Sunday, October 21, 2012

GTOC Blog #26 Dating vs Friendship

I have interviewed and simply chatted with many women since the beginning concepts of GTOC.  One of the "issues" that continue to reach the "ahhhhhh ya" stage, is the issue of men's reactions to them.

I will give you an example.....upon not complying with one of their wishes "to date them"  I have been called...."damaged goods", "a lesbian", "a man hater" and just this week "bitter".  I have only two thoughts:

1.  do I only attract insecure men that need to dish out "anti compliments" when I clearly am not interested in them?
2.  do I really want to date someone that can attempt to apply manipulation before they even attempt to discover who I am.  Could you imagine what horrors they would attempt AFTER discovering my strengths and weaknesses.???

The women I interviewed all told me the same stories:

1.  Because they were over 40 with kids, they were expected to be desperate for anybody.  (ie:  A "caring" person offered me to date her senior uncle because he had a new truck....I think this qualified as his dowery)
2.  Because they had been in a woman's shelter, they were labelled "a head case". (ie:  boyfriend screaming red faced in a public parking lot at me because I refused to engage at his level.  Been there, done that & above that must thusly qualify as "a head case to find escape from antagonism".)
3.  The offers from men to "rescue" them from their situation.  Who actually tracks a woman knowing she is struggling just to survive, simply to offer your version of rescue before simply discovering if they even want to be rescued, or are even compatible?  (ie:  I am 47...at 38 I was approached by my "then boss" to be rescued via marriage and to help raise my kids. There was no mutual compatibility even on a friendship level and his wife might have had an issue with the entire proposal!!)
3.  Men offering women employment hoping to get "attention" from them they could not hope to achieve at a dating level.  (women trying to achieve in life are applying for a multitude of positions every day.  YES they are going to give attention to a potential employer, just like any man would competing for the same position....how pitiful the man that needs to offer "needed employment" to a woman just to gain her attention)
4.  Okay so let's address the "bitter" comment.  :)   My kids and I were all reading this "gentlemans" comments as they came across in messages and the encompassing laughter is worthy of explanation.  So let me address in the remainder of this blog the story of why so very many insecure men "mis-label" we older, experienced in life women.

Bringing forward the past, I don't even hate my ex.  How could I allow hatred to wither my heart?  I have the most beautiful gifts any man could give his woman.  Children.  Where these children originate from is insignificant, their arrival and acceptance into family is in it's entirety the purest definition of LOVE.  I have endured, rape, physical, mental and emotional abuse and yet I don't hate.  I have a heart entirely filled with the love of the most enduringly beautiful creatures my imagination could fathom. My children.

 I recognize my greatest weakness and struggle is "how to be my nice personality I respect and still maintain a life I can be proud of without being taken advantage of.  If you remember the rampant feminist movement of burning bras and disrespecting men as a whole then you remember that bitch of a boss that either slept her way to the top or bitched her way to the top.  I would never have respected myself as either.  The solution took me a few years of learning my strengths to acknowledge.  I am nice.....and I maintain my honesty.  For this I can be proud! and as this, I will succeed.

Let's return to the "bitter" label, and let's include all the other labels I have endured and have come to discover that every insecure man attempting to manipulate a woman has attempted to impose upon a woman.  This specific individual (for we shall not call him a descriptive word like "gentleman") was told at the offset.  "I don't date.  I have tried it and I choose not to date. I do however make an amazing friend.  I love beer, I love baseball, foot ball...being one of the boys." I was honest.

Once receiving this information, he graciously "accepted" with an "okay so friends"....then as the friendship continued ...offered a position of employment. Of course it was a lovely proposal, otherwise why offer it?   Was it accepted under desparation ?  No.  Out of joy of life!! Yes...Absolutely.   Once this individual accepted the "friendship status" I of course believed him, having been quite honest with him, I gave him the respect of integrity.

Within a short time frame the communications became stressed once again with inuendos of  dating.  Again I assured him, "friendship only"...."integrity only"...."respect only".....and the offer of employment stagnated.  It was at this point that I withdrew my acceptance to employment recognizing the "alterior motives" of the individual. ... and as such was called "bitter". 

With my children at my side, I considered the concept.  "was I bitter?"  Laughter ensued and it became a joke.  Have you ever experienced my love of children and how it occupies my every second of being?,  Have you watched as I skip through the leaves and throw them into the air so that their flight influences my very own?, Have you Listened as I described my inspirations within GTOC, within my Children's stories?  Shall I speak for you here?  No!!  Should you have taken the time to work your way to friendship, a real friendship, not a friendship with an agenda, you would have experienced, watched and listened to these integral parts of my being and enjoyed them with me.  For I have desired to be transparent throughout all.  No hidden agendas.  Simply transparent in my love of  all life. 

As an experienced in life, 40 something woman....I thank my very god for my every second of being with my children, my passion for aiding women and my creativity inspired by children.  Those who are true, understand my love of life and how I wish to share it with all that I encounter.  How I tried to share it with that specific person and was rejected by insecurities in his own life.

So I don't post negative blogs.  I believe in the need for positive reinforcement for all people and their issues.  I detail these issues because women need to know, they are not less of a person for recognizing and personifying honesty in their lives. In actual fact women, you are a part of the strength of the positive advancement of mankind.   I also recognize our intelligence, our integrity and our knowledge of what we want out of life.  If a specified person does not fit that picture, even though given to them without judgement our friendship, our honesty, our integrity and  respect of  person and should you feel the need to label us based upon your insecurities,  please feel free to exit left of stage and continue to walk away.  You do not deserve the gentleman's integrity we have bestowed upon you.

Both Women and Men are creatures of the greatest of beauty.  What you do with your beauty is your gift upon others.  I was told this week that I am beautiful and it is my curse.  Well I allow that individual this,  I am beautiful....as are you.  What have you done with your gift to benefit others?  I smiled today, I invited others to join in my meal that had not to eat, I gave of my miniscual financial well being to assist another beautiful being, I allowed you this time upon my own to convey a message of hope to your insecure being.  You are beautiful.  Act it, be it, share it.  For it is only a curse if you hold it unto your own and do not benefit others in your very being. 

Now to the gentleman in our lives.  Continue to be who you respectfully are.  You give us hope.  You make us feel intelligent and alive.  We are your greatest friends for we have known and lived the alternative.  Yes we have "life experience" and by being our friends and allowing us to be perhaps "that girl" we can share a six pack with while we enjoy a football game....we together have created a friendship to be envied by all others.  A friendship that outlasts the hands of time.  Something absolutely beautiful....  V xo

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

GTOC Blog #25 What is Love?

I have to admit, I have suffered through this one since my husband left.  Did I love him?  No.  I have always known this, all the years we were together.  Did I care for him?  Yes, but mostly I cared for his children.  They were my reason to stay.  They were so lovely.  They were the reason he asked me to stay with him when I told him it was over when I was still 19 years old.  Through it all, I committed to them.

I know it is confusing.  These were the children from his previous marriage.  At 19, even I saw the look in their eyes when they got to be with their Dad.  I am shamed by the lies he told me about their mom.  Now I know, I should be proud to have ever met her.  What an amazing woman!  She not only survived him, she thrived in her own way, and did her absolute best with all her love for her children and her grand children.  To this day I feel shamed that I signed her child support cheques from him, even though I did it because he was of the opinion that she should be paying him, not the reverse, the unfeeling it gave her was not my intent.

Is it love to maintain a relationship for the children, even those that are not your own?

Then,....then there was our children.  From the first second of conception, I knew.....they were my life.  Not once did I ever say "our children".....was I selfish?  "They" were always "My children".   Did I love him for giving me these children...No...God gave me these children...any man could have done what he had done.  Would I say differently if he had been a "good" man.  Maybe but No he wasnt....For my shame I tried,....from the time he met me, I tried.....and I would have continued trying had he not hurt My Children. 

For all my years with him, I wondered..."is this all what love is? "

Then when I met each of my children I found out ... "This is What Love Is !"

There is no need to "explain" the children years.  I can simply say, I found the true meaning of love that I had been missing since I left my family home,...and we (myself and the children) we thrived.  Daily we lived in the bubble of love, imagination and hard work of being a real family.  Perhaps this is why he segregated himself.  I am unsure.  Yet this I know, in the final years, even with all my children,....I asked myself (aside from all the really bad stuff)..."so this is love?"

You know, I tried several times after "he" left, to have a "love" relationship.  I can name a million reasons why it didn't work.  To my credit though,  I tried and I believe they did too.  With every fiber of my being,....I so tried!

I have learned something from all of this though.   Isn't life all about "learning"??

I learned Love will make itself known.  You cannot force it. And sometimes you have to recognize that you might feel it when the other does not to the same level you do....and that is okay!!  The fact that you can still love is beautiful and should be celebrated.


I have had the good fortune to have one peek, one moment, one instance in my  life "at real love". It was that exact moment when the breath of the other person engaged in your own.  Even though, I cannot claim it for mine because in this life, it won't be....the knowledge, the feeling, the realization of  "this is love" is enough.
 
After desperately wondering for years, if it even exists....Yes....I now know it does.  Maybe not for me here and now....and that is okay.  Because I have My Children,  My friends, and My GTOC....and My Children's stories....and we are LOVE.  We are LOVE enough when so many, like my previous self,....had none.

I am sure through my life, I will attempt several more "loves".  I now know the feeling to look for, the feeling to be.

Yet I ask myself, why do I write all this?  Maybe because, this is a struggle with most Aspiring Women.  How do we trust and love again when we have been betrayed?  My response is,  because we can.  Yes there will be failures and that is okay!

Simply know, you deserve to be treated like a woman,...and it is "that man" that will love you as it was meant to be.  Until then, revel in your love of your children, your family, your friends, your work and yes in you.  Because they see in you the engaging breath of life at the exact moment when it engages with their own.....
V xo






Tuesday, October 9, 2012

GTOC Blog #24 - Until You are Ready to Treat Me Like a Woman, You Are Not Good Enough For Me.... V xo

This sentence surfaced in my conscious today and I smiled before I had any sort of realization of it's pertinence in my life.

Day one......Eight, almost Nine years ago now as I drove in my car shaking from the realization that I was now for the first time in my entire life on my own and with four children, no income, no potential career and no safe place for my children to live,  I wish I had subconsciously imbedded this sentence in my brain.  For I had my judgmental opinion of divorced Mom's at that time, just like most others who had no personal life experience to base an opinion on.

I stopped counting the days since, probably around Day Two.  However the sensitive subject this sentence refers to has to this date not resolved.  So as of today, let me set this straight for myself and for all women:

1.  Just because We are over 40, single with kids....we are not desperate for a date.
2.  We don't need a man to make ourselves or our families feel complete.
3.  We don't hate any men. 
4.  We are not a lesbians because we won't date and because we prefer to share each other's positive mentality.
5.  If We tell you we don't date, it is..... now I know this is difficult for some......because We don't date.

6.  We are full blown, romantically inclined business women AND moms with little time left for ourselves never mind another person in our lives.
7.  We are beautiful AND We are intelligent.
8.  If We tell you we don't date and we still go to dinner with you, it is because we are treating you like a quality friend worth our time.  Make note that We volunteered to pay next time like friends do.
9.  If you are pretending to "give us a job" or "interest in our events" or "interest in our children" just to get a date...please with all your intelligence you can put together in your brains ... refer to line 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, oh and perhaps in humility....repeat "9"

Best of all is "10" .  It may take us awhile to rebuild ourselves after a bad marriage/relationship, however we are outstandingly remarkable.  We have endured, survived and accomplished !  ...yet still we smile, still we love life & damn it all still we are being nice to you after our faith in all humanity has been severely tested!!!  We are not damaged, we are the survivors...with kids!!! and we have struggled ... YES!  It's not easy juggling $300 a month to pay, babysitters, mortgage/rent, hydro, heat, phone (because you must be texted on your schedule) and food....plus all the extras like car, gas, clothing,...etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc,....

So I read the beginning of this blog to my daughter.  I asked her "is it a little bit light hearted or too critical"....her response was  " it is light hearted to those who GET what you are talking about"...."it is critical to those who keep bugging you and just don't get it!

I have no issue with claiming ownership to all the bad decisions about staying with my ex before children.  And definitely to staying with him after they began to arrive.  I take total ownership for my bad decisions.  They are mine and I know why I did what I did.    I also claim ownership for allowing manipulation and abuse to continue in my life.  My bad decision, even though I know why.   I also claim total ownership for the decision to improve our quality of life, and I take total ownership for giving my ex too many chances to also enjoy our improved quality of life. 

I also take total ownership for repeating my errors in judgement and choosing toxic relationships with men similar to my ex. 

What I do understand is that I am a strong woman. And I am a nice woman. And I am beautiful.  And I am intelligent....am I vain?....no....I can say the same for every woman I have met with similar circumstances in the past 8 almost 9 years.  In fact, I feel humbled by those women.  Their strength, character, beauty & intelligence inspires me to achieve and become more.

So like so many other women, I also take total ownership when I say "I am that girl who loves to sit back and drink a beer while we watch the playoffs and scream for our teams....I am also that girl who will secretly high five you when you put together the nerve to ask that beautiful woman out on a date...and .I probably didn't tell you that I met her in the washroom and told her what a wonderful person you were!!  I am also that girl who works day and night to make ends meet and cuddles with her kids most nights to make sure they are okay in this world then lies awake worrying all night figuring out how to make it okay for them again tomorrow.

So let's me clear on one very thing in particular;
I have not given up on Romance, when I see "the one" I'll definitely let them know.  Live is Short, why dilly dally when we have the God Given talent to communicate?   It is then I will decide, if they treat me like a good woman, then they are good enough for me.

Unless I have told you differently please note,  if you don't "get this" you might never.  If you do, "Hey!!!  I hear there is a game on Saturday,  I'll spring for the beer if you'll spring for the tickets"   V xo


Tuesday, October 2, 2012

GTOC Blog #23....Healing within GTOC

As so many have said, "I have a charmed life"... really???  I mean ....really????

I am unclear how it seems that way!

I too have moments when I remember "what was"....when the pain of  "what was" overwhelms me.  These moments usually follow a meeting with a woman who has recanted her "what was or sometimes what is" experience.  It is a necessary communication to share in the forward projection. Like two team mates inciting the survival chant.....the expression of past and the desire to inject a positive future. Yet it triggers a pain inside of me, a pain of a life I have chosen to forget....a pain that another woman hurt so similarly deep...a pain that hundreds of thousands of women hurt so much more ...and no one knows they are hurting or no one listens to their cries for help..

At least I can now express my pain.  I can cry and know it's okay to cry.  After 18 years of not crying....this is a big deal.  Yet I do it often now.  Actually I cry after every meeting with an Aspiring Woman.  Then for about 2 weeks,  I heal.  The tears however, have changed. 

I am not grieving at the loss of hope.  I am crying tears of gratitude that the hope within me has been rekindled for I remember well the day I made THE decision,....somehow Shakespeare dramatizes it for me "to be or not to be".  I obviously chose "TO BE". 

When each of us chooses "to be", we do not make this decision lightly, or selfishly.  We choose for those we love, we choose for those who love us and then finally, we choose to survive. 

Every meeting with an Aspiring woman ends on a positive note.  There is a HUGE life to be lived and we have chosen to live it.  It is important for every Aspiring Woman to know that there are women all around them who have endured, made similar life decisions, and that the community surrounding them is in support of their efforts.

How simple is it for an Aspiring Woman, following years, sometimes decades of indignities to live and breathe "positive notes"?  It isn't.  Perhaps because I have been there, I understand this.  However, what I also understand is the state of mind that comes with the decision to live life on a POSITIVE NOTE.

Sometimes we need a positive influence around us, to understand our own force of positivity and how we can affect the world with it. 

Sometimes we have to understand that part of our healing is simply learning that it is okay to hurt and  to feel the past.  It is when we accept ownership of our past and re-create our future that we begin to feel alive and to progress on a positive note.

So each morning as I awake; 
I thank God for my children...who love me and all my faults beyond measure....and I wish and pray that I can be a better Mother to them.  I look to those I love and ask how I can make them smile.
I look to my day and ask,  how can I help someone make their day better?  ...and I pick one person to positively affect.
And I thank God for my Mom everyday, for believing in me.

I am so thankful to now have these opportunities in life that perhaps, YES.  Perhaps I do live a charmed life.

Upon rising, I kiss my baby Gaby, June Bug & Rye Cooder and hug each monster as they awake.   While the coffee brews I search my emails, for those asking to communicate aid and then I surf our world in search of the beauty and wonderousness of our world that I can retrieve and share with others, to inspire them to feel and share it's beauty. 

Then my heart fills.....and yes.....

I live a "charmed" life of hurt, of failures, of successes, and of greatest loves and of achievements.....without which I would still be the shell of a woman awaiting to accept her indignities as her past.  V xo