Tag Archives: Relationships

Why I hated Trainwreck (or time to re-write the rom-com)

Posted in Relationships, Rom-com, Sex by

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I was so looking forward to seeing Trainwreck. I’d seen the shorts and it seemed like it may have a different take on the rom-com. It looked like it could show a woman who was slutty, wild and having a shitload of fun…sort of like men are regularly portrayed. I thought Amy Schumer could be the one to do this, take it up a step, take the Hollywood rom-com to where it needed to go.

But no, I was wrong and I was very disappointed. It did what rom-coms do so [cough] well: show a slutty, out of control girl who can only find happiness in the form of a “good” man. I know rom-coms do the reverse as well but I’m kind of sick of it. Is it not time to look at relationships differently? To examine other possibilities for how it could all be done?

I certainly don’t have the answers. I’m old and have grown up to be conditioned for the one man, one woman, eternal love, eternal happiness, blah blah blah, bullshit bullshit. It’s not that I’m a negative nelly or just plain old bitter and twisted (well, a little of both actually). I’m talking about the reality of my own life and the lives of most people I know, I’m talking about the news and social media and Ashley Madison.

Monogamy is a lovely ideal but I have come to believe that serial monogamy is truly the best we can hope for. We have all been socialised to believe monogamy is how the world works and how relationships should work. But it has historic and sociological roots (pardon the pun) related to “ownership” of children, descendants, estates, etc. All the moral stuff is just tied up to the ownership of women, children and real estate. Nothing more, nothing less. Love and romance have just been overlayed onto that bleak reality to make it a prettier, more palatable package.

So as a 47 year old, twice divorced single mother I know there isn’t much hope for me to truly live by a different model. I still yearn for that “my one and only true love” crappola. My logical self wishes it was otherwise because it’s really not got me very far but it’s been hammered into my DNA. I don’t know how to think in a different way.

But I would like for my children to grow up thinking about things in a different way. To value themselves as individuals and not crave the love of another person to validate them. To have sex with as many or as few people as they want to and not feel that makes them a good or a bad person. Just a person.

Getting back to Trainwreck. Having seen some of Amy’s comedy I thought she may have the skill set to take things up a notch on the rom-com. Take the slutty girl and make her the hero. But she did no such thing. She took the slutty girl, shamed the fuck out of her and gifted her with “happiness” in the form of Mr Dullsville. That’s right slutty, drunk girl… clean up your act, douche the old vag and you might be worthy of being Mrs Doctor and have the house in the burbs and the 2.3 kids and the Volvo… because fuck knows there’s no other way of being happy.

I’m not sure if she actually wrote something edgier and it was watered down by the Hollywood powers that be or if she’s really just wanting a piece of the Hollywood pie and beige is good enough. Either way it’s kind of sad and kind of a waste of time.

Girls

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For those following along there was a time when Miss M and I had a troubled relationship. Basically she was playing the role of Satan and I was just clinging onto sanity. It was a tough time.

But that was a long time ago and mostly things have been great, or at least good, for quite a few years now. We have our moments of angst and they are regular but they are not traumatic, not like they used to be. I no longer end up sitting on the floor in tears and she no longer spits and throws things at me. So in the immortal words of Charlie Sheen we are “winning!”.

This past weekend I had a glimpse of what the future may hold. A glimpse of mother/daughter friendship, or at least camaraderie, which was kind of sweet.

Not only did I teach her how to cook her own egg on toast for breakfast (which was really a handing over of a small but important daily self help routine tied up in a little bonding package) but she chose to come to a Sydney Swans’ game with me and we had a great girls’ day out.

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True, she didn’t watch much of the game and quite honestly it was not a game worth watching. True, she mostly enjoyed making fun of the ridiculous noises I tend to make to encourage/frighten the Swannies during the game. But on the way home in the car she said that she loved listening to my conversations with Tricia that day and that it was one of the best days of her life. She is growing up and morphing from a little girl into a tween I guess (though I do dislike that particular marketing term for pre-teen girls). She is starting to latch onto more grown up conversations and is trying to make sense of them.

I am also starting to discuss my dating with her in a matter-of-fact way rather than keeping it as a dirty little secret. I read this interesting article about the subject this week and it gelled with my thoughts on the subject. That doesn’t mean I give her all, or any, of the gory details… but I do mention in passing that I’ve had a date and answer any questions she has. She’s really not that interested (and Will is even less interested… in fact on the weekend he said he thought I was still going out with the Joker… teenage boys, so observant).

Anyway, I just wanted to take a moment to document a little milestone in my relationship with Miss M… especially since it’s a positive one.

Thinking about someone who isn’t thinking about you

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Probably the worst thing about a failed relationship (and I’ve clocked up two in twelve months so I speak with some authority) is the amount of time I spend thinking about the person who is no longer thinking about me.

I hate it. So much. But my brain just won’t stop turning over the problem, like a Rubik’s cube that won’t be solved. It is obviously an exercise in frustration and eventually even my silly brain will run out of enthusiasm for the task but in the meantime I’m seriously giving myself the shits.

There is nothing coherent about my thoughts. They swing from anger at myself for what was, in hindsight, an exercise in flogging a dead horse to sadness for the futility of throwing away a relationship with much promise. I think about the good times and my daydreams for the future. I smile to myself about the little in jokes we shared.

I waste so much emotional energy thinking about someone who isn’t thinking about me.

Can someone invent an app to fix that?

Free falling

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I’ve been a bad little blogger and I’m sorry… it’s not that I haven’t had things to write about it, it’s just that I’ve been busy putting my emotional energy into other things like immersing myself in Game of Thrones (late to the party as always) and hatching this weird little relationship I’m embroiled in.

For those deeply interested in my love life (shame on you, haven’t you got something more compelling to focus on… like the fluff in your bellybutton) you may remember that my last post talked about the ending of what was potentially a very promising relationship.

I may have been a little premature in writing it off because here I am, we are, back into it.

I’ve called this post “free falling” because that’s how it feels trying to establish a new relationship after being in a very long term one. I don’t have a good frame of reference any more for how to behave with a new person I’m romantically interested in; I guess I’ve become lazy over the years. Especially when the new person has issues I don’t fully understand, yet. (Because God knows I don’t have any issues myself, being perfect and all.)

I literally feel like I’m floating through darkness and I keep hitting things. At first I used my usual problem solving approach when I hit an issue I couldn’t control: the battering ram. But I’m learning that there are other ways. It’s not always easy but it’s turning out to be more fun than I first thought.

It’s worth bending a little, adapting a little for someone special. Don’t worry, I’m still the giant pain in the arse I always have been and always will be. Some things will never change.

Yes there are allegedly a lot of frogs in the pond but some frogs really are princes, even if they don’t know it. For now I’ll just stick to kissing this one particular frog and we’ll see how things work out.

Now you’re just somebody that I used to know

Posted in Family, Marriage, Optimism, Saddness, Separation, Thoughts by

It is really bloody hard to write those words about the man you have spent almost twenty one years of your life with; the man you saw as your life partner, the father of your children, the one with whom you have shared the ups and downs for as far back as you can remember and the one you had hoped you would share the future with.

If you’ve been wondering why Deep Kick Girl has been silent of late it’s because she’s been busy watching her marriage and, to some degree, her life shatter with absolutely no prior warning.

I don’t need to go into details, not because I am shy about publicly sharing the hard truths of my life but because for some reason I want to protect the dignity of the husband formerly known as Big Jay. I could probably argue that his dignity is not worth protecting but I know within myself that there is nothing to be gained from putting all the gory details out into the cyberworld for all eternity.

The bottom line is he has chosen to walk away from our marriage, our family and our future to chase a mirage. I have lost all my respect for the man I loved so dearly not so very long ago. It is a surreal feeling. I do not recognise him when I look at him and currently I am avoiding looking at him because the sense of loss and disbelief is overwhelming.

It’s been an emotional rollercoaster for the past five weeks but I have stepped off now and gradually things are coming back into focus. I no longer feel like I have been punched in the stomach every waking moment. I no longer have the words “how” and “why” and “no” doing a non-stop conga line around my brain. I am no longed wrecked with constant anxiety about how we will cope financially, about how the kids will cope with not having their father around every day and about how I will manage to put on the bloody huge king sized quilt cover without another set of helping hands.

My predominant emotions right now are indignant anger (the physical need to send text message along the lines of “you f*&king useless c^%t… how dare you do this to us you complete f@#king imbecile” is quite gut wrenching at times) and also a sense of hope and optimism. Every day I feel stronger, clearer, more confident and more excited about the future.

It is unbearably painful to realise that the man you thought was your life partner doesn’t love you any more and doesn’t even like you enough to treat you with some respect. But it is also incredibly empowering to know that you can and will survive. It is painfully wonderful to realise that you are surrounded by people who truly do love you and will support you and your children through thick and thin. It is this outpouring of love and kindness which has made me cry the hardest during these past weeks.

I have been down but I am certainly not out. The kids are doing well and they are really awesome little people who make me swallow any thoughts or words of the “I have wasted the last twenty years” variety.

There is now less than five weeks until I fly out to New York with my little posse of middle aged women gone mild. When this first went down the thought of this trip made me sick – how could I go and in any way enjoy this holiday when my life was in ruins? But now I feel crazy with excitement; my sister awaits, my besties by my side… how can I not look forward to what will be ten days of fun and great memories in the making?

There is a red hot coal of sadness inside me which will take a very long time to exhtinguish but it is now becoming insulated by layers of anger, optimism, hope, happiness, excitement and love. There is no underestimating how much of a healer time is, I am experiencing that magic every single day at the moment.

I will always choose to count my blessings and keep the events of my life in perspective and I will always choose to celebrate life rather than wallow in fear, anxiety or self pity. That is my revenge.