The Glamour Effect

Hi Cocktale,

I miss you. I wish you were here. I’m glad that we keep in touch, but I really look forward to seeing you and can’t wait to come back over Christmas.

You know, although our situations are very similar, I can’t imagine how you cope with the emotional ramifications from the divorce combined with the onslaught of teenager issues from your boys. I remember being a teenager, and it was a time of serious confusion. I am still confused…maybe that will never go away.

As a teenager, I always thought I was smarter than my parents. I now realize the opposite was true. Although I may have deceived my parents by crafting camping trips so I could go run rampant for a few days, stole a bottle of wine or a few cigarettes, they were always supporting and knew that I had to learn some things on my own to become the person that I am today. I thank them for that, and someday your boys will too.

Speaking of confusion, I have a great story for you. The last few weeks have been insane. After months of layoffs, the office here is finally landing new clients and now we have the opposite problem. Most of us are trying to drink from the firehose of work around here. All I keep hearing is the phrase “it is a good problem to have” and I keep thinking yes, it is for you, but it’s not helping me get to bed before 2am every night. Anyway, I digress, so as a team building event, the office decides to throw an all day session with leadership facilitators to explore the concept of Extraordinary. I won’t go into details, but it was 8 hours worth of pain, followed by the typical advertising party where everyone gets fall down drunk. I was no exception – I was fully engaged in the drunken debauchery.

So, of course, the Aussie was in town and it turns out that he thought it would be a good idea to stay at my house. I gave him a random excuse about the dog whisperer and told him that he could not stay even though he was in Japan and would not be coming back for the next few weeks. Anyway, I head to the party, start drinking and like usual, the Aussie just wants to have a good time. Well, to be honest, I don’t remember what happened. I know there was a LOT of drinking, there was karaoke and then I woke up in my bed, without the Aussie, so I can only assume that nothing happened. The next day, the Dog Whisperer sent me a text message to let me know he was very upset with me. Of course I have no idea why and I feel like a total idiot. Thoughts that crossed my mind (in this order):

• RUN!
• Ok, I don’t know why he’s mad, what do guys do in this situation?
• If I apologize will it go away?
• Did I say something about the Aussie being in town, does this mean he wants to break up with me? OMG, did something happen?
• Seriously man….he’s old, does it matter…it was only a matter of time!
• Wait…why do I feel like I want to throw up?

Good times. So I spent about 2 days in this agony trying to figure out what I could have done that he no longer wants to speak with me. During the 2 days of emotional angst (a throwback to my teenage years), I was sitting in a salon getting my nails done reading Glamour magazine. I usually avoid trashy magazines, but I had nothing better to do while the small lady doing my nails tortured me with her nail file, so I read as a distraction. There was this small comic at the bottom of a page really making light of non-committal woman (apparently my issues are more common than I thought). The comic was about me…everything about the comic summarized my dating life since my divorce. I have a tendency to make up any random excuse in the book to try and justify breaking up with someone. The comic had a woman breaking up with a guy over his shoes, over his hair or over his height etc. It was actually quite entertaining until the comic character spends some time with a guy she really likes and breaks up with him for another stupid reason. All of a sudden she is reeling from heartbreak and needs to figure out how she was blindsided by the angry bus of emotion.

So, the outcome from my Glamour epiphany is that I am going to take a step back and re-evaluate my personal baggage to ensure I don’t miss out on an opportunity. Nothing is resolved with the Dog Whisperer just yet, and I’m not sure it will be before I leave on my trip, but at least I will have plenty of time to think what I want on my vacation.

I leave tomorrow – a few days of traveling across Spain, then a couple of weeks helping out my grandfather in a remote village in Northern India with the hopes of starting educational programs and promoting literacy. Thanks for putting on the fundraiser, it’s a great cause and we really hope to help.

Anyway, this is my sign-off. I will be sure to write about my adventures while I’m away.

Lots of love,

Chutney