This feels like a whole new mental world for me. I feel so light and hopeful. I’ve felt hopeful before but this is different. It’s not fueled by delusion and narcissism and grandeur. This is different. I want to contribute. I want to be a contributing member of society. The selfish intentions have morphed to selflessness. It’s strange, but it feels good, to no longer feel like I’m owed anything. It’s freeing and accepting. I no longer feel burdened with the heaviness of getting the short end of the stick and being slighted by it. I even looked at my son’s teachers this morning and thought that might be nice to be apart of that crew, molding young minds, being consumed by that purpose. This is where I should have been 20 years ago. 20 years behind my development. 20 years of stagnant limbo. What a wonderful feeling that would have been at 20 to feel as if the world was my oyster! Now it is that but with limitations. Maybe. Maybe not. A man pulled up to me yesterday after my run and said, “Hey sexy, can I get your autograph? Good looking OLD woman!“ I was triggered, enraged and tested. I just pretended like I didn’t hear him and walked away, but inside I was boiling. What would make someone say that to someone else? Did he think it was a compliment or was he just trying to get a reaction out of me? Get under my skin and make me feel the ruptured agitation he feels inside at his invisibility to the world. He wanted to be seen, and calling me an old woman was the way he thought he could get me to see him. Not the first time a person has used a negative technique to try to yield a positive outcome. If I was a more elevated human, instead of ignoring him and walking away enveloped with rage, maybe I would have turned to him and said, “I don’t appreciate what you said, but I understand your pain and I see you. But I’m not exactly there yet. Or maybe he’s just a fucking sicko who will pull the van over and masturbate in public to passerby’s and my non response just to feel some form of life left in his jaded being. Whatever the reason, the words I’m at peace with now. I can’t get back all the time, energy, and youth that I’ve lost. I can only move forward.