I haven't had the opportunity to spill open on here in a while. .. not in the fashion I'm accustomed to. "Diversifying" and introducing different elements to this blog has prompted me to sort of shut my personal self off. Since I can't afford the luxury of sighing and heaving to a shrink, I figured I'd get back to the middle and do it here. I miss spilling open here. The luxury of having my own forum and not restricting how I utilize my voice is a wonderful and freeing right to have. This very late and sleepless night, I choose to project in a very self-analytical way... for I'm the best, worst, most knowledgeable judge of me, myself, and I. 

Three days ago, I turned 34. I haven't had the opportunity to let the fact that I'm in my hardcore, mid-thirties, sink in until late last night and then now. I've always been an extremely leery woman, but it seems the older I get... the grumpier, more impatient, cut and dry paranoid I become about people's intentions (not to mention the insane hormonal changes my body is experiencing). My thoughts run a mile a minute... still... and my intuition goes into overdrive... The nights I can't sleep (which are often), I'm more in form and my emotions run the gamut.

Close friendships I've had for years are still intact, easy to maintain, and I cherish them. I also curse them for being so long-distance.  I'm finding that cultivating new ones is a difficult process for me. Sort of like the three times I've tried, to no avail, to care for and nurture organic  French lavender plants.  While I enjoy meeting their acquaintance, I don't trust people upon first coming into contact with them and schmoozing is a daunting task I'd rather avoid. My expectations of folks I fancy tend to be pretty basic, but high (within reason)... so when they generate a flaky outer-crust, I have visuals of them engaging in unsavory discussions about me when I'm not around and cackling at my expense after I've opened up to them (a la the movie, Carrie... when she flashes back to her mother mockingly telling her; "They're all gonna laugh at you!"). Mind you, none of the things I'm divulging charts the madness of an Angry Black Woman who's aging and coming undone. I've gone through some schtuff  over the years with people I considered friends, who eventually had no use for me once I stopped being able to provide them with the things they needed from me or who found someone more ride-or-die to guffaw and shoot the shit with. This is nineteen years worth of angst. I'm conflicted; sometimes  assholish when it comes to shielding myself... and so it manifests in a brooding, somewhat cold package ready to cut someone's jugular (or shutdown and close up shop, depending on the situation)- when I think I'm being compromised in some way. I stay solitary for the most part and actually quite enjoy doing things alone... In fact I find it gratifying and not unlike the scene from Catherine Breillat's French film, Romance... where Marie stalks her boyfriend to a sushi restaurant... chagrined by his flagrant pleasure in being alone eating his California rolls and reading his book ... without her... to which she mentally voices over that she would've rather found him cheating with another woman. 

While I dislike being a mercurial woman sans the desire to nurture deeper relationships with the opposite sex or entertain any new applicants for friendship, I've grown comfortable in my ... aloofness (for lack of a better term), as it's easy to just exist in a world unto myself and with people I'm comfortable with and who know me. But while my opaque and indifferent nature seems comforting and offers the protection I need from being inconvenienced in some way...  it's exasperating. 

Aging, learning how to deal with other people's personality quirks juxtaposed against my own, and fumbling towards my core presents an amalgamation of different feelings: perplexed, resistant, and frustrated ...

I understand that venturing outside the comfortable confines I've built around myself is a difficult but very necessary thing I need to experience more often... Despite it being so easy to withdraw and become self-contained... In essence, I just want to be left the hell alone; yet essentially I want to be happy having reached some sort of balanced medium... but I know this isn't a healthy or realistic expectation. What can I say?... I'm a middle child who embraces her right to err and grow. Stay tuned...