Christ. This blog is turning into the Diary of a Middle Aged Divorced Woman with Issues. Oh well, the social/political snark will return soon. For now I must quote from the book Eat Pray Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert. A friend told me to read it, and I followed the direction. So Gilbert is going through a terrible divorce, hooks up with a hot younger man and when that starts to fail, she falls apart. I wonder why my friend wanted me to read this??? Gilbert describes herself as “the planet’s most affectionate life form (something like a cross between a golden retriever and a barnacle)”  She goes on…

“I was despondent and dependent, needing more care than an armful of premature infant triplets. His withdrawal only made me more needy, and my neediness only advanced his withdrawals…. The fact is, I had becom addicted to him (in my defense, he had fostered this, being something of a “man-fatale“) , and now that his attention was wavering, I was suffering the easily foreseeable consequences.  Addiction is the hallmark of every infatuation-based love story. It all begins when the object of your adoration bestows upon you a heady, hallucinogenic dose of something you never even dared to admit that you wanted – an emotional speedball, perhaps, of thunderous love and roiling excitement. Soon you start craving that intense attention with the hungry obsession of any junkie. When the drug is withheld, you promptly turn sick, crazy and depleted (not to mention resentful of the dealer who encouraged this addiction in the first place but who now refuses to pony up the good stuff anymore – despite the fact that you know he has it hidden somewhere, goddamn it, because he used to give it to you for free). Next stage finds you skinny and shaking in a corner, certain only that you would sell your soul or rob your neighbors just to have that thing even one more time. Meanwhile, the object of your adoration has now become repulsed by you. …. The irony is, you can hardly blame him. I mean, check yourself out. You’re a pathetic mess, unrecognizable even to your own eyes. ….. So that’s it. You have now reached infatuation’s final destination – the complete and merciless devaluation of self. “

Word.