To Eleanor Oliphant with love - reexamining my empty life

this would be my classified ad, if I were to run one

This post is a follow up on a vintage post I wrote called How's My Love Life? which contains quite possibly the most embarrassing thing about myself I've ever published (although this post comes in a tight second) 

Here we are in March 2020 and Valentine's Day came and went - just a day on the calendar for someone who is single but not really motivated to change that status. Neither a lonely or a painful day, nor one to be rushed through and hidden away from. I don't know what is wrong with me, or if indeed anything is wrong with me. On the surface each day I am doing things that I want to be doing, I have a very solid, consistent contentment in life and I am both cheerful and wickedly funny about the really bizarre moments that life throws my way.

However.... it seems to me, and this certainly occurred to me for the first time when I was reading "Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine" by Gail Honeyman that I am coasting through life not unlike Eleanor, she had her little routines and I have mine. I mean I am choosing to run a creative small business from home for not much money and little impact on the world, choosing to stay home with the dog and watch Netflix or devour a book + snacks. I get excited about online purchases I make and new music I add to my playlists. I like having friends I don't see too often because I have more time to just chill and be me and put my plantar fasciitis wracked foot up while lounging in my not-very-active-wear.

But then I realised that years have gone by with absolutely nothing to show for them. Where are the life adventures? God knows I don't have any money, so I must have really lived on all that dime, right? But not. It gets frittered away on books, and clothes, and food and that's what I've done... I've consumed time and money and built nothing lasting.

I'm doing what I want to do every day.... but not what I want to do every decade or for a lifetime. The individual moments are all very enjoyable, but the life..... where is the life? Have I published my book? Have I really travelled anywhere? I chose not to marry or have kids - though I am a little bit afraid of being home alone one day when I have my heart attack (because that's the other thing, I'm pretty sure that's only a matter of time too), and after my Mum dies I will have a loneliness that cuts me even now just thinking about how I will be the last person who remembers her family - they are all dead and gone, and when Mum goes I'll only have my Dad's family.

I'm maybe only semi-okay now.

But Eleanor began to expand her horizons and develop meaningful relationships and so can I. Even if I'm not quite convinced I want a love life, I am convinced I need to stop wasting so much time and actually do some real stuff. I might be okay staying single - if there is such a thing as a Spinster Gene it definitely runs in my Mum's family (and some of those ladies were total babes in their day) but I definitely need to allow life to change up on me and stop going with the flow.

So I am saying a massive thank you to Eleanor Oliphant and taking a leaf out of her book, no more coasting, no more wastage, if I can't fulfil my promise to Diane to find love, I promise to find LIFE.

my Valentine has really hairy legs

My Valentine has really hairy legs (and huge ears), now you're probably thinking I'm referring to my dog, but you're wrong. Fate, and a random woman in the mall have decided that my Valentine is my dear old Dad.

This was decided several years ago, in an incident that lead to me creating a rule that I would not go out in public on Valentine's Day (ever) again. I was innocently waiting on a bench in the mall, for my Valentine father and having my ears gnawed off by a strange woman, who when my father arrived, asked me "is that your husband?". Keeping in mind I look like I'm in my twenties, and my Dad looks like the crypt keeper. I said "no that's my Dad". For regular people that would result in an apology, or at the very least allowing the conversation to end, or move on to other topics, any of these was what I was expecting. Stranger Danger lady asked me "are you sure that's not your husband?"

OH MY GOD LADY are you freaking serious? I am not that desperate and I have not lost my god damn marbles, I am quite competent to determine who is and is not my husband and I run pretty hot under the collar so you might want to step off! Can you believe people?

But I will say this, living with your elderly parents is very much like being married to a couple of 80 year olds. We don't sleep together but I'm there for pretty much everything else. All the sights, sounds, and smells, constant loss of keys and other important things, squabbling, senior moments, loss of social and cognitive skills are mine to enjoy. Put it this way, if I get married now or in the future, and I end up staying with the person until we ourselves are elderly, it will be my second long term commitment to geriatric care.

But how about those hairy legs.... because I believe the title promises hairy legs. And my Dad has them galore. Well there's only 2 legs, but the hair, now that is some bad ass, long, curly, thick, incredible hair action that he has going on. What's up with that?

Its no exaggeration to say that my Dad has famously hairy legs. Its hard to say how hairy he would have been naturally (I suspect very hairy) had he not routinely shaved himself as smooth as a baby's bottom as you can see in the photo above (and please don't ask me why he is wearing a mini skirt. I really do not know and its freaking me out). Is that a come hither pose? A hairless man in a mini skirt (with his nephew playing in the foreground) should be my Dad's internet dating photo if, heaven forbid, something happen to my mum. I can answer why he shaved himself though, because my dad was a serious competitive cyclist - this is what they used to do I dunno for aerodynamics, and possibly also because it helps if you crash and get road rash and there are not massive hairy clumps between yourself and medical assistance. Serious enough to qualify for the Commonwealth Games, so I guess it paid off.

Of course the price he paid was being notoriously hairy for the rest of his life. One time on a family vacation we were in a cave, and the tour guide was pointing out different things that we should pay attention to, and he said "next to the man with the hairy, bandy legs" and pointed at my Dad..... and everyone looked at my Dad and probably not at all at the cave.

But I will say Dad is a good sport about the whole hairy thing.You can say anything about those legs and he just accepts it.

He once came into my office and said: your fan doesn't keep this room very cool.
Me: that's because its not a circulating fan, its directed only at me.
Dad: (after standing directly in front of fan, and blocking vital cool air off me) Its still not very cool.
Me: that's because your legs are too hairy, you can't feel it.

I'm sorry I can't stop staring at the photo of my Dad. Its just too hilarious. Considering my Dad came out of his first marriage - divorced and carrying less photographs than the average refugee - its bizarre that he kept this of all photos. Though not bizarre that first wife didn't keep it.

So all joking aside, my Dad and I have walked a hard road, we are completely different people who very often do not get along for both real and imagined reasons, but I am grateful he loves me enough to persevere and keep me around, and we do make each other laugh, and we love each other, and that makes him my Valentine, of sorts. Its not romantic, but its life.

how's my love life?

Well you see, its like this. I'm not looking for love as much as I'm just sort of waiting for love to drop a piano on my head. If someone really amazing would come along without me having to make any kind of real effort, I'd be cool with that. That is pretty much the only way that I could be persuaded to change the life flow that I have going on now, that I'm happy with (although more money would also be nice).

However, I did promise my friend, Diane, who has since passed away, that I would make more of an effort, and I did say to her that I had a feeling that I would meet someone really great once I got my dog. You know, the dog that it turns out I've now had for almost 5 years. So maybe its time for a review of my progress (almost none!) and determine whether this is worth changing, or whether I really just want to keep letting the dog drool on my leg while I watch Netflix (every night).

I got myself a really great, Aussie dog, a working dog, nothing too frou-frou or that looks like it should have its diamond encrusted scrawny neck poking out of a designer handbag. A dog that guys respect me for choosing, not saying that is why I chose him, just saying, he is at least not repelling potential dates. I make an effort to never wear leggings as pants, and I'm out there twice a day with fantastic hair, thanks to my hairdresser, Petra (Sapphire Hair Studio, Mandurah) and I'm not shy about talking to men, I can do it. Do I want to?

The first guy in my age bracket (there are a lot of elderly men in my area, and no, I'm not looking to pull an Anna Nicole Smith in spite of suggesting earlier that I'd like more money) literally bumped into me as he walked out of the park..... zipping up his fly. Best case scenario he just peed in the park. Not eligible!

Then I met a great guy with a great dane (my actual favourite breed of dog) and we kept passing each other in the afternoons, until one day he was pushing a pram with twins in it and semi jogging holding hands with (I presume) their mother. Ineligible, move on!

I have to admit I sort of forgot about the whole meeting of a guy thing due to just being busy and happy and not feeling like anything was lacking in my life, you know, I have a life, it has a flow that I enjoy, and I'm not lonely.

Then I met a really kind of cute guy that I started to talk to out in his front yard if he was there when Fizzy and I were walking. We had a good vibe going, relaxed, happy, have a laugh together, no sleazy moments. Then one day I audibly farted. I can't believe I'm telling you this. Anyway I instantly bark out "pretend that was the dog". He sort of paused for a moment and then the conversation resumed until he said "it smells like the dog". And I barked out another instruction "pretend it doesn't smell!" and then mentally heard myself and started laughing (until I cried) saying "Jesus Christ, I'm not high maintenance"

Because I'm really not. Damn flatulence. Ruined my love life. And that's why its just me and the dog, happy together (cue The Turtles) I can assure you, in spite of anything you might assume about my love life, I actually am happy.

March 2020 follow up post: https://strangenest.blogspot.com/2020/03/to-eleanor-oliphant-with-love.html