I’m pretty into details. More than most people really.

I’ve been alive 51-years this week.

I have spent 17 married.

I have been single and not really dating anyone for about 4-years since I started having sexual intimacy at about 16 or 17.

I started seeing my best friend in high school in covert way. I think that eventually, my parents knew about it. They didn’t talk to me about it. They said, “Leave your door open.”

The same thing happened with my college roommate.

I wanted to be someone who could pass for what is societally believed to be an average person.

I married a buddy. It’s maybe for the best that he was unambitious and also an alcoholic. I would’ve been married to him for 27-years last month.

I have done best historically when I have had weekly intimate contact.

I also was ok living with my college GF for 3.5-years and until we bought a house, I was fine living with my ex-husband.

When he quit his job, didn’t work for 8-months and the trash was overflowing and I got home from work to make dinner, I fought actively with him. It’s a lot of work to keep up a house, and I was doing everything. Looking back, he was depressed.

I’m reasonably sure that I can retire from these three roles that I am doing in 4-years. I’ve done one for about 25 total, and the other work I started 10-years ago. My plan is to take 5 Master’s classes and get a different license altogether. Then, I think that I can have a few in person clients where I conduct assessments, and because of COVID, I have a good home office that I can use for clients who will Zoom. I want to travel and can’t quite live off my pension, so I’ll need to work. And, I am a really good therapist.

I’m single. I don’t have a GF and she’s doing some boundary probing at the moment which is a pattern with which I am all too familiar in 2 past relationships.

I had therapy last night and vetted what I was thinking and actions that I’m taking and planning. My therapist mused, “Are you positive that you want to be friends with her?” And I am! I just need her to respect my boundaries.

Having a love interest who is over six-thousand miles from you and has been there for nearly three-weeks sucks really bad.

I’ve been slowly seeing how she and I are looking for things that are similar.

I was going to begin solo vacations every summer when the pandemic hit.

I camped and completed a gnarly summit on a rope team in 2016; although, at the time, I was married.

I’m pretty independent and free spirited.

I get so lonely on weekends.

I’m not even interested in doing all the slog that it takes to respond to matches on the app at the moment.

I have this incredibly beautiful woman with whom I began corresponding at the end of June. Now, here we are, walking into love with no physical confirmation. It’s so painful. I have no clue when she’ll fly home, how many minutes I’ll get with her when that time happens, and the only known is that I will have to wait until October 9th or 10th to have sustained time with her.

I think after that, we’ll know what we have and I think that it’s going to affect the way that I’m seeking relationship.

I’ve been leading group with the topic of empathy. I’m practicing that with myself, with my ex, and with Tesoro.

What would you do in my shoes?