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Diminutive Derivative 

I suppose one way to put it might be

that I’m quite financially unsolvable. 

Unresolvable?  Unresolved?  I used

to invest, almost in an unbeknownst

fashion, we called it 401(k).  Or that

might have been a brand for a pair

of pants that, when I was much more

financially solvable, I used to wear on

occasion.  I’m a hard fit, my legs a tad

too short for most standardized fits.  But

at least I’m in the States rather than in

Europe, where everyone is apparently

a teeny weenie skinny-Minnie.  I could

take a normal too-long pair up a few inches,

it’s true.  I had an internship during the

year I earned my last degree in which

I taught young students interested in

the dramatic arts how to sew, then we

built costumes at shop before each produced play.

Oh, and then I managed the house during each

theatrical performance, also an internship.  And 

in the various theatres we had on my grad

school campus that year there were no less

than 10 full-fledge theatrical productions.

Like most years of my life, that was quite a

busy year, and (also, like a lot of my years) 

income was incredibly sparse, despite three 

internships (the third was assisting a campus drug 

and alcohol rehab counselor), and on top of all

of that, I gave 20-30 hours per week working 

at the local Big Lots.  So I’m a bit short, but

if push cames to shove, I have the wherewithal

to take a pair of jeans or slacks up to my twenty-nine

inches (or so) inseam, should there not be any of 

what I suppose are abnormal sizes available.  

So, I have a twenty-nine inches (or so) inseam

and it’s usually hard to find anything less than

a 30 inseam on store shelves.  Some jeans have sizes 

with inseams shorter than 30, like Levi’s, which I 

know, because I grew up wearing 501s.  Ah, no

wonder the subject got off course when I

mentioned I once had a 501(k).  Not being

employed at the moment, and having long

ago gotten rid of my 401(k) money (it went

during the decade of destitution that I am still 

riding out just as penniless as ever), not only do I

owe taxes (at least to the state of California

now) with no income in over a year and a half at

present, but I owe various small credit cards that I had

used to build up my credit ever since I could afford

to when card companies began to give me a little credit

once again after the financial swamp I found myself in

a few years back.  This is a game that isn’t fun, so let’s 

change the subject.  I’m a non-solvent human looking for a job,

having just days ago turned 59 years old.  Which sounds

like a practically unsolvable logic problem, especially if I

were to continue to add on pieces and parts of my

issues at hand.  My ongoing problems.  The downright

tragedies that have kept me from my betrothed.  My 

betrothed.  I do have one of those, and I’m quite rightly 

giddy about the notion.  One obstacle that keeps us apart

physically is that he resides in the Southern Hemisphere 

while I live in the northern half of the planet. and while we’ve

taken care of the papework to get him here we’ve been unable

to pay for said paperwork, the visa that would have him here

and ready to marry me within 90 days upon his arrival (some

twelve or so months, estimated, upon turning in the paperwork

and fee).  Also, even though we talk every day, often several times 

live, and chat intermittently otherwise, in order to procure this visa

so that he can come here, I was required to actually and physically

visit with him in real life before we could even think about turning

in the paperwork.  So that I have done, saving up to head to the

Southern half of the planet a year ago March, which was quite an

expense, lovely as it was to finally spend time with him in the same

physical space for a couple of weeks.  It’s been six and a half years that 

we have been thusly betrothed, which is quite a long long-distance

relationship, and that is a notion that I used to make fun of, say, 

when friends of mine got such distanced partnerships of romantic 

and/or committed and/or sexual natures (those seem to be 

the top three characteristics if one plays a part in such a thing.

I mean, sure, you can have one, you can have a couple of these, but to 

find someone in which you are able to work out all three seems to me 

the very ideal, something that lets you know it might really be worth 

working on, something to keep going, to which you commit.  And I’ve 

not exactly been wise with commitments, but I’ve had a lot of them.

They have had durations from three months to 10 years or so, all

told, which means I have what they call experience.  Somewhat 

similarly, if one were to look at my resume, the one I use to gain

employment, one would see that I have a nice and lengthy set of

experiences in a career that, while I happenstanced into rather

unexpectedy, it is one with which I have been quite happy.   One

would think that I might, considering a pretty decent amount of

experience with each, be able to procure both reliable and purposeful

employment alongside a lovely personal relationship, a family plus career

situation in which one could contentedly spend a lifetime.  But as if this 

writing, and several years of working quite intensely to get at least a good 

part of what I once felt I had going or me, that is not my place, as I

was dealt a ridiculously cowardly break-up from someone with whom I’d 

lived and loved, as boyfriend, partner, romantic and otherwise.  Yes, 

this supposedly aware individual (me) was in love, in a nicely intimate 

commitment, for ten years, until this guy I thought I knew extremely well

hoodwinked me into dealing with his all but actual death, the death of

a longstanding partner.  One day, with no warning, some 11 years or so,

after a fated first encounter, he was gone.  As, with some research, I 

determined he left to marry someone for whon he’d apparently 

been hot with, whom he had somehow managed to surreptitiously

spend enough time with during around 80% of the duration of time

that we were together in a supposed committed relationship, only to skip

town without a word, never one word, leaving me with the place that was 

ours along with most of his belongings, our belongings, to be with 

this other man, and no word to me at all.  

This all sounds pretty normal, I suppose, perhaps even down to the extreme

cowardice he displayed by leaving me to grieve like he had literally died,

was dead, is dead, to me.  It is a death that I didn’t even get to have in 

any literal way, he just left without a word before or since.  I had to

spend valuable (and very ill, thanks to this loss) time dealing with the fact that

not only was our relationship fraudulent, transpiring through what at the time

seemed and still feels like were the best years of my life, just to experience

his unexpected disappeaarance in that horrifying way.  In other words, I became

a widow.  He is my dead former spouse.  But the voices of dying spouses live on

in the ears and minds of those they’ve left behind.  Don’t they?  

This has been a meandering stack of information, one in which I have now

quite vulnerably relayed to you that, at 59 years of age, that is, at an age 

when most begin to at least think in earnest of how they will wind down, 

should they have such a luxury, I unfortunately, ever since this incident, have a

need, rather, to wind up.  And of getting the love I currently have who lives

on the other side of the world from there to me.  Or to work with him to 

find a way to find for us a reasonably and contentedly time together in a 

proximal life that is real, or in a way that is a better alternative 

to having a couple of videoconferences and intermittent texts 

spread throughout the day.  To get the chance for regular and real

touch, living as the best way we can, with real intimacy, in the most 

meaningful ways.  Rather than having only two weeks out of six and a half

years in each other’s company, we may then have all or most of a full year

in each other’s company.  Again, I am writing this as a means of relaying, and

also of understanding what I need by articulating myself.  I do this, perhaps

among other reasons, as means for me to understand myself, helping me gather 

motivation and then focus in order move forward in appropriate ways.  All this by

casually letting you in on some of the things I find important in my story 

(why it’s important I do this, and whether this amounts to harrassment, by 

using you, should you, indeed exist, we can talk about some other time, but it

truly is a luxury, a benefit that I am able to do so).  That’s what is on my mind 

and why I have said what I say here on this rather long virtual page.  So I am

appreciative.  Of being able to do exactly this.  Of you being there (whether or 

not you actually are).  And of using this as a means, perhaps as one might a 

diary or antherapist or writing a poem, to solidify a truth that leads to 

implementation of important actions that require establishing or 

editing goals.  For this, I am so apreciative of you.  Perhaps knowing 

a few things about me might be a good thing for you, I cannot say.  

But passing along to you these tidbits of me certainly benefits

me.  It helps me best prepare for a hopeful and adventurous future and 

plays an integral part instilling within me (or helping me adjust) the goals that

are necessary to achieve and the motivation to do my part to make them

happen.  That’s a lot of help.  So please accept my most humble appreciation 

of your participation in what has been a vulnerable yet helpful exercise.