Caterwauling

The title of my last post says it all today: Maybe things DON’T happen for a reason.

I’m currently throwing stuff at the TV over the Virginia and D.C. election results. The Maryland polls close in 20 minutes, and I’m going to keep aerodynamic objects handy for what seems to be the inevitable.

I’ve felt this pressure to defend my voting for Hillary. I could give a hoot — it didn’t change my vote. But it seems like there was some sort of stigma associated with voting for the woman candidate. Like, I always made sure to say I was voting for her based on both her record and her potential.

But yeah, I think it’s time for a woman to be the leader of the free world. We all tell our daughters and nieces and younger women in our lives that they can grow up to be anything they want — they can be president. All right, then. Let’s SHOW THEM that they can!

If she were a lesser politician, I’d be the first to say no, vote for the other guy. But in a world where women still earn less money, where they are treated as second-class citizens (and their fathers and brothers and husbands think it’s OK to de-humanize them based on culture or just plain stupidity), and where our voices may be as loud as our male counterparts but yet they’re heard less, I truly feel it’s time to show the boys that it’s time to stop being the strong woman behind the man.

I just feel like the coverage was not balanced well. Articles surfaced in the last week with tones like, “If Obama wins, what will it mean for Clinton?” and not the reverse. Everyone is asking stupid questions about whether Bill can keep it in his pants if they get to move back into the White House.

So she’s not a media darling. Jesus Christ, so what? Like in every other realm of a female’s life, the woman deserves all the credit in the world for overcoming the obstacles that ANY candidate would endure, PLUS the extra heaping doses of scrutiny and criticism that don’t have thing one to do with the race, IMHO.

If Hillary weren’t running, I’d back Barack Obama. Really. And if he ends up with the Democratic nomination, I retract my statement that I’ll vote for Jon McCain. But knowing that McCain is likely to get the Republican nomination, I am not overly sure that Obama could win over him. But I think Hillary would be a more-formidable opponent in the general election.

I’m not certain why I’m taking this election so personally. I’m not a sore loser — God, I’ve lost more battles in my life than I can count. I’m sitting here with my heart in a thousand pieces, trying to figure out where to start re-assembling the jigsaw puzzle or whether to just keep carrying around this jumbled bag of glass because I no sooner start to heal than fall apart again.

I guess I’m sick of picking wrong, if that’s in fact what I do. Because I’m no dummy — I do nothing in vain. And maybe if my candidate wins or my choice works out, I’ll get my faith back in everything else.

I’m certain that even if Hills doesn’t win — and I really hope she DOES get every last delegate on her side — she will still go on to greater things. And, by proxy, so will I. But like these presidential hopefuls, do you keep the faith in your dream or do you find others to take their place? And how do you move on when all you’ve ever wanted slips through your hands like sand through a sieve?

I decided to give up boys for Lent. “They” say that when you stop looking, the perfect person finds you; so fine, I’m actively not looking. (HALP! PLEASE FIND ME!)

They said something at church Sunday that set me into a tailspin because THEY ARE CLEARLY READING MY MIND — that isn’t the moment amazing when you like someone and find out that they like you back? And isn’t it even better if they approach you instead of you being the one to risk putting yourself “out there”?

At a time when everything in my life is, um, total shit, I don’t know how much more my heart can possibly take. You would think that calling up a boy and asking him out to dinner would be nothing compared to the burdens I shoulder.

But for a girl who couldn’t give a flying Farvegnugen what people think of her, for the most part, her widdle heart might shatter into a Milky Way of hopes and dreams if the wrong — er, “right” — person said no thanks.

Is it better to live in silence with the hope of a “someday” or is it far better to have your heart trampled so that you know that day will never come? Or is God in the business of granting wishes once in a while, to catch us off-guard and keep us believing in miracles?

And will our heroine risk giving up the dream of a reality worth living for, well, the potential of a reality worth living?

I just read a friend’s blog post and am oddly comforted that I’m not the only one feeling the way I do.

Mountain Lions, Snakes, Women and Other Dangerous Creatures

“I guess I feel safe here, in my brightly painted cave with all its man-toys. What keeps me in here talking to pictures, rather than out there talking to faces? People, beautiful, crazy, funny, messed up, delightful people, that is what I really want. That is what my mind is waiting for, and my body too! Well, female people anyway. It is so easy for me to go out in the woods, desert, mountains, rain forests, jungles, even really ‘dangerous’ places without hesitation. It is not so easy to go to a coffee shop and say hi to someone. I have been perfectly comfortable all alone on a 10,000 foot mountain in the Rockies with a cougar circling my campsite, melting snow to make tea, and saying hello to a forty-something single girl makes me sweat.”

*sigh*

After one of my dating entanglements ended, I wrote on a private blog, “So I go back to being the freak of nature who has never known love and, at this rate, never will.”

I go back to that thought a lot. I guess when I hear people tell me that things happen for a reason, I try to rationalize that things also DON’T happen for a reason, too — that something is out there so special and wonderful, I need to be free and ready for it when the time is right.

I just need to work on feeling whole in the meantime. Because I refuse to accept that this is as good as life gets.