beginning to understand others, and learning how NOT to sacrifice myself for the sake of a relationship. My forties, so far, are much more about going BACK and revisiting old patterns of behavior which cause me pain or dysfunction, and trying to map out a route to more balanced outcomes. And, maybe, becoming wiser about who I choose to become involved with, and making peace with a relationship instead of letting someone drive me crazy because I can't stand any change in my immediate environment.

(...although the longer I live alone, the more stock I place in having things my way. Life is full of these dichotomies right now.)

So anyway, I'm guessing that this diary is replacing an intimacy I currently lack.

In other news, the stomach virus is almost all better now, and though we drove to Philadelphia and back yesterday for a radio interview and got home at 3:00am, I'm feeling better and I do have tomorrow off. Even though I have to take my car in, write and send a huge newsletter for the band, do laundry, run errands, and make dinner for my sibs who are going away for the holidays. Hm, I guess I don't have tomorrow off.