Maybe this is what happens to women when we have a mid-life crisis. Maybe I've been in the middle of a mid-life crisis for years and was once again the only one who didn't see it.

I realized last night that I am out of place. That I don't "fit" any place in the physical world. I dont' fell like I have anything in common with women my age. I don't know many women my age agonizing over their calc homework... And I don't have alot in common with the boys in my program. I believe only 1 or 2 of them had been born when I graduated High School... Sometimes I think I have more in common with teenaged boys than women my age.. I'd much rather be playing video games than doing my homework.

But I don't look like most other women my age, I don't do the sorts of things they are doing, my family sure doens't look like theirs... I'm happy with who I am, happy with what I am, as a general rule. Of course, but again, I compair my journey with theirs...

Of course, I realize that I have always felt like that, no matter what age I was. In the 5th grade all the girls were ga-ga about Donny Osmond and it was all I could to do keep from calling them idiots. (like Donny Osmond or David Cassidy was going to come to our little school and sweep them off their feet... People are arrested for that sort of thing, and rightly so...)

I don't know, maybe I'm starting to be depressed ... Of course, I think I always get this way when I have to come back to Idaho. It just surves to highlight how alien I am here.

I just spent my 3rd of 6 wedding aniversaries away from my husband. Next year, he's going to take vacation so he can spend it with me.

Anyway, thanks for listening. Anyone else feel like they are out of place? Are we actually all out of place together?

Looks like you're not so alone afterall!

Love, your weirdo friend.

Another weirdo here! Years ago, a shrink put me through a bunch of tests and gave me a printout of the results. I was literally off the charts on the "alienation" scale. When I showed the charts to my grad school mentor, he laughed. "Look at how f-ed up the rest of the world is, pumpkin. All the best people are alienated." Years later, he was denied tenure -- but I still think of him as the smartest guy I ever knew. Who wants to be conventional and mediocre?

While there are definately times I wish I could be more convential, never mediocre. I guess part of my thing is that once again I'm tired of being that nail that sticks up and won't hammer in right. I dunno. Maybe part of my trouble is what I give myself. Part of the problem is that there is no guide hole... if a nail is driven in the wrong spot without a needed guide hole it will spilt the wood.

The funny part of what quote is that this guy was returning from duty in Iraq. I would have thought that he served with women who were at least as self-confident as I am, or as I appear anyway. I'm very assertive, yet not aggressive. I don't have to be agressive. As far as I know, "bitchy" is not something that people call me. Or if they do, perhaps they are too scared to call me that to my face?

"Sometimes bein' a bitch is all a woman's got left to hold onta."

Kathy Bates as Delores Clayborn

What do you call a woman who acts like a man? A bitch. Stuff that guys get away with all the time are just viewed as being manly, but if a woman acts even a little bit like a guy she is maligned.

Kelly, you need to find different people to hang out with! I think any time anyone is called to do something is powerful. You feel that you have a powerful calling to server God. That is absolutly wonderful. I know that Jonathan recently changed his entire life to answer his calling. My calling is information security and assurance. Since god is everything and everywhere... well you know the rest.