User Profile

I'm supposed to describe in this little box who I am, what I'm about, what my journal is about... That's a lot to ask when honestly I don't know. I was told yesterday by my estranged husband (have been separated now since Sept. 2003), that the other day he went to the court house and got the papers all prepared and this weekend I'm going to sign them, and then on Monday he's going to file. So 92 days after that I will officially be single...and I will no longer be a part of the first family that for 16 years or so made me feel like I belonged...well, since as long as I can remember. I don't know why feeling that way is so important to me--maybe when you don't have it and then you do--maybe that's when it becomes important--when you have to go back to not having it again. But my husband's mom has told me she will always regard me, and introduce me, as her daughter-in-law, and so that helps. It helps me to feel I haven't lost everything I gained and grew to cherish during those 16+ years.

As to what I'm doing now...that's another long story. I have my own place, and have been living here alone since May of 2006, when my roommate who had been staying with me, more or less, for three years, moved out. Since that day I've been adjusting to living alone for the first time in my life. And I guess you can say in many ways I'm finally forced to grow up--and really, for the first time in my life the definition of who I am isn't tied to any other person. I'm no longer so and so's daughter, or so and so's wife...or that so and so someone is staying with. Now I'm just Diane...and honestly I have no idea exactly who she is yet. I feel the page is blank...something yet to fill, and yet at the same time I feel some sense I have a story I want to write...a person I've always had inside me that has never actually gotten to live. I saw a hint of her once in 2003 when I went to New Zealand for three weeks. Now I'm starting to see little hints of her again...and I'm remembering how much I liked being her....but it's hard being her completely while I still have so many ghosts of the people I've been...so and so's wife...so and so's roommate, and memories of those times I spent as those ghosts, that I want to cherish and not forget.

I bought a motorcycle on April 5th, a 2002 purple Honda Shadow 600cc complete with purple tinted windshield, crashbar and saddlebags. At the time I went to CycleBarn because of the price of gas going over $3. Had in my head the thought of buying a scooter for short trips--to save money on gas. Somehow it snowballed and now I have a second vehicle sitting out in front of my condo. I'm trying to learn to ride it at this point...have my permit, and am trying to become familiar enough with the machine to take the D.O.L driving test. I never thought I would own a motorcycle. I never thought I'd be buying leather chaps and jacket and boots and helmet. I never thought I'd have the guts to venture out onto a busy street and ride my motorcycle with cars. This is not a part of me I knew existed...and yet she feels familiar...feels a lot like the Diane I glimpsed when I was in New Zealand. I feel in many ways its the start of a new chapter. Of letting go old ideas and finding new truths--not ideas but truths. My old ideas were bars that kept me prisoner...ideas such as that I wasn't good enough, that other people were always better, that I had to work harder to make up for failings I perceived in myself, that really weren't there....that I had to buy my friendships because on my own I wasn't good enough to have any friends.

I can't say all that is behind me, because old habits 44 years in the making are very hard to break. I don't know where the ideas come from, but they're as old as my memory is long. I have ghosts from my childhood I will probably never lose...but if I learn to recognize them, maybe I can at least learn to laugh when I see them, not cringe or revert to that scared little girl. And maybe the more I laugh, the more faint the ghosts will be, until one day maybe I won't see them or remember them so acutely anymore.

So this is my intro...for what it's worth. I am a person in the making. God isn't finished with me yet. And no, just because I said that, doesn't make me religious--because I'm not. I used to think or say I was, back when I thought being religious and being a good person meant the same thing. But now I know better.

Other small bits of info... I have four cats...Tika, who turns 18 this summer if I can keep her with me that long (she's suffering from early stage renal failure and has also had two strokes), Shadow, a gray tabby who is nine, Toby, a cream colored orange tabby who is 5, and Sierra Skye, a rather rotund tortoise shell female kitten, age 10 months. I also have two zebra finches and four fish. In addition to my bike I drive a 1994 T-Top Camaro, and I work in downtown Seattle full time, also do inventory as a second part time job.

Favorite things....writing, karaoke, theatre (I do sometimes attempt to act, but mostly I work back stage), art, crafts, camping, fishing, and being in the great outdoors!

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