On being a Desperate Housewife...

Originally Posted on 8/23/08

I have had the better part of a month to discover that there was one significant portion of myself that I was really not so happy with... being a Desperate Housewife.

We are all too familiar with the popular TV show and it's (not too far from reality) portrait of a circle of friends (and sometimes enemies), in which the show's website describes as taking "a darkly comedic look at suburbia, where the secret lives of housewives aren't always what they seem".

I empathize greatly with the character Bree Van de Kamp Hodge, in my own struggle with O.C.D. and familial perfection. Going long periods of time with blinders on, I chose not to see the crumbling home life I swept under the rug every day. I worked 60-70 hour weeks, fought unsuccessfully to have the perfect home (and finally threw in the towel on that battle), and steamed forward determined, with the best of intentions, to "make it all work".

In my last few weeks of "relationship sabbatical", I have discovered unexpected happiness with starting over. I have had ample time to unpack my belongings and arrange my home to my likings. Then, there was all this time to reflect.

Like Bree, I experienced my own shock and horror of a reality check when I took off my rose tinted glasses one night. The ensuing fallout would have made several great TV episodes, had it actually been believable. I have since had time to look back and realize my own contributions to a crumbling relationship, and how my "full steam ahead" determination left one very important person behind... my fiancee. It's an all too late realization, which cost me the ultimate price. I lost the one person who meant more to me than anything else in this world. I lost sight of what was important in life, and spent far too much time focusing on what ended up being trivial things.

I also found clarity in my Spirituality, or the avoidance thereof for the last decade. I realized that I had been so completely engulfed in my EMS career, that I lost touch with something that was once such a vital part of my life. Once upon a time, when I worked my ass off as a restaurant manager for $7 an hour, I still had time for spiritual connectedness, meditation, road trips, camping, the celebration of the moon cycles, the wheel of the year, and even my own Divine Femininity. I had dear friends, who also followed the same Spiritual Path, who were as close to Coven Mates as you could be (without actually having formed a coven). We spent days at a time together, truly celebrating life... and living it. What a concept!

What I have felt in these last few weeks, and even months, has been a magnetic draw to dive back into Spiritual Life. Which I did, ceremoniously, last night. I can honestly say it has been years since I utilized a working altar, and actually DID spell work. And it felt wonderful! I was even blessed with the observation and occasional assistance of a friend who, in the past, has turned up a snarled lip based on her own misconceptions of Wicca and Paganism.

I am still fighting and appealing to draw my unemployment. I can barely get out of bed each morning, cursed with excruciating pain and chronic back problems. I search daily for a job with even the most basic of life sustaining wages. I am happy for one simple thing: I'm no longer a Desperate Housewife, nor will I ever be one again.