Monthly Archives: August 2013

Conversations w/My Next Girlfriend: Episode 2

This is the second in a series of imaginary conversations with my next girlfriend.

Sweet woman,

I know you’re having a hard time understanding why I asked my ex-girlfriend to accompany me and be my support person the day of my carpal tunnel release surgery. As you remember, I originally asked my sister who said she’d be with me that day. When her family was trying to find a time to take their annual vacation before school started, it turned out that the week of my outpatient surgery worked best with everyone’s schedule. She talked to me about it and I told her to have a great time and that I’d find someone else. Continue reading

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Everything New Is Old Again

The following is the script from a stand-up comedy routine I wrote and performed at QueerSpeak open mic at Project Lodge on 8/24/11. The set is a look at aging and the increased interactions we have with healthcare providers and the surprising observations made by the young people in our lives. Today, in a couple of hours, I’m going to have carpal tunnel release surgery. When I am able to write again, I’m sure there will be more humorous stories to tell.   Continue reading

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Road Trip

A road trip is a must do activity every season of the year and it’s especially wonderful in Wisconsin in the summertime and fall. A road trip with a coterie of friends makes it even more of an adventure, there’s never a lack of stories, lively debates, or insightful observations about our lives as we travel. I’m fortunate to work for an auto dealership featuring luxury European brands, so I volunteered to drive my Mercedes-Benz C-300 on a perfect, blue sky, sunny, summer day. Continue reading

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Conversations with My Next Girlfriend

Preface

Since the breakup of my fifteen-year relationship, five-and-a-half years ago, I remain living in the past to some degree. I’m aware that as long as my past inhabits my present, I’m essentially still in a relationship, even if it’s predominately virtual and one-sided.  I have conversations in my head — the closure and amends we never had a chance to process together; I work out the “hers, mine and ours” unfinished business of the breakup in scenarios in my dreams, I continue to share stories with friends that begin, “When I was with my ex…” and I make promises to myself to never repeat the same mistakes, or expect people to be anything but who they are, not what I wished they’d be, and yes, I include myself in that awareness. This is the legacy of being the person who was left. It takes time. The good news is we are working on redefining our relationship as friends and chosen family. Continue reading

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Third Act

“There’s a moment when people know — whatever their skills are at denial — that they have passed from what they can delude themselves into thinking is middle age to something that you could call the third act.”  Nora Ephron

First, let me say denial is powerful. It can both serve us and hurt us, but in the end it must be faced and addressed. Though I am living the sixth decade of my life, a thirty-something still resides inside, a youthful, progressive-thinking woman trying to figure what she wants to be when she grows up. I am always surprised when I look in the mirror and see my sixty-something self. Continue reading

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