Two

After careful thought and thorough analysis, I have come to the conclusion there are two kinds of women in this world.  Now this may not be news to some people - most people perhaps - but it has been something I've suspected for a long while now and never really been able to articulate.  I probably won't be able to articulate it as accurately as I'd like now anyway but I feel the need to put it down somewhere and get it all out and then perhaps let it go.  Perhaps this will be cathartic for me and I can shed a tear or two, feel sorry for myself some, and then move forward in typical Belle fashion.  I may not always feel great, or competent or together but I always manage to find a way - even if it's not the easiest, or the smartest, or the most logical.  I know what kind of woman I am though, I know what category I fit in, and because I get that I also get that there is no other choice but to figure it out by myself. 

I've always been oblivious I think... in high school there was this one particular girl.  She was attractive and smart.  She was a year younger than me but ran in the same circle and so I knew her.  We weren't particularly close but shared the same friends so there were lunch time interactions as well as non-academic classes.  She always had a guy.  Always.  In fact, there were guys lined up waiting their turn to be her guy.  When she was a freshman she was dating all the senior guys.  There was actually an incident where she was dating one guy, then began dating his best friend behind his back and when it all came out and blew up it wasn't pretty.  She went through the popular guys in my class and all the popular guys in her class.  They all wanted her - wanted to be with her.  And, like I said, she was pretty, but sheesh - not that pretty.  It left the rest of us girls scratching our heads and wondering.  It wasn't until I was in college that it started to make sense because one of the guys she dated - one of the best friends she broke up - became a (very) platonic friend of mine in college and sort of gave me the run down about her.  He didn't really say any of it in a derogatory way, he still held a great deal of affection for her and they actually ended up getting back together for a time before her behavior caused a bit more drama that included me and my then boyfriend (now ex-husband  - sheesh I should have known).  Yeah, she was having sex with everyone - all those guys she went out with, the revolving door of teenage testosterone - but the thing was though, they all wanted to take care of her - rescue her.  Time and time again it was all about how she had such a rough time - how her life was this or lacking that and she needed someone to help her. 

In college I had another encounter with this mentality - there was a girl I went to high school with who ended up being one of my freshman roommates.  She was a mousy little thing - sorta looked like Sissy Spacek in Carrie just shorter.  Lots shorter.  In high school she wasn't popular.  I mean I wasn't what one would call uber popular - I didn't date a lot and didn't go out a lot with my friends - my dad was nuts about that sort of thing - but I had friends and there was interest I suppose.  I was smart and was in the top ten percent of my class and, well, I suppose that afforded me a certain amount of inclusion and respect, regardless of the fact my dad was a tyrant.  Anyway -the first semester of our freshman year she found herself to be pregnant and with a boyfriend who adamantly insisted that he could not be married and go into the Air Force as he had planned and therefore, as much as he loved her, he couldn't marry her and have a baby because that would mean he wouldn't be able to follow his dream.  Yeah, I know - she bought it though and with the help of our third roommate made an appointment and had an abortion.  It was sad, but her choice and I hated the guy she thought she loved abandoned her like he did.  Here she is, little mousy girl, and she's pitiful, ya' know.  So when my (very) platonic friend (remember him?) and I would go hang out she'd end up tagging along because, after all, she was so pitiful and needed company and support and all that.  I started to notice stuff though... she'd say things in a very soft whispered voice, stuff that was almost impossible to hear, and he'd have to lean in to listen.  They started spending time alone together and well, wouldn't you know it they ended up having some kind of sexual thing.  Not really boyfriend and girlfriend, not really sure what it was - friends with benefits?  Nah, not even that - there really was no friendship, per say, no give and take,  just sex I guess, oh and the fact he took care of her.  She would be thirsty and he would go to the store to get the exact kind of drink she liked. Or, she would be hungry and he'd go to whatever drive-thru appealed to her at that moment.  If she had a headache he would bring her aspirin and cuddle her while she laid her head on his shoulder to rest.  What's that 80s phrase? Gag me with a spoon?  Yeah.  Gag me with a spoon.  I actually ran into her a few years ago - she's pretty much a train wreck now.

So  here I am, single lady - divorced and on my own.  What am I saying - I was on my own for most of my marriage really, so yeah, nothing too new.  And I have a friend - great friend - think a lot of her and enjoy the heck out of her company.   Not sure if I'd ever blogged about this before but we used to work together and she and I would run into each other, neither of us sure about the other, until one day she said something in an almost catty way about someone else, and then caught herself.  You could see on her face she wasn't too sure if she'd overstepped some kind of boundary - like what she'd said would be  broadcast to the world at large.  I just smiled and quoted Steel Magnolias and said something along the lines of "you know what they say - if you don't have anything nice to say about someone come and sit by me."  She died laughing and ever since then we've been friends.  She knew my story before most people and yet never used what I said as gossip.  When she went through some similar stuff prior to her divorce she confided in me and that's where it stayed.  She's a smart, funny, attractive woman and we have a blast when we're together although sometimes we go months and months between hanging out.  She has been very busy since her divorce - always a guy somewhere.  The newest one she seems to really like a lot.  He lives out of state and she met him at a friend's wedding. She always seems to have some guy ready to be there for her, though. Most of our friends think she's the more outgoing of the two of us - but truth is when we're out and about together I tend to be the one who is more talkative and flirty while she tends to be more aloof.  She'd even tell you that. And like I said, she's attractive but not built like a brick house or anything - as a matter of fact last weekend when we went to the movie we'd not seen each other in months and she looked at me, hugged me and said, "Damn, how much weight have you lost?"  I told her and she said, "You look great! I hate you. I think I've gained what you lost." We have a single male friend and I sort of think he likes her.  He has lots of baggage though and she's not interested in him.  I'm not either for that matter.  He's an awesome guy but has not processed his divorce well.  But he's always ready and willing to mow her lawn and fix stuff around her house.  Me. eh.  And I could really use a fella willing to help out once in a while.  My brother helps when I ask.  My son sometimes too.  I hate asking though since they both have their own lives but sometimes I have no choice.

So tonight... what brought all this on?  I borrowed my brother's pressure washer.  The front porch cement floor is in desperate need of painting and the wood needed to be cleaned.  The back deck is awful and needs cleaning as well.  This afternoon I finally get out there to tackle the thing.  No instructions to follow but I hook it up and low and  behold it works - I think.  I'm spraying the thing and working on the wood and somehow end up slicing my little finger with the spray.  It hurts.  A lot. I  manage to finish the front and drag the thing to the back - move the stuff on the deck around in order to get to the wood, hook up the hose, turn on the water and off pops the thingy that connects the hose to the washer.  I turn the water off and attach it again and pop.  So now I've either broken it or am not attaching it properly, I have no idea which.  I'll need someone to look at it tomorrow or I'll have to give the whole thing another try.  I looked up the instruction manual on the Internet - not a whole lot there to read over.  But hey, I did learn if I broke it I can order a replacement part for it.  That's a  consolation. 

This whole power washer experience is the compilation of similar projects and tasks that caused me to pause and think about what I'm doing - cutting trees and branches and gathering them into a rather (now) large pile - cleaning and sanding and staining the deck, painting walls and fixing cracks and unsticking stuck windows, all in addition to budgeting and cooking and cleaning and raising a teenager and working.  I'm doing all these things and I'm wondering why - why am I getting cuts and callouses on my hands?   Sometimes I just want a man to take care of me so I don't end up with cuts and bruises and blisters.  What the heck is wrong with me?  Or, more specifically - what is it about me that men seem to ignore?   Why doesn't anyone want to rescue me?  Do I have no redeeming qualities, no attractiveness in either face or spirit to draw a man to me?  And that, my friends, is what's brought me to the ball tonight... this resolute belief there are two kinds of women in this world - those who men take care of and those who men don't.  Me, I'm in the later column and I'm not entirely sure why.  Perhaps it's because I ate the line of bologna my mom fed me - a woman doesn't need no stinkin' man to take care of her (the irony or hilarity (you tell me) is dad was taking care of her the whole time because "Annie" needed him to) and I've lived it - sadly, lonely lived it. 

I walk around in a world full of human beings - people who have emotions and feelings and desires and wants and needs.  Me, I don't allow myself any of that.  Don't get me wrong, they're there - all of it.  In spades.  I don't tend to allow myself to think or believe I can have any of them though so maybe that's why men don't either.   Makes me easy to leave, to forget, to ignore.   Even when I let myself go, let myeslf get caught up in a moment, dare to hope that maybe perhaps there is something, it's with the understanding that's all it probably really is - a moment - and that knowledge hurts like my still stinging little finger I cut using the power washer I may, or may not, have broken.  And, with that, I'm going to bed...