Lady of Leisure

About 13 years ago, I took a detour from career path to the less demanding path leading to "just a grind that pays the bills". It is what it is & I don't regret it.

For 12 years, I did kids, jumped from mindless secretary job to mindless, demanding, well paying secretary job before burning out after 3 tax seasons at an accounting firm. So here I sit. The stay-at-home mom. And I'm astonished at my ability to manifest my destiny.

About 7 years in to my non-career, I was bored, exhausted & depressed. I used to say all the time "I'm ready to live life as a lady of leisure". I didn't exactly have a vision of what this "lady of leisure" did (that's not true... she was "Aunt Phoebe" from All My Children), but she was certainly older, whiter, more fabulous, had better credit, more friends, drank more martinis, drove a more luxurious car, rode more horses, visited more spas and shopping malls than barefoot, bluetoed, sweats-&-sweater-wearing, overweight, can't-drive-a-stick-or-ride-a-horse, 3 months-overdue-for-a-haircut me.

And yet somehow, when I take a step back, I see I now have as much leisure time as I ever dreamed.

But it dawned on me today that I have become a cliche. I have slid into the uncomfortable & cliched category of "housewife letting herself go" (or at least I have been for the last 2 months).

So now I'm beginning to wonder about those guys I see checking me out... what exactly are they looking at? Is it my imagination practicing a little confirmation bias & convincing me they might be... flirting... or do they have some sort of 6th "spidey sense" or x-ray vision that let's them peer past the Walmart baseball cap & hoody & into the future & what I look like after HOURS of preparation (pretty darned good, if I do say so myself).

Another thing I still say to this day is "I wish I could know what it's like to be in the body of a man for 24 hours," to have those hormones, that sex drive, that brain, those rules encouraging promiscuity, that tool attached to me, running my life.

For everyone's sake, let's hope I'm not as good at manifesting my destiny as I used to be.