Pity Party Pooper

"no one is available to chat" this is what it says right now on my instant messenger. It's 1:18am and everyone but me, it seems, is asleep. Or perhaps at some raging party. I however, am neither slumbering away or living it up. I'm sitting by myself on the couch in our living room with only the sounds of my fingers on the keyboard and the oscillating fan trying to cool down the room. And as I type this I release a big moody sigh.

As I sit here, I wonder.. "Why am I moody?" Who knows. I've been trying to figure that out since I was 16.. ok, 14. I was always a moody dramatic girl. I would write what I considered to be deep, soulful poems and think deep soulful, mostly self pitying thoughts. I met a blond boy at 16 and instantly fell, all those romance novels and saved up emotions came crashing down at once. And of course I instantly assumed he'd never like me, and spent the next couple of years bemoaning my fate and frequently embarrassing us both in the process. Looking back I wonder if I'd played it cool, talked to the kid like a normal person and not some groupie.. if things might have been different. The hilariously tragic thing I learned much later (when it was too late) was that his younger brother (that was my age) liked me all along, and ended up being the cooler of the boys.. much more to my liking when I really got to know them both. But I could never see something that positive. It's like I had 'poor me' glasses.. I can only see what makes me feel sorry for myself. There's something amazingly self indulgent about wallowing in your despair. It's almost got a delicious quality to it, to imagine yourself wronged, like some classic novel character.. its so much easier to sit and pity yourself than to actually get up and try and make something of your life.

It's like I've been waiting all this time for someone/something else to make me happy. But I'm coming to the realization that NO ONE and NOTHING can MAKE you happy, if you are determined to be miserable.. you will. No best friend, or boyfriend, or even baby can give you that self confidence, that validation.. if you are missing it inside. I went through a lot of relationships along the way looking for what I was missing. I eventually found a sweet man, who was convinced he could make me happy and really wanted to try. I got a wonderful husband, but no lightning bolt answer to all my problems. It's been quite the road to find the answers are up to me to find. And still, once I've found them I frequently have to remind myself what they are.. especially after one in the morning, when I'm the only one awake, and my neuroses rear up and I start to get my pity party planning committee together in my head.

I guess it's a lot like housekeeping.. I have to just keep chasing those demons out. A woman's job is never really done, there are always dishes to be done, laundry to be washed, and old ghosts to be swept from the premises.