So I'm a Jerk?...ehh. More reflections on "Home"

I was talking with a friend yesterday about my "wasband".  She gave me the suggestion for that name, which I find preferable to "that man". "That man" reminds me of this expression used to label a character in an Amy Tan novel, which I will not reference directly because the character is such a terrible person, I don't want to imply a connection between him and any real person.
So she was discussing her surprise at his reacton to our break-up, that he doesn't want to talk at all, much less beg for remediation.  Her husband suggested that it is not too surprising if my wasband's feeling is that I am a total jerk for splitting.  I thought about this, and it actually brought a tiny sliver of relief.  I can't explain why, it doesn't make sense, but my thinking went something like this:  I am terribly distraught by the thought of someone truly hating me, actively despising me.  But I'm not so upset that someone thinks I'm a jerk, especially not my wasband, whose opinions of character I often found flawed.  So if he just doesn't want anything to do with me because I'm just worthless, that is easier than thinking he is looking to hurt me because he hates me.  Clear?  No not to me either, but you grab what you can.
Because I am really feeling down today.  Feeling like I have nothing to grab, feeling like I have nothing for the four decades of trying and trying.

I wonder if I would be feeling much better if I wasn't regretting this tiny apartment so much.  I keep thinking about the Frasier Episode "How to Bury a Millionaire" (I wanted to link to it, but CBS or Paramount or whoever has also been on the freebie erasure roll).  Niles is driven to distraction by the thought of leaving his luxury apartment at "the Montana" to take a horrible tiny place at the "Shangri La". "I just want to go home," Niles yells, to which Fraisier replies, "Niles, you are home."  I always found that scene very unhappy, but now I'm actually crying.
I just paid my credit card bill, and will be carrying a balance until at least next month, so I really don't want to buy anything, but this is never going to feel like a real home until I have a proper fridge and I figure out some nice way to store clothes.  It is just so damn tiny.  I will really need to fix it up a lot before I enjoy being there.  Unless somehow the boys mysteriously take a tremendous shine to it and want to be there all the time.  All my life, it seems, I keep moving to crappier and crappier apartments (well, you have to take the college years out of there, but at least I really really liked living behind the record store).  Where is this going to end?  I'm really too quick at getting worked up over this.
Oh look what I found:

Hats and gloves

I was trying to decide whether to post the kinda upbeat post first, or another downer; people seem to go for the downers, but maybe because I advertise them more.  I'm going to start with the former idea, because I still think upbeat is more appealing. 
This weekend was a big occasion for a very good friend and her family, with several "dress-up" events.  I only have about 1/4 of my clothes at the new place, and mostly work clothes, not dressy.  So I had to do my best to pull together at least 2 1/2 outfits for this weekend.  I did go over to "that man" and ask to get one of my wigs (I cover my hair for modesty reasons).  But it was last minute, so it had to be the 18-years old, "synthetic" (= not human hair) wig that retains its shape reasonably well without a lot of preparation. And I decided to wear heels, which I haven't done in in the past 3 years except for 2 or 3 weddings.  And these were high for me, about 2 1/2" platform heels.  So I go into event #1 with my sensible, early spring suit (spring colors, but faux suede), and event #2 with nice, ironed work outfit jazzed up with a patterned velvet shawl.  I put on the only make-up I have with me - eyeliner, sparkly gold eyeshadow, and chapstick.  And I looked good.  I know that is vain, but I did.  I got got lots of complements, especially about the wig, which I last wore so long ago, no one recognized it.   And I myself thought I looked good - although mainly I thought that as I was brushing my hair to put up and hide.  I am terribly vain about my hair...such a waste, at the moment anyway.  I think I am feeling so much more sociable, and excited about the little touches, that it shows outwardly.  Or I'm just imagining it all. Or because everyone is trying to be nice to me.  No, I looked good.

"That man" gave me another batch of stuff last week, but I still haven't unloaded it from the trunk of the car.  A whole lot of it is clothes, and I just don't have the space or desire to go through it.  I really need and want to simplify at this moment.  I want to identify a handful of work outfits that I really like, and another handful I dressy clothes, and be done with it.  When I first met one of my friends, she had just moved to the US from China, lived in a tiny studio apartment downtown, and had only a few outfits, but I thought they were all beautiful, and that she always looked beautiful.  They were nice, but sensible dresses.  At the time, I mostly wore bum-around sportswear to work, with a few fancier things once-in-a-while.  I shouldn't let myself trend toward the "whatever" clothes.  They don't work on me, especially not anymore.  I want to build that "nice, sensible" wardrobe for myself.    It made me think of the scene in the movie "Ask Any Girl", when Shirley MacLaine is trying to describe her wardrobe to David Niven: Small, but covers the basics, and able to accommodate any event through accessorizing; after all, a working girl (in the modest sense) has to economize and make do.  All the women in movies of the '50s looked so put together and polished though, even photos of school girls.  I guess when you have a different expectation, you rise to it.  And if you were a socialite -whoa!

Just look at Grace Kelly in "Rear Window" - just out for a day at work (admittedly as a buyer for some haute couture salon) or out shopping.  Look at that hat, gloves, make-up, eyebrows.  But I want one outfit that makes me look put-together like that.  Or at least feel like that?  You can still get away with this classic look
(and I even have the hat, although I would have to wear it over a snood or something).
Maybe I should start with the eyebrows.

People keep telling me I'm brave.  Don't get me wrong, I love the compliment (I could be the poster child for hysteric-dysphoria), but I feel that it is a bit of an overstatement.  To paraphase Albert Brook's film "Defending Your Life", it is not bravery to simply display a survival instinct.

Anyway, the a different character question keep cropping up - am I being cruel, and even more so, do I enjoy being cruel?  Today I am taking the boys for several days, and then for one shabbos meal.  When I told the boys' father (not sure what to call "my man" in this blog anymore"), his voice caught for the slightest second before he went back to his normal, 'whatever you want, I don't argue "okay"'.  Those of you who know him, know that is a HUGE thing.  He was devastated.  What could I say?  What did I want to say?  I didn't mean to hurt him, I just want the boys to know that they are still getting time and love from me, and to give "the man" a break to go shopping, prep for work, go to prayers, etc.  Really.  But it is hard to deny, that "almost outburst" brought more than one emotion to my heart.

My Little Home...

I am trying to adjust to a new home.  Alone.  What might be an exciting prospect under different circumstances, is now full of anxiety and loneliness. 
But the truth is that the anxieties were not so very different before the move.

Although I have said previously that I am not a Laura Ingalls Wilder groupie, still I have taken some of her writing to heart.  In particular, she has a way of writing about home and the loneliness of being away from home that struck me. In "Little Town on the Prairie", the author writes "There is no comfort anywhere for anyone who dreads to go home."  And in "These Happy Golden Years"  Laura is shocked by her anxiety, walking to the school she will teach, from the unhappy shanty where she is boarding, and thinks (paraphrasing) "I do not wish to go on, and yet I would not go back."
I find it ironic that I do find  so much meaning in it, since her pain is so intense because she is used to the love and comfort of home, while my own pain is from not feeling a love or comfort of home at least since I was very young, maybe never, certainly never consciously.  It would seem that the need for home is so ingrained, that one can deeply miss it, even without experience of it, or with only a very warped interpretation. 
So I need to try to create a new space to call home.  It is a small space, and you might think that would make it easier to fill up with "home-ness", but emotional space holds a deceptive connection to physical space.  I have the beginnings of a two-pronged plan:
1) Fill the physical space with things I enjoy; enjoy seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting.  Do not create an attachment to anything I don't enjoy.  This means not spending money on anything I don't really love, which further means, I will physically fill the new home very slowly as resources permit.  I have accepted some freebies, but they are clearly temporary, and I have little attachment to them. (Although I thank every single person who has given or lent me these essential, truly I cannot thank you enough).
2) Fill the emotional space with new happy memories.  Until now, when I got together with friends, it was usually to "go out".  I hope to start soon to have friends "come in".  I need to bring friendship, love, laughter into my home.  And I hope to start right away.
Come visit my little home.  I'm ready.