I blame my hormones, mostly.

I just came from seeing the movie 'Eat, Pray, Love..' based on a novel of the same name written by Elizabeth Gilbert. It's one of those stories about a woman trying to find herself. It was good... the scenery from Italy, India, and Bali...beautiful. It is a film that, I think, all can relate to... Hell, I was lost just trying to get into the movie. I knew the movie started at 3:10, and as that time passed and I was waiting in the theater watching all the trivia and other pre-movie images on the screen, I noticed that there were some people in the room about whose presence surprised me. I noticed women, not many alone, couples, and teenage boys... I felt bad for the men dragged there by their other halves, and was curious about why the young men were there... and then criticized myself for questioning them... thinking that perhaps they were there to expand their knowledge, quickly followed by my cynicism of, maybe they have to watch this for some summer class they are finishing up... by 3:15 I was annoyed that the movie had yet to start and decided to make a quick trip to the bathroom so that I wouldn't have to leave the film once it started. As I was about to re-enter the theater I noticed I was in the wrong theater... Eat, Pray, Love, was the next theater and I had entered the theater for 'Inception.' Idiot. I quickly went back inside and grabbed my sweatshirt and bottle of water and entered the right theater...which was much less full, and, for the record, no noticeable teenage boys... So I missed the first ten minutes of the movie... but I have read the book, and the story was easy to get into. I wanted something in the movie to touch me, to inspire me, to give me this feeling of motivation to seize the day... and the film was beautiful. Motivated? Inspired? Not yet... I think it's one of those films I will see a second time and will mull it about in my head for a while before I decide if those are the feelings it gives me... but I was touched by the film. Probably in ways that other people were not, I found my eyes watering in a couple of spots that were not the most dramatic scenes in the film... where I was reminded of things in my life that somehow have not ever made sense... to me anyway... Many years ago I had a dream, I woke up not remembering much about the dream, yet I knew what it meant. Typically when I dream, and I remember the dream, the images are very vivid, in color, with a story and many many elements... The dream that I thought of today was one in which I met, for the first time, the mother of someone who was/is important to me. In my dream this beautiful Indian woman extended her hands to me, and in them she held an orange flower. She was welcoming me somehow. At the time of my dream I remember I searched online for the orange flower I had seen in my dream, and did not find it. In the movie today, there is a scene, in India, where people have handfuls of orange flowers, not like the one in my dream, but it triggered this memory... and saddened me, because I doubt I will ever meet my friend's mother, though it is something over the years I have, well maybe not so much now, hoped for. In the movie the orange flowers were being put together in long strands to decorate for a celebration, a wedding... and it upset me...not the scene in the movie, but knowing I have held onto that image and that hope... for a long time. Wanting something that I have only been able to hold onto with my fingertips for so long. And wondering if I will ever stop trying to get a stronger hold and will let it go, truly let it go, let him go... or intentionally push him away for good. The movie is about this woman's experience with love, and how much of her life was spent in relationships with men or in ending relationships with men...and I found myself sarcastically thinking, "Poor you... you got married, got separated, fell for another man, finalized your divorce, leave the new man...only to have men swooning over you all over the world... rough life you have, lady." So maybe this beautiful film meant to inspire most people, made me feel sorry for myself. I blame my hormones, mostly. I am PMSing like crazy, eating everything in sight and wanting bad food,but my house is filled with crap like watermelon, cucumber, chicken, carrots, and hummus... so if I decide to have the bad food... I have to order in... which I may do... or maybe I'll go out...After all the title does include the word, Eat. My self pity about relationships is not something new. It's something I often feel and try not to dwell on too often... though it is hard when my world is filled with people who are part of a couple...not all happy couples, but couples... a couple of weeks ago some friends and I went out for girls night. There were 5 of us... 1 married, 1 practically engaged, 1 divorced and now in a stable relationship, and 2 single... we were sharing stories about relationships and while I was happy to have some recent dating adventures to share they all asked me about another man, the man I mentioned above, knowing that my heart is connected to his. We jumped around the table sharing funny stories and somehow we got on the topic of kids, having them.... my married friend has a son, six I think, and says she is done, has no desire to have any more. My divorced friend has a daughter, also about six, and she says she would have another, no doubt. (By the way I do not think of my friends according to their relationship statuses, but for the purpose of this post, I am ...) My practically engaged friend wants children, hopefully within the next 2-3 years. My single friend and I both said we would like the opportunity to have kids, but want the marriage piece first. A couple of my friends told me I shouldn't wait to get married to have a kid...and kind of joking, kind of serious, suggested I get inseminated... I laughed... no way Jose! IF I am going to be a single parent it would be through adoption, something I have considered... but to go through a pregnancy alone, no thanks. My friends in relationships said it would be fine... my single friend agreed with me, that having to go to appointments alone or having to go into labor alone would not be something we would want. My friends said they would all help... Good intentions.... I laughed and said that's easy for them to say because they are in relationships and 2 out of 3 of them are people who have had little time in their lives where they were not in a relationship... and have always had someone there to help with things... for example, I told them... that at some point this year I am supposed to have a colonoscopy... (Ok... not great dinner conversation, but it's real stuff here!) I am younger than most people who have to have that procedure done, but since my mother had colon cancer (a few years before the kidney cancer that killed her) I am supposed to get checked at the age of 35.... so that means not only do I have to go through that procedure, I have to have someone take me to the doctor's to have it done because they knock you out and you can't drive... so... I have to beg one of my friends to take me to the doctor and take me home afterwards... and while I do have friends that I am sure will be my 'getting my butt poked' buddy... it's something that I have to think about, ask for... not something my 'in relationship' friends have to give a second thought to... for them, it's built in... automatic... so for them to say I could go through something like having a baby, solo... well... not that I couldn't do it, but it would not be my first choice for starting a family. Am I jealous of those who are involved in relationships? Yes and No. Some have told me how lucky I am for being single, for having nobody to be responsible for, to check in with, to go where I want when I want... And some have told me that in their relationships they are...'miserable with'... miserable with their husband, boyfriend, responsibilities, etc.... Unlike most of my friends who have now been married or been with the same person for a third to half of their lives, I have been single for all of my life... with the exception of living with someone for a while and dating here and there... and for that man I mentioned above, who has been in my life, well, been in moments of my life, going on eleven years... but that doesn't count as a REAL relationship... and it won't ever develop into that... so... am I jealous?... maybe. I want a best friend who becomes my husband, the father of our children (though that window seems to be closing, sadly...) Do I understand why some people in relationships want out? Yes. But I guarantee, at some point, they will want back in... perhaps not with the same person... but... single... especially when you feel like you have a pretty good sense of yourself, when you feel like you want to love, to be loved, and to be held... single isn't the greener side of the fence.

There is a lot more in my head these days than just my relationship status... A recent email from the man I mentioned above, expressed some sadness about things going on around him, in the lives of people he knows and cares about... and he is philosophizing (may not be a real word, but oh well!) about life and god and what happens after we die. I was not, as I told him, the person to bring optimism and sunshine to that topic. I am still very much in the grieving process about my mother and still get upset at the unfairness of it all. God? no god? afterlife? no afterlife? I have no answers... Something stupid set me off the other day... and it shouldn't have. My sister is a poet, among many other titles, and she wrote a poem about a dream she had, in which my mother made an appearance. I know she has had at least one other dream about mom since she died... and it's not that my sister had a dream about Mom, or what the dream was about that set me off... but the fact that my mom has not been in my dreams...and I wish she would be...there was one dream in which, in my dream I was with my dad and I kind of sensed her presence, but that's it...and I miss her so much. As my mom was dying, my faith in God or god or something bigger than us all, gradually decreased...not that it was an abundant amount before...but I have always believed that people are connected, spiritually, that we maintain those connections even after people die... and in the past, when I have lost important people in my life, they have come into my dreams and it gave me a sense of peace about them... I haven't had that with my mom... and it upsets me because we were so close... and I still miss her so much... and I don't like the idea that maybe we aren't still connected.

The movie today left me with a thought that I may try to do... it was about missing people.... and the advice, terribly paraphrased was this: 'Miss them, think of them, send their way light and warmth and move on...' It's the moving on part that seems to get me...