Split Personality

Having a "split personality" is not abnormal. While it is deemed a disease of the mind, it's actually dirt common. Almost everyone has a latent talent for being more than one person. We do it regularly although not as well as those who do have a true personality split illness. We are one person at work, another in a social setting, yet another in our home life and so on. We flow from one personality type to another easily and no one calls us sick. Your lover appears and you are soft and romantic and loveable. At work, you are efficient and cooperative and industrious. Amongst your close friends, you are gregarious, share your experiences and become one with the group. At home alone, you relax and flop around just being the "real" you. Who is the real you? Now that's a question devoutly to be considered. If you try to identify who the real you is, you can bog down with who you want to be and who you truly are. Most of the time, the two don't get along very well. Most of us want to be something more than what we are and thus ought to make plans or strategies or resolutions to work toward that goal. But do we know what we want to be, not the dreams of those aspirations but the ones that are reachable. Rather than a definite scheme, most of us take it one bit at a time, thinking how we could have done this or that in a better way or been a better friend or a more generous member of society even if all it means is to tidy the sock drawer or take your mom to coffee once in awhile. How do you find the real you? Is it that average stranger looking back at you in the mirror? Is it that person who sees a cloud of breath in the winter and feels prickly heat in the summer? Is it the one who hates beans and loves carrots? Maybe it's the person who buys lottery tickets and dreams of what to do with millions? Or it could be the sad soul who finds a grey hair or a wrinkle or a wart? Then again, maybe it's just you, the comfy, warm, cosy, you, composite of all of the things you are and will always be, never having to become anything other than good old you. Just you the personality splitter - as required.

Lash Out

It used to be that make-up was something to enhance what was already there. Now, like stage goop, it seems the more garish and bold, the better it is. You don't see too many people demonstrating this concept but if you do it's blatantly obvious. Clerks in stores are the best examples of this sort of excess. When you are paid the part timers wage they get, I suppose, why not go for broke - you are most of the time anyway. There is a clown-like anonymity in serving the public and fakery  such as "those shoes are YOU" or "that's YOUR look dahling", allow for a certain commercial freedom to be forgiven for such matters and make-up overkill. A drug store clerk I enountered (literally) recently had eyelashes that you could mop the floor with. They had little beads at the ends of each hair and so fascinated me that I could barely slide out my credit card to pay for the boring lipstick I deigned to buy. She wasn't apparently aware that those weapon-like eyelashes were criminal if concealed. They certainly weren't. And when she batted them and said," is there anything else?", I was so intimidated that I  fled. Other women more astute in matters of cosmetics than I, use such things as false eyelashes. I know because I have seen them fall into soups and flutter unlatched on the corners of their eyelids. These falsies are stunning if used correctly but it isn't an easy matter. I understand that you glue these things to the eyelid and then rip them off at night after some sort of melting solution. Ouch! So we have Miss Georgia Gorgeous who wears contacts, false eyelashes and eyeliner plus mascara and eye shadow. Her ample bodice is plastic, she gets her face filled with plastic and she wears a synthetic tight garment beneath her outer clothing - what there is of it - that like a second skin  is also plastic. No wonder she has to use Botox to numb what's left. With all that plastic how does a guy get to know the real woman under it all? What about his plastics: his Hair Club, his shaved body hair, his shoe lifts, his lifetime membership card to the weight room, his little box of blue or yellow pills and the other thingies to go with them? He has a plastic fetish as well. There are times I feel happy to be a Plain Jane,  to wash my face with soap and put on sunscreen in the morning. Mind you, I do wonder what it would be like to do "clubbing" and dating and all that Hollywood jazz. I wonder, should I sneak out that tiny package in the back of my secret drawer, the one that contains the false eyelashes and the bright pink lipstick and join the on-line Meet Your Sweet? Ah well, a girl can dream.

Gracefully?Ha!

No, you don't grow old gracefully. You may take it gracefully, but hey, you don't grow that way. Well, only if you can afford Botox, plastic surgery, laser and liposuction. And even then, it's a losing battle. Growing old happens to everyone. Yes, even you tight-skinned, nubile creatures who think you will live forever. Sorry, not so. Even you will grow old, older than your grandparents -  if you are lucky. Take a good look at them and form a composite and you've got yourself sixty years from now kiddies. Uhuh, your bones will creak. You will ache and you will get all sorts of nasty complaints that make you look like Frankenstein's bride - or groom. You can count on it. Old age is not golden nor is it something graceful. When you look at your wrinkles, you say, "where in the blank did that come from?". Sure, you use all the current ointments and creams and oils that are supposed to fix you, but none of them do and don't let the ads that show a thirty year old belly-aching about her crow's feet and how if you use such and such, you will look like you are nineteen again. Now that is funny. Your crow's feet have become horses hooves and nothing will take them away. So what can you do? Not a jolly thing but try to be graceful at least until your kids, your inheritors, tool off down the driveway and then you can swear like all get out and thrash about but get nowhere and still grow older - just as they will do when their time comes. It's life, as They say. (I'd like to meet Old They one day and have a word or to with that so and so. What They does is not good and we all know it and blame They all the time. They say and They do and They did it. But you, you're the one you have to look at in the mirror. You're the one who has to don those glasses and suffer that hip and that knee.) You are told by your young ones to get out and exercise more, go to the gym if you want to lose weight, jog and eat vegetables and more red meat and you'll be just fine. Dream on. What I need more of is red wine - go figure. And, yes, the figure has gone. Where to, is a mystery. Fooey on the old folk who don their Nikes and try to run every day in the park. They pass me sweating and panting and groaning softly while thinking they are running and all I can see is a slow walk with an attitude. Excuse me, it's time for my nap!

Night Light

Most people don't notice the little lights we live with constantly. I do. They are the ones that appear when every other self-respecting light is off for the night. These little lights are handy during the day but at night they keep me awake. They seem to be little eyes, peering at me. Their tiny eyeballs glow a niggling red or blue or green. In a dark room, they light up just to keep me from sleeping. Night lights are supposed not to do this. I have known a six footer who attempted to eliminate a tiny ceiling light that was beaming from a safety fire alarm device while wobbling on a hotel chair and applying tape despite the danger and possible 911 call. While most of you who stay in hotels or live in homes or drive vehicles pay no heed to the little lights, I do. I hate them. I see no reason for them to exist. Who needs to know all night long that there is a hard-wired fire warning directy above the bed? Do other people wake up, see that fierce little red light and say to themselves, "Oh now I'm safe. I'll just nod off again."  I see that little light as it drills into my dreams and I simply cannot sleep. I toss and turn and whoops, there it is, the little light peering. And not only one little light, as I look around the room, there is one on the television, one on the DVD player, one on the laptop - in fact four on that thing and others. My companion is shaken awake and begged to apply electrician's tape to each of the offending beacons so that I can sleep - and he, too. This is usually attended to after my series of deep, audible sighs , moans and tossings about. The worst of it is, that when the tape is in place, the little red light may still put out a visible  rosy glow from somewhere in the devices damnable depths. The rosy glow  effect doesn't appear until the room lights are once again out and the taping man is once again settling into his repose. "Honey, I can still see the little red light." This demands the now furious king of tapes to duct up the whole fixture until the offending rosy glow has been quelled, our suitcases being generously endowed with lights-out aids. From Rome to Lima to London and Cairo our festoonery has embellished many a hotel room likely causing consternation amongst the maids on our departure if we have forgotten to remove the tapings. I digress.You would think that once the ceiling little red light has mercifully disappeared, the job would be done. But no. The other lights must be outed as well. And the tale rolls on. I contend, however, that little red lights or blue ones or green ones for that matter, need not be visible day and night. They are there to tell us what is on and what is off  but is it  important to know that fact twenty-four hours a day? What is wrong with the old method of finding out that  if something is off, it doesn't work?  Most of us can sleep through anything so I'll just turn over and ... what's that over there? Yes, another little red light. "Honey."

Single Jingle

 Men, during pub off times in the day, can be found sitting alone, draped over their favorite beer and reading material, while a woman doing the same thing would be thought of as unladylike. Or worse. Why? It is okay for a gaggle of giggling gals to enter a pub for refreshment and perhaps a guy, but for a single woman it is verboten.  Current day mores, while reputed to have freed women from these sorts of prejudices, continue to foster them. I am no avid drinker but I would love to go into a bar or pub alone on a hot day to enjoy a cold draft or a tall spritzer without guilt. I don't do it because it "simply isn't done" and even if it were, chances are a male in the same place might think I am there just waiting for him to come over and hand me a line. So what does a thirsty woman do? A friend of mine hides behind a book. A book is a very useful item especially one with a large title that engages conversation: "I see you are reading Blank. What is your opinion?" or just "What's that you're reading?". The latter is simple and clean. The answer is either a precis or a short, "None of your business" and/or as my author friend offers, a cold "I am reading" glare. Men alone who want to find male companionship, do it in pubs. They are onto the "Wadjathink of..." in relation to a sport or "Shitty stock market, eh?" and that seals the deal. From that time on every time they see each other and go through the "Howareyuhtuday?" routine, they sit together like they've been pals since Grade One.  Easy. Women? It works differently, if you can find another woman in a pub alone, that is.  If you try a line, "I see you are alone, may I sit with you", it could lead to a suspicion that you are lesbian or rude, therefore, you can try some comment about the lady's outfit or hairstyle such as "Who does your hair?" or " I love your jacket. Where did you get it?" Appearance comment always work best.  (Too bad men don't use that approach more often. Unfortunately for them, they don't have the background to hold it together for long in a conversation.) I guess my hope is that more women DO sit in a pub alone even if their closest companion is only a book. We women alone have to start somewhere.

Old Times Sake

Guess we've all been invited to school reunions and suffered the usual angst before entering. Worries about appearance and what to say and who would be there make the experience less than a joy to anticipate. As part of the planning committee, I was able to enter it gently. My job was to put together the updated yearbook. When all found were contacted, they sent me their photos and autobiographies to be entered into the latest book.  Receiving each one was the best feeling in the world. Sadness was great on learning about those who had died. Remembering, in this way,  our comparatively small class of nearly one hundred, became a personal journey as well. Our neighbourhood was slightly class-oriented with a professional, management and worker area. But somehow, it didn't mean anything to us as teens. We loved our town and our school and each other for the most part. Social class or money was not necessarily a factor unlike it is now. We dated together, most on an innocent basis, and went downtown to meet and greet, only a few blocks from our homes. There we hung around the favorite cafe, worked our after-school jobs and went to the movies. Our large park gave us skating, tennis and ball games. We had our  rivalries, romances, studies, friendships and family fun. In those days, you decided "what to be" and headed right into a future you planned.It seems easy in view of today's insecurities.  But for now, the reunion, likely the last one, was imminent and the past was forced to meet the present and all of its realities. At the reunion, I handed out the memory booklet and  was constantly being amazed. While their frames had changed, the persons inside, had not. The shy, the bold, the roue, the vixen, the chatty, the obnoxious, the sad, the rich, the homely, the handsome were recognizable.  But what each had made of his and her lives was surprising. The valedictorians were not the great successes, the shy retiring kids had become very accomplished, the beauties had faded while the plain  were now attractive especially in there new vibrancy. At dinner, groups clung to their old friends and sat with them. There was laughter and tales,  revelations and jolly apologies. It felt like retribution rather than a reunion! When it was all over, we had caught up with ourselves and could move on into old age content that our pasts had indeed been what we were if not what we dreamed. And that although our lives were usually smaller than we had hoped, we  travelled far.  Our  dreams once brightly coloured, were now  shadowed warm Rembrandt tones reminding us of the truly good old days and what a lifetime means.

Letting Go

Letting go is easier to say than to do. Letting go of anything is, in a way, lessening its value, but at the same time, means hanging on to the you that is you. You are important, the most important person in your life. You are worth the trouble of letting go everything else rather than sacrificing what you are. There are lots of ways of being forced to find your YOU again. It was easy enough to lose it.You married and became half of two. You may have found a relationship and lost yourself in it. You might have a profession that sucks the life out of you.  After years of deferring to someone or something else, how does one find the you that is you again when you are either forced out of it or have left it behind or it has simply worn out.  I've been there and it's hard. When you've been used to being half of someone else such as a lover, husband, friend, profession, you suddenly and painfully realize one day that you are only a half-body. When you end the relationship, you think, I have lost half of myself. I am one-legged. I can't function in my everyday life. I can't sleep, can't eat, don't care how I look or even if I see anyone or not. In a sense you die along with your past that was two, not the half you are now. So how do you bring it all back to being the two-legged, whole being, the one you once were but have forgotten? It is not easy. It's a long path and all up hill. It begins with the first step and after that the hard matter of taking a step up, one at a time. It's a long way up. At the beginning, you struggle and feel a bit of success and that encourages you to take the next lap. When that is done, you try for the next and slowly, with great difficulty, you succeed and are high enough to look back and see how far you have come. But don't. This is a kind of pergatory place where you will remain if you don't cut the ropes, break the chains, shut your eyes and keep going. A friend of mine, ended a relationship. He thought he would be okay to call once in awhile "just to be a friend". Foolishly, he is there yet, still feeling the pain, still unable to fully untangle himself from what he knows hurts him. And he is still unable to find himself as a result. Another woman who left her work forever, is a  fresh success and has found herself and taken on a whole new field, one in which allows her to be her true self. Both examples are choices but one, is the wiser.