Blog Posts by Monika Basile

Laundromat

Yes, my unmentionables. I'm talking panties-and the Laundromat and the girls.

I hate going to the Laundromat for this reason. There are no secrets there among us patrons. I can hide nothing. I am never more exposed to strangers than when I am fluffing and drying a wide array of panties and nighties and bras in full view. It is a place where we literally air our dirty laundry in public. Unfortunately, there is no avoiding it unless I wish to wash my unmentionables by hand and then suffer with the feeling they are not clean enough and feel stiff without the dryer to soften them.

It is an odd ritualistic dance among the musical machines. We don't speak-we glance furtively from the corners of our eyes. It is not a place really to chit chat with the loudness of the giant room. I find it difficult to make small talk as I attempt to fold my nighties without anyone looking at them while I do it. And I am ashamed to admit that I am a creeper to the fifth degree when it comes to

Beauty and the beast

Growing up I thought I was the ugliest girl in creation.

I felt that in a group of girls and women, I was the unattractive one, the one that no man would choose first, and the one that the other girls would make fun of. When I looked in the mirror, I only saw each and every flaw as if someone had held a magnifying glass up to my eye just to see them a bit more clearly.

I am not alone in this. I know I am not. Most of us women were this same young girl picking themselves apart. Most of us women didn't believe it when our mothers told us we were indeed pretty and maybe even beautiful. We just figured they were our mothers and they had to say that. We never imagined that it might actually be true. Instead, we chose to believe the lie our lying eyes told us instead. We chose to see the ugly part of the truth and dismissed the beautiful parts.

We became our own worst enemy and our biggest critics. We learned to hate "fat" mirrors and sometimes glanced away from the store

Father and daughter

They say most women somehow gravitate towards relationships with men similar to their fathers. I did not though I now wish I had.

I was never a "Daddy's Girl"-that would be my baby sister. And my sister did in fact marry a man very much like my father. She is the smart one out of us obviously. I spent much time trying to avoid being anything my parents were. It seems I was too busy rebelling against my parents that I never realized they actually have the relationship I always wanted yet never achieved. I wonder if my stubbornness is what set my life in a most opposite direction as I tried in every way to be different than the people who created me.

My parents have that elusive fairy tale; however, it's disguised in the whirlwind of an ordinary life. I grew up thinking they were boring and square, not exciting and glamorous as I intended to be. They are good people. They are honest people, and they love each other as each of us hopes to be loved. They are constant and have

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Freedom.

I learned that there is a freedom in singledom that I never knew existed until I became single again.

I developed an odd habit of driving in the middle of the night shortly after I was free.

I have always suffered from terrible bouts of insomnia and used to wander restlessly around the house. Up and down, up and down, up and down and I made myself crazy with it. When I became single, there was nothing to stop me from exploring the middle of the night on my own. There is a wonderful feeling I still get when the night is clear and quiet, the stars beam brightly and the moon lights my way. I listen to the opera, which I never do with anyone else in the car because it seems to annoy most everyone else in my life. I buy coffee from Dunkin Donuts at three in the morning as I go about my travels. I have done this so many times that the man, who works the graveyard shift, recognizes me and wishes me a safe a trip each time I go.

The world looks so different in

I am being bombarded by a variety of mixed feelings. The ex is getting married next week and I am having a hard time dealing with it. I am ashamed that I am feeling so poorly about the whole sordid ordeal.

It has been years already since the separation and divorce. Years before that, the marriage had been systematically destroyed one heartbreaking piece by one heartbreaking piece.

I am confused? Why is it bothering me? Why am I angry and bitter about it now? Why do I feel as if my mind is caught up in some sort of war I am incapable of even fighting? I am battling thoughts about a situation that has absolutely nothing to do with me at all.

At the same time, I am thankful that it is not me standing next to him taking those vows. I am thankful I escaped(and sadly, yes, it was an escape) I am thrilled to have a bit of a peaceful mind again at never walking on egg shells again in my day to day living. Though I don't want him miserable (him being miserable tends to make

I don't want to be young again. I don't mourn my youth. I have earned my years and I don't have the least desire to relive them.

What I want is to be old. I want to live to be really, really old. I want to live to be well over a hundred. And I want to make each of those years as I have made each of these; worth it. Memorable. Different.

So many people fear aging. They fear lines in their faces and the changes that come to their bodies. Sure I wish I looked the same somewhat as when I was eighteen, but if it means that I have to trade the woman I am now simply to look again like the girl I was-I choose not to. I choose to be just who I am-imperfections and all.

Companies spend millions of dollars trying to sell us the thought if we only looked younger, thinner, had more hair on our heads and the libido of a stallion that we would all be happy, happy, happy. So many of us actually believe that and buy into the hype. We try to recapture what we think we may have lost

Lies

The truth shall not set you free-at least not the brutal truth.

Who came up with the idea that we should all be "brutally honest"? I don't want to be. I don't like it and I choose to not tell every thought in my head just for the sake of "keeping it real". What does it help anyone and who does it hurt when we decide to spew our version of the truth to someone who may not really want to know it?

What if we really did tell everyone the absolute truth?

Instead of saying to someone whom is in the midst of a crisis, "It'll be okay..." What if we said instead, "You know what? You might as well just go jump off that bridge right now because your life sucks and I doubt you'll get out of this one at all."

Instead of saying, "That color looks nice on you…" We could always include, "That color looks nice on you but otherwise you are a disgusting pig and it's no wonder you're alone."

How about saying, "You are the stupidest human I have ever heard speak ." Instead of,

Skippingstones
I can control no one. I can only control me and sometimes I am even incapable of that as we all can be.

I tend to live my life asking a very important question-well, important to me. I am not sure if it is important to anyone but me as I cannot control if it is or not. It only has to do with me so it doesn't matter anyway. The question?

Can I live with this?

It is an all encompassing question and it refers to my reaction or lack of action in everything I do. Can I live with it-my choice? What I put out there in the world, what I say to someone, how I respond to every good thing and bad thing that I encounter. Can I live with it?

See, I have the perfect question-I just don't have the perfect answer. I am not always ultimately sure what I can or can't live with. If every decision I had to make was only based on how I felt, what I wanted, what I needed and where I wanted to go, it would be easy. But most of us do not live a singular existence. We are connected.