Grown and Worried

Sadly, this may be a repetitive theme on my blog but I have to say it again: I am surprised by the amount of fear associated with getting older. I know that many people associate youth with freedom and to an extent, I do too. At 20, I remember feeling really free speeding through New Orleans in Workman's SUV, him a little drunk and me with no fear that we could crash. At the same time, the last 20 years of my life have been stuffed with anxiety around money and success and goals and love and so on. For some reason, I believed I'd feel more fearless as I got older. I'm finding the opposite to be true. It seems like everyday presents something new to be fearful about. 

Tonight's fear de jure comes from anxiety around my mammogram. The mammogram itself was such a nightmare that I'm fearful about my results. At 41, shouldn't I be planning a girl's trip or doing something else that a middle-aged woman secure in her existence should be doing? I guess not because it's midnight and I'm unnerved, blogging in the dark about my mammogram. And if it weren't the mammogram it would be something else. I'm ready for the footloose and fancy free period of my life. I am all cried out and all worried out. Where is the grown woman happy and fun? Let's get to it already. PLEASE. 

That is all. 

No D For Me Please

I believe in a lot of things. Bigfoot. Aliens. Parallel Universes. However, I have a hard time digesting the Zodiac. It sounds like a bunch of hocus pocus. Yet, if it's real, I am eager to know just how the stars in my system are aligned that would make it so that I would be inundated with D pics. I mean, what is really going on?!

I have so enjoyed my conversations with New Man. He is funny and super cool, and the other night, we had a video call date. He showed me his room and his wall projector that makes it look like there are blue jellyfish on his wall. I was just really enjoying this innocent, curious getting-to-know-you phase. It was fun, it was flirty, and in one call, New Man "accidentally" catapulted us into some XXX limbo. 

When I called New Man for our next video call, the video part wasn't working. So, I told him to give me a second to figure it out, and I would call him back. It took a minute, but I got the video to work, and he was like, "Hey, you are going to get some texts. Just ignore them." Just as he said that, a number of pictures came to my phone from him. The first three were pics of him in his A-Town fitted, which he had already sent me. But then the next were unsolicited D pics!

"What?! Why?!" I cried.  

"I don't know, I was being dumb. Forget I sent them," he said, mildly embarrassed. 

"I mean, are you drunk?" I asked. 

"No."

"Are you high?"

"Not really."

I frowned looking at the pics. Why would he do this?

"Hey, fix your face!" he exclaimed. Sadly, I forgot my video was on, and he could see me frowning, with hard emphasis on the frown, at his D pics. There was no way I could forget he sent these. Now, I don't know where we are, if that makes sense. 

As if that wasn't shocking enough, another guy that I was messaging on the Fatty App sent me a good morning message, accompanied by a D pic taken in the shower. Again, another unsolicited photo! I didn't reply to it, and he asked me if he had offended me. I asked why he sent it. He said it was because he "liked what he saw". HAVE ALL THE MEN GONE LOCO?! Or is it just the fatty-loving, sex-obsessed horn toads that I entertain? Sadly, I think I know the answer. 

I know that in today's dating landscape, D pics are apparently no big deal and part of conducting business as usual. But I'm like, have men never seen their own junk? It's no basket of kittens. I think that I am also confused because you couldn't pay me to send anyone a pic like that. And as dumb as this may sound, I don't get the purpose for them. I mean, a woman assumes her guy has a D, like duh! Is the pic supposed to be proof??

I took New Man's advice. I am pretending that the pics were never sent. I find more joy in seeing the jellyfish on his wall. 

Maria Drives By

A couple of months ago, after declaring that she was going to put herself out there to find a man, my friend Maria found one at a sports bar almost immediately after making the statement. His name is Sugar. Since then, they had been spending a lot of time together, even though they are not boyfriend and girlfriend officially yet. Everything was going well until he went almost a weekend without contacting her. They made up after that, but I think that lapse in communication raised her antenas when it comes to him. As you probably know, once a woman is put on alert, it's hard to get her off of it. 

The other night, Maria was out with friends when she realized she wasn't but a few minutes from Sugar's house. So, she decided to do what any crazy girl worth her salt would do and drive by Sugar's house to see what he was up to. 

"I prayed that there wasn't another car in his driveway," she admitted. Listening to the story, I prayed there wasn't one either. It would have only taken a second for that situation to become a Worldstar moment.

Maria jumped in her car and headed over to Sugar's street only to stop short at the stop sign. She was right behind Sugar, who was about to turn into his driveway. Maria hung back and laid low, watching him go into his house alone, no hoochies detected. 

The fact that he was alone didn't make me feel better. For my friend over 40 to pull this 20-something BS, I know she has to like him more than I originally thought. And when you like a man like this, it starts with drive-bys and ends as a restraining order. I eager to see where this goes. Hopefully, it leads to happiness and not more secret creep-up in the dark. 

Not The Gram pt. 2

I had my second mammogram today, and I should have known that it was going to be a doozy when I didn't have any anxiety around it. I had one last year, so I knew how the show was supposed to go. With that being said, I still ended up anxious, panicked, and in tears. 

The woman who did my mammogram last year had just left before I checked in, which was a shame because, even though I panicked last year as well, she was a nice island lady. She gave me a hug and told me to walk more. Needless to say, this new lady was not her. She asked me my weight, and I told her it's a lot, but I have lost a little because I am on a GLP-1. She then began to tell me this horrifying story about the people she has heard of who have taken GLP-1s and gone blind! 

"I heard about one guy who went completely blind," she said nonchalantly. "Then a patient told me she knew one lady that lost one of her eyes."

This comment woke my anxiety up immediately, and it only got worse as she roughly contorted my boobs into that machine. I didn't remember the last one hurting like this one did. It was like she was trying to get my whole collar in the shot. Then she pinched me with the machine, and I screamed! She apologized, but then proceeded to pull on my arm all weird. I eventually needed a break to sit down and cry hysterically, a little something I do when my anxiety hits the roof. 

Once the mammogram was finally over, she said that I would hear something in a week and I would get a letter in the mail. 

"I didn't get a letter last year," I said, suspiciously. 

"Yeah, they will send you a letter. Some older people need a letter and don't look online."

This statement made my anxiety feel like it was shooting out of the top of my head and through the ceiling! On top of this, the lady from last year looked at my images and said that they looked good. This lady didn't do that. I can't tell if it is because they didn't look good and she didn't want to be the one to tell me, or because she had no desire to put my mind at ease. 

After this mammogram, my body was sore like I had been in a fight. My aunt offered to take me to get food, but my shoulder locked up and felt so bad from when she pulled on my arm that she had to bring me home! As I lay here typing this, everything aches. I haven't even had time to go into full hysterical mode over my results. I am just lying here, trying not to make things worse. 

As horrible as this was, I have to remind you all that mammograms are super serious and part of the whole lady experience. You have to go get them done. Hopefully, next year, I won't have to undergo a beating to get one. 

The Rant

At about 3am this morning, I had a bit of a health issue, and I reached out to three of my friends. Two of them, I presume, were asleep. Risky Business was not. Of course she was not. She is my middle-of-the-night phone friend. However, she was busy, I guess, and said she couldn't talk but could text, and I found myself enraged! Not just with her, but with my overall, played-out, Saved By The Bell, Girl Scouty definition of friendship. Here is the short and tall of it- I am single and alone in my tears and my fears, and that is what it is, and it sucks, but here we are. There are other people I could call, I guess, but many of them sleep with their phones off, which is beautiful. I'm glad that somebody is out here getting their Zs because I am not. I don't think I have ever been unavailable to anyone that I love, ever! I mean, my phone is turned off now because what else can you do when you realize the lack of general f*&ks that are given about you? But for the past however many decades I have had a personal cell phone, I have woken up out of my sleep for a friend in need. When I think of all the time I have invested in friends on the phone for hours, talking them through breakups, heartaches, divorces, work drama, anger, and all types of stuff, only to be met with boundaries and voicemails and middle fingers in return, it makes me want to scream! I have asked this question over the years, but perhaps it is due time for me to ask this question one mo' 'gin: IS IT TOO MUCH TO ASK TO BE A F&CKING PRIORITY TO SOMEONE, ANYONE IN MY LIFE?! The fact that I am typing this up and not crying to one of the homies tells us all we need to know, in my opinion. I cried for about an hour, and I will undoubtedly cry some more later, but my eyes are dry at the moment, and the situation is clear as day. I can feel a hard, armadillo-esque shell forming over me, and it's going to need to get harder if things are about to shake the way that I think they are. 

Disappointingly Disappointed

It's 2:42am and I am sad because I didn't get a text from New Man yesterday. Just in case you needed clarity yes, I'm 41-years-old, sittin' up in my room like Brandy sad over a guy. I ate my dinner leftovers that I was trying to save for breakfast, and the cherry on top is that my knee hurts, making every position I take in my bed uncomfortable. As I lay her typing this, all I can think about is how disappointing all of this is, and how I find myself constantly dealing with a lurking, shadowy sense of disappointment. I'm disappointed in everything and everybody. I called Boots to sing her a Toni Braxton song reflective of my mood. She didn't answer. I'm disappointed in myself for not being able to take life on the chin. Sigh. Time to try to sleep. 

Coffee Goes Cold

Coffee has decided to abstain. Apparently, being 50 and afraid that you have contracted Trich will do it. 

If you do not remember who Coffee is, he is the handsome Black Republican that I went on a coffee date with last spring. Upon getting to know him, getting to know all about him, I discovered that he had a harem of women that I nicknamed "The Honies" who he had wild sex with on a rolling basis. He was also on a Sugar Daddy site and admitted to once upon a time frequenting call girls. He told me that the call girl-frequenting life is dangerous. You could get robbed or beat up by a pimp, so he focused his scope on hot single mothers that were willing to do something strange for a little bit of change. I mean, this guy was pumping out CashApp payments to distressed mommies across the city, needing a helping hand after some wild nights. 

"You don't get it because you have support from your family," he had once told me. "But these ladies work two jobs and still need help with food and rent. The average woman in Atlanta only makes $20 an hour." So, as a 6-figure earner himself, what was $100 here and there to the moms from the threesomes? He was here to help!

I have to say, this lifestyle seemed extreme to me, an elder virgin who spends her days babysitting a 2-year-old, but it seemed to fit him like a glove until recently, when he had a couple of experiences. 

One of The Honies reached out to him for a donation to get surgery for her dog. 

"Sorry, I'm not tricking anymore," he told her. Apparently, today's economy has even made things tight for him, and he no longer desires to fork out money to chicks, especially if he is not sleeping with them. She got a major attitude and brought up some of their past acts together, which really pissed him off. 

"I had to remind her that I had given her almost $1000 this year already! I told her to block me," he said, annoyed. 

I understood why the exchange could help to lead him to a life of abstinence, but that wasn't even the cherry on top. The cherry on top was Cherry, an old friend he had recently been with that called him panicked because she thought she had Trich. She wasn't sure, but the doctor suspected it during the virtual visit and prescribed meds. Coffee sent her the money to pay for the meds, afraid he had given her the disease, only to go get checked out himself and not have it. The experience has soured him to the point that he has clocked out of sex, which is funny because, in the past, he has contracted more serious things, took the meds, and returned condomless back to the ring. 

Coffee seems so relieved to have given up his "Daddy" status. He reports a surplus of cash and a clear mind. Apparently, not being worried about payouts and positive test results will automatically take a lot off of your plate. 

"So, is this a forever thing?" I inquired. 

I could feel him shrug over the phone. "I will tell you like I tell the real estate agents who call my house, wanting to know if I am willing to sell. I'm good for now, but who knows what the case will be in six months?"

I guess we will have to see.