things

I've been watching hours and hours of Dr Who.

My life has no meaning, no reason, and nothing to hold it together outside of work and Derek. When I have neither, I crash on the couch and watch Dr Who until I'm afraid to stay up any later than I already have.

I exaggerate, of course.

A little.

I love melodrama after all.

I like Dr Who, but it's so incredibly weird too.

I want someone to watch it with me. It will never be Bobby. I don't think it ever could have been him--as much as I've sometimes wished it would be. Even without all the madness and hurt of the past three years, even without another woman who he wants to follow around the world, I don't think Bobby and I ever really could have been. I'm so glad for Derek, I'm so very-very glad to have him, but I wish I hadn't wasted so many years wanting the wrong thing.

I want someone who gets it, someone who gets me too, who can laugh and say "this show is so weird, let's watch some more!"

But enough about that.

Maybe I like Dr Who because it distracts me and entertains me, of course, but also because it kind of sort of helps me think of the past and the future in safe and fictional couch-y comfort.

Reality sucks sometimes. Fiction is fun, but reality is a lonely middle-aged woman with fancy fingernails, crinkling eyes and a biscuit-dough belly wrapped in fuzzy blankets that smell like pee with my feet tucked under marker-stained couch cushions, watching too many hours of Netflix and tapping away on a Bluetooth keyboard.

Reality is me and I'm not magical or fictional. 

I feel incredibly sad sometimes. It catches me almost by surprise. I was sitting in the Subaru service center's waiting room yesterday, reading The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon while I waited for my oil change to complete, when I suddenly started to miss my dad. I wanted to call him and say hello and talk about the book and about Percy Fawcett. It hurt. It hurt so so much. And today, driving home from work, I started to think of the kids I'll never have -- I'll be 40 this year and there's no one in my life and no one on the horizon. I love Derek and I love what I have (it's true no matter how much I whine on here), but I wish I'd gotten an earlier start. I wish he had a mom and dad who loved one another and a couple of little brothers and maybe a sister too. I wish he could be a big brother. I wish a million things. I wish I could appreciate what I have without all the niggling second thoughts. I wish someone loved me back for once and I wish I wasn't worried about Bobby's complicated woman stepping in to be another mom to my only son.

So I'm sad for things I've lost and things I've never had.

My friend Virginia thinks I need to "see someone." I don't know if that's code for "you're whining too much," but I think she's right either way. I'm just afraid. I don't know how to start or how to talk, so I think I'll write for now.

Writing has always helped--and maybe I'll even get into the habit of it again and find something new to say and to share and maybe I'll find a creative streak in my late night musings and before you know it, I'll stop writing about poor-poor me and I'll jump into fiction and follow in my mom's fabulous self-publishing footsteps.

We can dream, right?

Season 5 just ended and I think that's a good stopping point for the night.

Bon nuit.