Tag Archives: Journey

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Girls

So, I had “coffee” with her yesterday…  Because I get up before 7 everyday and at 5 August – May, I don’t actually take in caffeine often after 10, so I accidentally got there super early because I cannot tell well what the time riding will be when I use my new bike, which is very fast, and then I ate a bagel and drank water and waited.  After she got there, she asked if I wanted anything, got herself some tea, and sat down.  We didn’t talk about business.  I think that she was cognizant of that toward the end of our 1.5 long meeting and she quickly began paging through her binder and highlighting what they did.  Hmm…  She also said, “It’s obvious that you workout,” and didn’t tell me that she had a girlfriend until she was leaving.

Her eyes are gorgeous.  What a beautiful shade of green!  She also has the straightest, whitest teeth and wonderfully contagious smile.  I have to admit that her full lips are nice to watch when she talks.  I have to be honest, I was very glad that she has a girl.  I’m so fucked up about my ex, who I haven’t seen in a long time, and probably it will be two months before I do see her (meaning since the last time that I saw her).  We can explore what we are meant to, but I would be smoking pissed if my girlfriend had an hour and and a half long coffee with some girl who she had obvious good chemistry with and she made a reference to her body.  Let’s recall that she also looked at my boobs when we met at the beginning of May.  Good ego boost.

I need to disclose that I have spent 14-years of my life with Pisces.  I also had a coming out affair with a green eyed professional with the most beautiful mouth in the world (2nd Pisces).  This girl who I am getting to know is NOT a healthy clone of the drunk (also a Pisces.), it’s just the hair color and the soft butch presentation.  The drunk was like my ex.  She was full of shit most of the time and had a sales presentation.  I used to have that, and can affect it when I need to, but the drunk uses her presentation to to control conversation and people in certain respects.  This girl is soft and warm.  She is funny too and open and honest.  I felt funny that she knew very little about me, so I told her about my ex in the street when she was leaving.  I liked the way that she used my name when she left.  I tend to overwhelm Cancers, but I think that I wouldn’t with her and hope that we can hang out socially soon.  We are not business colleagues.

Nobility is going to be my approach.  I am curious when her girl moves for work what shape that will take for her.  I told her my experiences with six-states away, but her girl really does want to settle here.  We shall see how they navigate distance.  We shall also see what it feels like if she and I hang out solo when her girl moves.  I will have to exit after a few hours every night if we are going to meet one on one.  I will also have to honestly deal with my attraction–which as I have dated long enough to know is fed mutually–if it grows.  I don’t know.  I just know that coffee was interesting.

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Incredulous

I am that way because I am highly intuitive and know people prior to them showing me their hands, or even if they don’t want me to know them very well, I still have an accurate sense of who people are and how they will move through situations.  In addition to a good gut-level sense of what is what, I’m also an observer and save questions for times that I really need to ask them or want to get the focus off of me.  She and I are highly unlikely to ever be together again because I tripped some serious shit in her.

She’ll come down for dinner at the end of next month, and again, I will listen, but I will be shocked if I even get to explain why I thought that we should go to counseling.  Oh well, there really isn’t a whole hell of a lot that I can do.  I do think that she’d like a closer friendship than I will give her, but that’s not going to happen because someday I really do want a partner and keeping her that close is the classic lesbian pattern with your ex providing everything.  However, it is not the whole package and given that I took 11-years off from it, I will be ready for it when I am ready to date.   I have best friends, and don’t want another one with the exception of what I really like about being in a relationship!

Anyway, I was thinking too, when I was listening to a song by Vertical Horizon how interesting it is that we assign qualities of a deity to our lovers.  She does not, in fact, know what I’m thinking.  I don’t think she wonders about it much either.  She is just paralyzed by the fact that I could be lost to her.  I won’t do that.  I will stay in her life, but not at the expense of me.  Warm and honest, and the truth serum is my approach.  I don’t know if we will shift back into each other’s arms ever again, but I would like to have what I always found to be funny, and that is a “healthy breakup.”

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Naked

There is this song by the BoDeans that talks about being completely vulnerable, and the song title is the namesake of this post.  I figured that I would get some readership given the obsession with sex that American society has, but really to have excellent sex with someone you are also expressing some sort of vulnerability or connection with the other person.  A friend of mine sent me a Ted link today, which a presentation by a Social Work Professor in TX, and she said that in order to actually connect to another person, you must embrace completely that you are worthwhile.

I am worthwhile, and I don’t feel ashamed that I gave my whole soul and told many personal things that I had not expressed previously during my most recent relationship.  I took risks.  I have grown.  I have refined what I want and my psychologist (Who I pay) told me that I’m getting closer.  I think that I’m there and when I meet her, I will just know, and we will connect and build what we want and can attain.

Possibility

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Promise

There are some days that are just harder than others.  The thing that struck me as most odd was the stark contrast to yesterday.  My friend and I literally laughed our asses off and we went for about 33-miles on a ride around the city.  It was phenomenal as was our lunch that we cooked.  Yesterday rocked.  Today was bad.

I got tons of sleep.  I lifted weights.  I braved the heat for three-miles on my bike.  I walked a little.  My friend made me breakfast and I took a cup of coffee with her.  However, I missed my son as soon as I got up and couldn’t stomach going to a Happy Hour solo for some reason.  Then she HeyTell’ed me a couple of times.  I was courteous and wished her a good evening, but I’m not saying goodnight.  At some point, she will have to realize that she is not my girlfriend and that the friend conversion is just bizarre.  Maybe in a year, but seriously, how do you pretend that you don’t get visuals of things that would make me flush from the face down to type?

I’m reminded of the on-again, off-again story that I got in detail that fateful weekend that I just drove home in the middle of the night.  She and her most recent partner did that.  That is her M.O.  It is NOT mine.  When I’m done, I’m done.  No matter what she does two to four weeks from now when she is down here for dinner will not lead her into my bed.  If she wants me, not only does she always have to come to me for some time, but she also has to commit to some couples counseling.  I’ll be shocked if she actually goes to dinner.

I have so many plans tomorrow.  I’m hiding from my cell phone all day starting at 8:30 am.  One of my friends is home before she starts school on the West Coast, so we are having dinner at my house.  I won’t be rude and even be around my phone.  I may or may not check it before I got to bed.  That will make this next day superior.  I’m really a lucky person and know that sometimes there are just simply shit days.  And it’s summer, so the sun will shine tomorrow.

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Shift

Not the microbrew; although, I hope that my friend brings a four-pack of it today so we can have it after our ride.  We will probably do about 30-miles today and I’m feeling very, very good.  I am very much with the wave of momentum, and moving forward with my life and made it crystal clear to my ex that I won’t put up with her shit anymore.  She is coming down to dinner in July.

I’m having coffee–the girl made it perfectly clear that’s what it was–next week to work out some details of the committee work that she wants me to do for a state professional organization with the girl whose number I got as a coup.  I will tell you that when initially she had asked me if I was licensed and she said that she needs a secretary, I could only think of Maggie Gyllenhaal on her hands and knees with memos in her mouth.  Hee-hee.

This woman is a healthy clone of the drunk though.  Down to many physical details, and I need to be circumspect this time around, and she wants a professional relationship.  To be perfectly honest as well, I didn’t even look at her ass when I met her, so that’s not a good sign for my attraction.  I need more lesbian friends.  Also, I want to do tons of professional networking because it helps the profession and because I don’t want to move for internship.

I’m going to crash a women’s happy hour tomorrow too.  My one friend who’s gay can’t go because she is working a swing shift, so I will solo fly.  I want to ride bikes with them anyway and I think that they do other stuff too.  Again, I’m expanding my  horizons and looking around until I find a girl who I want to date.  I’m going in cautiously initially, but when I find a nice and sexy one, I will be open and hopeful.  My heart is free!

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Consistency

So, she did call me to talk through a situation.  She also rapid fired a whole bunch of questions at me about what’s been going on and I just described my day and my weekend plans.  She told me that she wanted to talk to me about a professional question and said that she’d “love to pick my brain,” but as we talked, it became obvious that she had weird expectations.  I can definitely consult about behavior problems and what I recommend is empirically validated and will work.

What I can’t do is ignore the elephant in the room and that is that she expects an instant friendship.  That is bizarre.  We don’t have anything and she has never honored a f2f chat with me so we can end things on a better note.  She said about two-weeks ago that it is because she would want to have sex with me.  Well, sex is consensual and I would not want to have it with her.  She is not honest or consistent, and after we hung up she texted several times that she just wanted a friend.  I told her that she has tons of friends and we are undefined.  I also told her that she asked for a professional consult, that she never has seen me in a month because she’s “too busy,” and that I have no idea what we are and what she wants from me.

She’ll contact me again.  I won’t text back.  I will ask for a phone time and directly ask her what her expectations are.  I will also ask her again if she’s in love with me and would go to counseling.  If those questions are no, then we can take a year’s worth of space and then after that time has elapsed, if she wants to contact me, she can.  Just like these past few weeks, I won’t be contacting her again.  I haven’t and I won’t.  I do wonder if I’m in love with her anymore.  Last night was bizarre and there is no way that I would even want to touch her when I’m the covert “friend” who she wanted to catch up with under the guise of a professional question.  I mean what I say and say what I mean and expect that from my friends and want that in my love relationship.

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Happy Soltice

So, of course it’s two-days in a row with texting…  It’s an occupational hazard that I have actually, and this request from her is legitimate, and I am glad to use my brain and she can make phone contact if she wants more information than the rather academic stuff that I included in text.  All in her court.  I noticed that she has a close up pic of herself in shorts and a sportsbra for her profile pic right now, so she is obviously adding “friends” quickly for later coups when she is ready to date again.  Good for her.

When she told me that she needs time to sort herself out first and then decide what she wants last week, I took the wish with her name that I had written on a journal page (One of my MH partners told me that this is a method of communicating with the Universe) and burned it.  It lit quickly and burned to about a 2-inch square and when I unfolded that, I noticed that there was no writing left.  So, that is pretty clear if I’m communicating with the Universe.

So, what I am doing is beginning to network with outdoor types of women and I’m attending a going away party tomorrow.  I won’t have had a facial, but I can cover my roots.  Although I don’t feel open to dating per se, I do feel ready to hang out with some new girls.  I want to see if my heart can move again, and don’t want temporal parameters on that, and trust that it will when it is meant to.

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Worth it

I guess that’s what I’ve come to ultimately, and it’s that I want to be valued enough that when differences occur or there are some things that need to be addressed in this “relationship” that we just do it.  I don’t want to be criticized and definitely don’t want my son to be looked at like “a psych experiment.”  I think that when you are done, you reflect on things that you let go or ignored.  She actually said that once.  I think she is actually fairly fucked up and still hold that she is the queen of projection and displacement.

I had a dear friend over for dinner last night.  She is actually a lesbian too, and I only have one friend who is close to me who is.  She works constantly, so we aren’t super close.  The occasion was that she is moving out of state–to the West Coast.  It was so great to see her.  I told her that my ex and I didn’t really work and also told her how we met, and then casually chimed in about her having difficulties with my son.  Her huge eyes got bigger.  She told me over and over what an amazing kid he is and how lucky I am.  There are probably many reasons that my ex and I didn’t work out.

Of course she texted me during dinner and now has questions in her non-questions.  I briefly answered it this morning and although there is no salutation in text, I said, “Have a good day.”  She’ll never come down for dinner, and I know that I knew that when that is what I offered for us seeing each other.

I told my friend last night that I want more lesbians in my life, and she said, “Why?  They are cliquey and never respect new relationships.”  I told her my partner is not likely to grow out of straight girls who I have known most my life, and she said, “I don’t have any problem meeting women.”  Not that I’m in the market.  My heart is healing.  However, I remembered meeting (kind of) my ex’es’ friends and they were cold to me.  She has a group of lesbian moms who she hangs out with, and I could care less who likes me so I just ignored them.  If I was worth it to her, we’d have hung out with her friends during our 8-months.  We didn’t approach a relationship balanced at all.  I don’t want to contact her, know that she’ll continue to contact me, but will just let whatever fade and trust that I won’t run into her for a long time.  How odd what not only transpired, but what we have become.

 

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Golden Silence

It’s really golden to not get contact, and I know that because I said that she should come to me if she wants to see me, she won’t.  Want to know why?  I think that I do.  Because if she can’t control the parameters and things are not as she is used to, which is coming to her when you need something from her, she doesn’t feel comfortable or does she want it.

Now, there isn’t any intrusiveness.  I do my thing and she makes no contact.  It’s today that I realize that she won’t either.  She will contact me again in the fall.  When those colors abound and she remembers her son crawling through the leaves, mine throwing them with sticks and dirt, and us sharing that moment where we loved each other very truly and very deeply and looked at each other in another silent moment.  However, that one was different than the emotion that is yielded by silence now.

I love this song.  It is exactly what I’m thinking as of late as I can’t move much due to injury and am both contemplative and full of dreams for my future with the right woman.   I want to just be with a girl, and not overthink, and I definitely want a woman who takes what I say at face value and doesn’t dissect my words.  I have integrity and I embrace truth.  Looking back on my last five years, I have not settled, and I won’t.  There is a girl who is smart, sexy, fit, funny, and is ready to love me and my son.

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Momentum

I have some injuries that are external and what is interesting to me is that they both came to the surface today.  Today was the day that she told me that she just needs more time and that she doesn’t have it, so she has no expectations.  I think that is the let you down easy e-mail, but not to put a finer point on it, all I had asked is if she was still in love with me and would go to counseling?  I didn’t ask anything else and I drove home nearly three weeks ago when she was too “sick and tired” to have sex after we hadn’t the night before either.  It’s simple.  She does not see me as a priority.  That’s fine.  I can bounce.

So, my quadricep looks like someone has burst Easter Egg dye under it from the knee up, and my big toe is loosing the toenail on the other foot.  Both of these areas were killing me since last Wednesday, and today, it is obvious due to disgustingness and the pools of blood under the other that they are starting to heal.  I don’t believe in coincidences, so I know that it is me who was carrying around pain and now; although, it still does hurt to walk, I will heal.  I think that I can sit on a bike seat, so a friend of mine and I are going to take a long bike ride tomorrow.

She was shocked (again) when I said, “OK.  Glad that you have thought through as much as you have time for.  Best wishes and have a good summer.”  She wants to hang out, but I know that she won’t because I sure as hell will not drive up there and know that when the plans are not hers that she will not follow through.  I would be astonished if she came down here for dinner–although I am an excellent cook–so in a couple of weeks she’ll say, “Meet me halfway for a bike ride,” and I will tell her the truth.  It seems stupid to put your bike in a car, waste gas, and then have to drive back.  I’ll use the ample trails that I have which begin feet from my door, and I also plan on doing more road biking with my son’s Godfather who can mentor me.

We shall see…  I am pretty sure that I get her.  I’m going back to hang time to get over her.  Remember in “In the Bedroom” when the father’s hand heals?  Maybe when most of the purple fades from my wrecked thigh or I have new growth on the other injury that I’m sporting, I can say, “It’s over.”  Right now, I hurt, am still moving, but will be nothing but honest with myself.

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The Right One

I wonder if anyone truly keeps a relationship together.  I know one happy married couple, and they moved from here with their one son in 2008, and they have since had one more, so my boy and I lost some wonderful playdate potential when that occurred.  They still seem happy given posts on a social networking site, but I don’t really know because the days of our walks around the park and then coming home and watching our boys play until her partner got off work in the summer are over because they have been gone 4-years.  I knew another happily wed dyad, but they were in mediation last Thursday.  She fell out of love with him and he is behaving really badly now and has decided to sleep with her former best friend.  Their divorce will probably finalize before 2012 is gone.

I could have remained in that state of unhappiness.  We were not intimate and we were either silent or we argued, and this pattern lasted about 4 or 5-years, I believe.  Two separations and the final one was permanent in 2007.  That’s not what I’m looking for though, and I’d rather have some lasting connection that also includes sex.

She told me that we could talk f2f.  Having been angry with me because I don’t contact her much, she had left me a why bother VM while I was cleaning up on Sunday.  I had taken a quick 15-mile bike ride to warm up my body and then got back before church and jumped in the shower.  So, we talked for a sec when I called her back, and I said that I would call her in the evening and asked what would be a good time.  She told me that she couldn’t say and just to call her, but she wound up calling me when I left my kickball game early.  We made plans to see each other by meeting in between.

About two-and-half-hours later she cancelled because she said that we didn’t have a toolbox for seeing each other and that nothing has changed.  It hurt.  In fact, I’ve been crying off and on at intervals anyway, because that’s what I do now, and that is hurt.  I found out later that she was worried that we would have sex in her car, and doesn’t want that element.  I definitely gathered the latter on Memorial Day weekend.  I don’t even fully enjoy social stuff and would rather either be alone or talking with my son.  One of my best friends took me out, and then we went back to her house too on Sunday.  She is cooking dinner for my son and I tonight, but I’m so weary of this dance after nearly 5-years.  I’m ready to cook and be cooked for and live with a girl.  Joan Osborne says, “And you ask me to convince you that you won’t blow away.”  That’s a tall order…  Maintaining love and connection.

I think that keeping a relationship together requires honest and open conversations that probably should occur a couple times a week.  What I’ve noted is that I piss a girl off, and she tells me about it later after I’ve already fucked more things up.  With the drunk, we didn’t really fight, because we were quickly stagnant.  We didn’t really have any passion.  I do understand that passion comes with a price, because you will fight like that too, but I’m looking for the ability to move through conflict and to just say, “Let’s do our best to stay together in this rather wild world.”

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Waiting game

If you say that you are going to consider something, by now, it should mostly be considered.  It’s been 10-days, and she thinks that she can tell me that taking what I wrote paragraph by paragraph is a new way, but it’s really a new way to push and pull.  That’s what it is, because frankly, it’s a new approach to keeping me in the queue.  The thing is that if some girl touched me, I’d shrink away, so it’s not that it matters in the grand scheme of things, but it does matter in terms of my feeling like I’m the one she wants.  I worry that I’m not.

I should have taken a picture yesterday.  We had a somewhat harrowing ride up a windy Mt road–at least it was paved–complete with good views, but tons of drop-offs and when my son’s Godmother and my buddy from work got out, we had trouble standing.  We were at the trailhead!  It was also freezing and I didn’t have either set of gloves and couldn’t keep my hat on to save my life.  We took the same windblown ride back down, found a park in a nearby town and did just over 8-miles of a hike.  If I dodge another Mt Biker this summer though, it shall be too soon.  I think that I’ll need to order new boots though, as I did something terrible to my left toe.  If I feel around in the footbeds today in my old, tried and true boots, and they feel compressed, I’ll order some today and wear one pair of socks on Wednesday.

We didn’t go to the top of the little peak.  We were tired and the day was odd and didn’t entail what we’d planned.  I swear if we summit on Wednesday, a snowstorm is going to come rolling through rather quickly.  It was pretty and good girl bonding.  They both told me to proceed with caution.  Here was one of our views:

I don’t want to be cautious.  I just want to know if we can go to couple’s counseling and if she thinks that we could get married NEXT summer.  That’s it.  I’m done messing around.  I don’t want to live alone anymore, as 5-years have yielded tons of growth and transformation.  Now, I am really ready for a partner, and would love to raise two to three kids.

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Gentle Cycle

I don’t know how exactly we came up with it when we talked for two-hours last night, but it’s true.  It’s not that we lost sweetness, it’s that we lost being delicate with one another and that certainly is mutual.  I explained to her that navigating January and February, which didn’t have that committed in a long-term feel to me made me unsteady, so it seemed sorted by March.  However, let’s be honest, if it’s June and I’m still grasping for the whys, it is not at all nipped or tucked.

I was talking about being delicate, and I said something like we need that delicate cycle and she made the washing machine analogy about being gentle.  That means that we need to rid ourselves of the old exchange too, and for some reason she hangs on to it.  I don’t get that.  It has that back and forth quality too, which as I have written, I can’t stand.  I get that we are a product of what we have seen and experienced in our family of origin, but I just think that moving forward based on what one wants is healthy and good.

I just come back to the fact that we need therapy to continue.  She doesn’t trust me, and has said so, which is based on an e-mail that I sent at the beginning of last October (before we had even slept together) and thinks that one more bad fight would destroy the chance for a friendship even.  I don’t see it that way.  At some point around the first of the year, she made the conscious decision to push me away, and then when she does, she can’t deal and misses me desperately.  We can work this situation out and learn to communicate well, or we can’t.  If she won’t go, we can’t continue with relationship contact and will need to just take some space.  I will hurt, but love does, right?

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Worn Out

I tried a longer than I should have hike with my climbing partner yesterday…  When we got to the ridge line and could see the peak, we didn’t have much left.  There were a lot of factors and his poor dog was actually bleeding on his pads, so we did turn back.  I was pretty rubbery in my legs given the stress that we had to get there, and really too unsteady on the ridgeline to continue, but I always feel incredible with that level of exertion afterward.  Right now, I’m groggy because we had severe storms last night and I was up for an hour in the middle of the night and was sore from hiking straight up 10-miles.  Coffee and doing very little will help, and then with my new found energy, I will clean and pay bills.  I’ll include some scenery here:

I had a good day with the guy who is like my little brother though, and hope for many more over the next two months.  I’m getting back up high on Saturday with my son’s godmother as well.  I ought to have a good focus for the next several weeks and hope that I can take this energy into August with me.

I wish that she would examine with me what can be corrected and get very real about what she wants.  I know that regardless of what would transpire this next year, that we need some professional guidance because of the level of dissonance that she is caught in with respect to wanting a relationship and then being unable to navigate the stress that being in one causes her.  I can’t explore anything with her unless a couple hours a month are spent in couples work.  I’d like to say that I can take her back, but I can’t with her lack of understanding that I just don’t want sex, I want connection with her and can’t see weekly a corpse.

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Thinking of what once was

Maybe it’s harder to put the nail in the coffin rather than have a woman tell you to fuck off.  I don’t know…  I can tell you that after her texting me over and over and starting it all at 7, and telling me that she would be relentless until I get it, put me in the most messed state that I have ever been in to date.  Makes my coming out affair, which also meant that I had to tell the world that I’m gay, and switching jobs, single parenting, and living alone except for my 21-month-old all within 4-months seem manageable.  I can’t stop crying and it’s totally fucked when what her texts and phone calls have yielded is that she still is in love with me and this will be the choice that I forever regret.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-W-yA_gtmDo

I have no idea.  I just can’t navigate the push-pull anymore.  I want someone into me and open with me when I trigger her.  I’ll be the first to admit that I’m abrasive and straightforward.  I need a girl who asks me questions or puts the halt on me right away.  I feel like she tends to just use things later anyway.  It’s like an attorney or detective who is looking for evidentiary support for why she wins.  I don’t want a competition.  I just want to work with a partner.  I sure as hell don’t want to feel like this much longer, but I won’t be taking her back.

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Dating: My Retrospective

I had to throw out a whole pot of coffee this morning.  It was a great metaphor.  I used to be too weak.  I’d put up with shit for a long, long time in relationships that I just shouldn’t have.

I realized that I should send my five-year saga into the world today to stop giving it energy over me.  I think that it will help.  Prior to 2007, the only thing that had happened is that I had two covert gfs.  One in high school and one in college–both of whom I was “caught” with–then this buddy of mine fell in puppy (non-lasting) love with me and pursued me for quite some time, so the second time he asked me to marry him, I consented, told myself that five-and-a-half-years of my life was “experimentation” and then was married to a man for 9-years.  Then, as I had written in earlier entries, folks who had not seen me in awhile would say, “______, is married?!?  To a man?!?!?!?”

My coming out affair started when I touched her hand and thought, “Boy, do I have to avoid you!”  So, I did avoid her, but since I worked with her, I had “dealings” with her and I had to do things electronic or interoffice mail.  When I would have to greet her, I wouldn’t make eye contact, so I wouldn’t feel my pulse come out of my chest.  I didn’t have to work directly with her for two-and-a-half-years so it was ok.  She was at the office Christmas party about ten-months before I ever slept with her and she was in a black suit and was pretty thin, so I went up to her and said, “You look skinny and beautiful.”  And she said, “I love you,” which would become a joke later when we were together.

I booted my ex-husband nine-months after that party (We had been separated before we had our son three years earlier and he lived in another state for four-months.) and then she and I started a red hot affair three-weeks later.  She dumped me and tore out my heart, because it was a coming out affair and nothing like hs or college antics.  She was not a bi-curious straight girl who could feel my gayness, but she was a real lesbian, and then I knew right then, that I was too.  I think that after a divorce, you have a rebound.  Mine was a gay rebound, so I had to face who I really was, and then embrace it.

I did lots of shitty, sexless dating for a full year, because I struggled picking up the pieces of my heart.  She did cause heartbreak, because it was the first time, albeit silly love, that I really felt love.  She and I had a December full of push-pull and the last time we slept together was a few days before the New Year.  (I have a four stage entry that is really, really long about the whole journey.)  What really sticks with me were her green eyes as she left my bedroom after we had made love (for the last time) over and over, and she said, “I’m not convinced that this ever needs to happen again.”  She left.  The only thing that she would tell me is that she never wanted to be a mother, and that she was so far past being “anyone’s dirty little secret anymore.”  I didn’t even see her until the following weekend, and she only would talk to me on the phone about twice a week, instead of every single night as she had done for about 4-months.

Then it was over a year of dating all the Ms. Wrongs and Not-Even-Closes, and I was celibate.  I rarely smiled, got really skinny, and did other self-destruction.  My energy was saved for parenting my son and that was all that I did with passion.  Next, a year and a week later, entered my Cowgirl.  We had a “lesbian one night stand,” so it lasted two weekends.  Here is what I wrote about her when I realized that she and I couldn’t really date, because it was a mismatch:

“You get bent out of shape when I text you twice in the same day–weird.” “You have only had a ten-month relationship prior to now, and that was with a woman whose girlfriend was overseas at the time–weird.” “You don’t give me a single compliment.” There were also some other things that are superficial that would be even odder to mention, so I didn’t. I did tell her rather diplomatically that I was looking forward to seeing a woman last weekend admidst my final classes of one particular course that I’m finally done taking. However, she did not understand that when I said, “I want to be your friend,” that I really did mean just that.  Plus, we were just investigating in person chemistry and she wasn’t a gf.  I had been e-mailing one woman who I found intriguing, but she was bizarre.  Enter, the Gemini:

I wound up feeling really empty, so I e-mailed this other woman a rather ballsy thing that I wouldn’t do typically that I thought would shut down our communication… I said, “Do you want to grab coffee or a beer?” and she said, “Yes.” She showed up too. We dated for two-months and I did like her.  She was an outdoor person, a musician, and hot as shit.  Plus, she was into me.  But, she didn’t manage stress well, so she dumped me when we went on a hike.  Here it is:

I told her that a lot of her stress is coming from her work. She has a big deal in two weeks, which will involve her ex-girlfriend, her sister with whom she is extremely close, and is reminiscent of her deceased father. I also told her that it seemed like all of this between she and I was too soon, for a variety of reasons. I also told her that I had been nothing but respectful to her, and she acknowledged that it had been “all her,” in terms of making moves sexually. I’m not actually sure if she is able to be a consistent person even when she is not in the throes of this much stress. It has a flavor that leaves me full of caution.

I did, and I’m glad about this statement, tell her that I would not have been contacting her so frequently had she not held me under the stars three weeks ago and whispered that “Sunday was a long time away,” and she said, “I’m not saying that I’m right.” It wasn’t a competition, but two weeks before had confused me when she called me every night, and I said as much. I told her that I wanted to tell her something and that I didn’t want to sound patronizing. She said “Say it.” I told her that this whole interaction over the past three weeks had made me approach her with such hypervigilance that I was worried about saying it, but she told me that it was fine. I told her that I hoped that she could get healthy, because right now, she has too much going on.  I drove home and was angry, but I didn’t date her again; although, she wanted to.

Two months later, the drunk comes into my life.  We had a very fun summer fling in 2009, but it should have stopped there and would have had I not had one of the most stressful falls that I have ever had, but she contacted me on New Year’s Eve, and I had before called off a stupid friendship with her because she was not monogamous, which I could have cared less about because it was a summer fling and I really just wanted a steady stream of sex that summer, and we had no foundation for friendship.  No contact for three-months, and I was fine.  However, she broke up with this girl who pressured her to become exclusive only to three-months later text me.  I think that was because she had seen me two weeks earlier.  I had written this:

So I finally saw the woman who I slept with all summer an hour or so ago. It was odd, because I didn’t care at all. It was weird for a minute and then I settled into the bar and it didn’t matter at all. She could have been a girl who I merely met a couple of times, but it was even less warm, and I slept with her all summer and she disclosed lots of personal stuff to me. The oddest thing is that a bar owner who I know was at this cowboy bar and told my friend and I to come to her bar and we would not have to pay a cover, so we did after an hour or so, and then she was there as well–feeding the jukebox.

She was merely standing there, alone, feeding the jukebox; although there was a DJ, and she was also half-heartedly watching hockey while nearly everyone in the place was dancing. I know this is my stuff, and not her stuff, but it seriously made me wonder what she will be doing in 5-years? Sipping tequila, and getting loaded in her early 40s is a strong possibility. We didn’t talk at this location and had a stilted hug and odd interactions at the first bar.

Another interesting element is that I was just getting some bravado and telling my friend that I needed another f-buddy. I don’t need that! Absolute indifference to someone who I know way too much about and does not know shit about me… I really don’t want this level of indifference and do not desire to become apathetic. It is interesting to me, but very weird. I guess she didn’t get that job in the southeast as she is still here.

However, she did eventually get a different job, and we then did distance, which I stopped wanting to do after three-months, but we had invested money in hotels and plane trips, so I didn’t.  I didn’t want to move.  I love where I live, and then I realized that it was not that she hated it here and drank to cope, it was just that she really was an alcoholic.  She is loaded all of the time.  I’m not dating a drunk.

I met my first love right afterward.  My ex still has my heart and it is going to take some time.  What’s good is that sublimation can happen right now because I have a lot of work in my yard and doctorate, and my son is taking a theater camp, so he will have a school schedule, so I can also follow a schedule after dropping him off in a few weeks.  I’m going to chart out my whole summer and part-time work.  I’m excited and I know that it will be the best summer that I’ve ever had.  I will be free of her saying that I lack compassion, whereas, I think that I have been nothing but patient with her for five-months, and just can’t do that dance anymore.  I want to be single, or have someone who is completely into me and wants to rip my clothes off.  I will do either and this is the path that I’m currently on.  I did a lot of weird dating before I got here, and in my last relationship, I was completely in love, gave my whole heart, and I have NO regrets.

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Through Memorial Day

I didn’t need the whole weekend, and I doubt that anyone is surprised.  I had my suspicions on Thursday when she made some omissions and didn’t know immediately that I would know that she changed the garage code and offered me her cheek instead of kissing and hugging me.  I wound driving home tonight because when she moved into her spare bedroom, and I told her and meant, “I’m not kicking anyone out of her own bed.”  That she left me countless HeyTells saying how “shocked” she was and how I withdrew too soon is just part of what is our never ending cycle.  I have a friend who describes this type of imbalance as beckoning a girl with your right index finger with your arm drawn close and bent at the elbow all the while pushing your left arm completely out with the palm up (Like the quintessential STOP).  It’s like, “Come here while I push you away.”

That we biked for nearly 30-miles today and then the “I’m too sick to have sex with you,” card was played left me hurt.  You can bike 26-miles, but can’t muster any energy at any point in the day to have sex?  No, you’re just not into me, and you rather like push pull because you are always in a state of grieving and stress.  However, sex will burn stress.  But, if you’re all mixed up in your emotions about someone you can use any excuse not to do it, you can still get a charge out of being wanted.

The day was nice.  We had lots of laughs, time outside, the good bike ride, she bought me dinner, but there wasn’t any passion for each other.  She always tells me that I’m a sex maniac, and I don’t know how that can be construed because I had not had any in a week and that was initiated by her when she was sick and then she proceeded to tell me tonight how terrible she felt all week having not slept when she left my house.  I do want to make love when I haven’t seen someone in a week, and have not really connected passionately in 18-days, and I know that there is a woman who would not find that a dysfunctional request.

She is perpetually triggered by the way I say things, what my life is going to entail for the next 15-months, and gets cold and withdrawn.  I can’t navigate it.  All of her messages say that I gave up too soon and that she is an amazing lover, but the latter eludes me.  I hadn’t seen that since December.  We had a good three-months and the first five of this year involve too much of seeing what I can tolerate only to have her communicate with me and get me back.  However, I won’t go back no matter what the apology.  Honestly, I will be floored if she didn’t contact me in the next several weeks.  I will not contact her, because she is not what I’m looking for and makes me feel bad.  Tonight, she made me feel like she didn’t find me attractive too.  I just can’t.

I don’t want a friendship with her…  Period.  She lives far away and does stuff to the Nth degree, so I would even see her at sporting events or the like, because we wouldn’t compete in the same division.  Although it was fun to ride with her, I don’t want to spend time with her on bikes because it is going to take a lot for me to completely fall out of love with her.  I’m not one for self-abuse.  She said that I’m not ok with off days, but really, since January, that has been mostly what we’ve had.  The on days were rare.  It is good that we reconnected and decided that we don’t work, but I’m really looking for a bit more sweetness and ease.

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Synchronicity

I was thinking about Pat Benatar (Thus my subject line in this post, which evokes her box set.) earlier in the day because I’m going to sing on Friday night.  I am going to do that too, and am committing it to the Internet now so that I have accountability.  What could happen is just tons of sex and never leaving the house, but I want to go out, and think that if we can really make a fresh start, we should date.  Like really date.  We don’t do that.  With the infrequency that we can see each other we mainly wind up having sex for hours and hours and then not sleeping much, which kills her because she only gets two nights off and her son is MUCH younger than mine and has crummy sleep patterns.  My boy is at an easy and fun age.  I can sleep when I’m not nursing microbrews and staying up waaaay too late.  People who tell you that 0 – 3 is great should be at least maimed.  They are probably telling you that because they want to delude themselves into thinking that raising children is fulfilling 24-7.  Newsflash…  It is ANOTHER ft job.  That’s the plan for Friday (karaoke), but clearly the universe is putting ex’s and suitors into the lives of those who I know (and me) as of late, so I’m brought to my next topic, which in a slightly buzzed state shall be more stream of consciousness that my usual voice (fair warning).

So, one of my friends from MS who knows my real ex (not to be construed with the woman who I thought was my ex who I’d give anything to make love to tonight, but have to wait 2-more days to have) had this guy drop off the face of the earth for weeks and he just reconnected with her.  I don’t trust that he will stick though, because he presents like a flake per her descriptors.  My BFF who lives in the same state as my buddy from MS is falling in love with this guy (Sorry, many of my friends are str8.) who is being super casual with her right now and is at a breaking point with him–which was like my holding pattern in early 2010–with my real ex–and she is messed about him, but her ex in addition to several other “dark horses” not-so-much in the running, are suddenly and concurrently texting her.  And  while we were talking about that via phone last night, my REAL ex e-mailed me.  She e-mailed me because my BFF took my I-thought-you-were-an-ex off her Friends List and my real ex is kinda stalker-ish and scary.  No contact since Christmas Eve.  And then her e-mail comes through right when I’m talking to my BFF who is falling in love and doesn’t want to (with Mr. Casual).  Lovely.  I have never mentioned that my real ex is now armed, have I?  Even better!

So, I needed my girlfriend.  Not my ex.  She is my girlfriend, even if she is so scared of me and taking a chance.  She called me and we talked it through.  She thinks that I need to sleep on the unsettling, and not-so-out of the blue e-mail and then approach her with compassion.  As it is me, I don’t think I’ll engage, but I will know tomorrow.  I know in my heart that because my BFF took my current girlfriend off of her social networking friends list last week that my ex now thinks she can get back into dating me.  That is crazy.  1) She is a drunk.  2) She is pretty scary and I’m glad that she lives 6-states away from my son and I.  3) She thinks I am single and is contacting me now, and 4) She is armed.

No full moon, but ex’s coming out of the woodwork and suitors wanting to all get their game on with the women who I know.  My girlfriend’s ex-partner “dropped in” on her last Tuesday (We had reconnected intimately that Monday) and tried to talk to her about her failing marriage.  My girlfriend approaches her with compassion, but it is weird that she dropped in the day after we decided that calling it quits was not an option.  Furthermore, all of this relationship dissension is bizarre.  I’ll look at the patterns tomorrow after I sleep.  This week is weird, weird, weird.

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Expectations

I think that this time around in addition to being more free and easy, we need to maximize seconds that we have with each other and really appreciate the gift that it is to be in each other’s company.  I don’t think that she knows me that well, which is funny, because when we leave for our little break, we will have been together for 8-months less our two week (and some change) hiatus.  She thinks that I distract myself with girls when I have had a breakup and has no clue how funny I am.  At this point, showing each other a good and fun side of each other is critical, I think.

I hope that we go out…  I think it will be good for her to see me interacting with other people, and if I run into girls who I know, I am witty and people tend to keep me talking.  I know that she hasn’t been exposed to a girl like me and her two partners needed her.  I want her and sometimes really need her arms around me, but I’m independent and really fine on my own less the libido issues that I have.  Is this approach and manner that I operate confusing?  I’m sure it is odd.

Spending time down here is a good thing too.  I’m glad that we will be in the city and can crash at my house.  I don’t love driving long distances or being in my car.  Not my thing.  My things are:

1. Laughing

2. Playing outside

3. Keeping things neat

4. Talking to my friends

5. Having some alone time for contemplation each day

Above all though, I want a woman to want me above all and have complete passion for me.  I would not say that the barrage of complaints have already begun, and thank God, because it’s been one week, but she was short yesterday and still jumps to conclusions about me.  I’ll just see.  I want this date–and I’m grateful that it is a real date that won’t be cancelled–and then when we go away, I want to see what comes about.  However, if I feel even a slight push-pull or that I am a partial punching bag, I’m going to bounce and be firm about space.  I like falling in love.  I want to stay there.

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Looking for difference

So, she had texted and HeyTell’ed in the morning, and while I responded she figured that since I was unable to sleep after we talked for two-hours the night before, that I would want nothing to do with her.  I think that a major difference between she and I is that she goes with a particular and makes all kinds of assessments based on it and then quickly derives a decision.  I might do that with shoes, a dress, or even my bike, but I don’t do that in any other area of my life.  I knew when I woke up that I was still in love with her.

So, I called her and we talked all the way into my work and then I sat in my parking lot for another 45-minutes.  I won’t lie and say that the convo was without tension.  She really came unhinged when I told her that I talked to a girl and got her number.  (Later she did realize that reaction was strange as we were completely broken up, and she apologized.)  Again, because I’m writing I must be honest.  I liked that she was still so very much in love with me, and that she missed me so desperately.  Later she admitted this in  a raw and naked e-mail.

I went back to saying that we could not share space because it would be sexual.  She e-mailed that maybe there wasn’t anything wrong with that, but that we had to consider things.  I had completely accepted her apology and continued to think about what had happened to three sisters who I know when they lost their mother.  It is just not normal to loose your mother or father until you are in your 40s or 50s and if it happens when you are young, you do some things that are uncharacteristic afterward and most especially within those first few weeks of shock.  Could it be that she was right when she had told me Sunday night that she really is that person who I fell in love with last fall?  Could the first few months of this year be truly colored by grief and then our mutually-fed fervor of future?  The latter should just organically work out after a year or so, right?

God, I did want her.  There is an intimacy that we share that borders on something that is pure and is otherworldly.  I had e-mailed her yesterday about our lovemaking–I will point out was after Monday–which borders on transcendence.  And it does.  She is on business this week, but didn’t fly out until yesterday morning, so she said that she could meet me at my house Monday afternoon.  I took two hours of sick leave and held her for a long, long time in my livingroom.  I could feel her muscles under her thin and soft leather jacket and after a long period, I kissed her neck and found her mouth.  That level of passion is like nothing.  I used to think that things like that were bullshit made up for media (movies, songs, etc.), but with her it is a derivative of our connection.  We had about an hour and used it well.

Now, she is not here, but we have gone back to contact.  But, she’s different.  There is no jealousy and resentment.  I think that we can get something new that is not spurned on by what we’d like five-years from now.  Immediacy is the only area in which we can operate.  I will certainly honor that and do believe that with distance it is hard not to hurt, but the trade-off is passionate love.  Who can really say that they have that?

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16-days

I hadn’t seen my ex in 16-days, and I hadn’t had a single interaction with her in 12-days.  She kept up the contact, and I knew that she was being driven slightly crazy because I would not respond to anything that she texted, e-mailed, or HeyTell’ed.  Then I had something very odd happen to me, which occurred in church.

Having woken up on Sunday morning, and realizing that despite my “single” status, I was not going to be able to date anytime soon, I decided that the girl who I met was a mere distraction and someone who I could tell my friends that I could date if I wanted to, but wasn’t ready to do the leg work.  In truth, although she texted me later that morning, I don’t have it in me to pursue and do all the “getting to know you” stuff at this juncture.  So for that Sunday, I was going to work in my yard, and then spend sooooo much time in church.  I texted the girl who I had met that right away too.  So, it was then the day of church.  I had mine–I read stuff for the service there–a class at my church, and then was attending a night service in a dear friend’s church.

My friend goes to what is a traditional and progressive church in an fairly upper-class neighborhood.  I did like how easy it was for me to fall back on what had been familiar to me in terms of my original faith, but I found it academic and political in terms of how “queer” focused it’s parishioner-base clearly was.  I had a good time though, and the minister is beautiful and charismatic.  I was clearly “the single girl” there with my friend and her husband, and women were looking at me.  I suppose that always feels good.

During the service, I prayed for my ex and her son.  I knew that I had forgiven her of her treatment of me.  I wanted her and her son to be happy and healthy.  I got done with my participation and time there and I got in my car, because my own son would be home soon, I had to rush out and could not stay for the community dinner that they were hosting.  I will do that sometime.  I was angry, because she had called me.  I assumed that she had left a VM too, but that turned out to be a wrong number.  (How does one leave a message for someone who identifies herself in the greeting?)  When I got home, my landline was flashing an indicator and I knew that it was from her.  She had left me an apology and another plea for friendship.  Her admission that she had been “awful” was what made me realize that my having broken up with her and not talked to her at all again was the right thing for us.  She needed to be free of me and our contact to reflect.  I HeyTell’ed her thank you for the apology and that I wanted us to really extend some space and time.

Then, I went outside and weeded.  Having gotten back into my yard and planting, seems to help my mental state.  I create and have a beginning, middle, and end that I can see.  Relationships are not like that.  While reflecting, I realized that there were two people in our relationship and that my definition of space until fall was merely a limit that I had set, and that she had not say in it.  I decided to send her a text to invite to talk on the telephone based on her schedule.  About half-an-hour later she texted back another apology that she was not by her phone, and that she was not trying to manipulate me into talking based on my need for space, but she knew that she had been critical and was apologizing for her part in our end.  Again, she explained that she was just genuinely sorry, and figured that I would never choose to speak to her again.  So, after I got my son down, I called her.

It was nice to tell her things that have gone on for me.  I received an award at work, and there were some funny things that had happened over the course of the past two-weeks as well, which I relayed to her.  After some time she told me that our talk was not going how she had imagined it.  I asked what she wanted?  I said that we could reconnect in the fall.  She told me that she was going to come and sit on my porch and hope to get a piece of quiche.  I told her that I would leave my son and hop the fence and with my old bike and get out of Dodge.  We laughed a little.

She kept trying to pin me down on when we could see each other, and I told her that we would have to come up with a compromise, because fall was obviously not working for her, and now would not work for me.  Then she started getting flirtatious, but I didn’t bite.  She told me that she couldn’t lie and was still in love with me, but was confused and didn’t know what she wanted, and that she didn’t understand why I didn’t miss her.  I told her that all I really missed was our fall.  It is probably not surprising that after we hung up after two-hours that I didn’t sleep a wink.

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Ride and the Drawing Board

So, she is either as the 80s film protagonist says, “monumentally busy,” or she is not going to contact me.  That’s cool.  It was really fun to flirt and honestly felt like a coup to get her number, so I have no regrets regarding leaving her a message.  I’m back in dating land, and with five-years of experience I know to expect unpredictability.  What I want to avoid is an FB.  Those get complicated, and I’m afraid don’t seem to work with girls.  They tend to get feelings for you.  I was shocked when my last FB moved 6-states away and then told me that she had fallen in love with me.  That yielded commuting for over a year for both of us.  What starts as sex probably always has that superficial flavor, and is not what I’m looking for.  I’m looking for a partner, and will even delay sex this time, and I haven’t done that ever.  I’m going to mix it up.

I biked 24-miles yesterday on my new bike.  It was beautiful, but difficult.  I don’t get the shifting too well.  I didn’t get too many pictures because my riding companion, who I have known for over 23-years, had to take her kids somewhere at 10, but I did snap a couple on the water.  One I put on my social networking page, and one I’ll add here because I want my blog to have a positive and life-oriented approach.

From the Reservoir

I’m assuming that I will need some lessons and probably should take it back to the bike shop this week, because it needs some adjustments.  The seat is at a bad angle in general, and made me sore, and when he showed me the shifting, he was spinning the wheel, which is hard to coordinate when you are still very tripped out on the very light frame.  I’m going to see a buddy of mine today or this week and get some specs, I will take it to the shop after a couple more rides, and I’m going to order a manual from the company.

Riding a bike is really a good analogy for finding a girlfriend.  You don’t really forget how to do it, but you need to see what she responds to, what she prefers and do shifting correctly.  Every path requires different handling by you or you can throw off the course.  Some girls (not to be confused with the album by the Stones) don’t really know how they want you to approach them and don’t help you navigate the curves on the path.  Other girls are just easygoing and approachable, and you may try but it’s not the time to take the trip or do they desire to take one with you.  You have to just keep getting on it and riding it out.  I can do that.

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I met a girl

OK, she kinda looks like my ex of two-years, but there is no way with what she does for a living and the way that she presents that she is a heavy drinker.  I have absolutely nothing to loose, so I am calling her later today.  And, if we meet, I will not have sex with her for a month.  That would be brand new for me, and it sure as hell is time to mix it up.  She is smart, successful, hot and funny.  Now time to get out on my road bike.

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Embrace healing

I have had two very low days.  I have been very sick again too, which is getting very old and work has been a complete hell for two days.  I can blame just the latter on the full moon.  I’m thinking that at this stage, I will start to feel some pain, and I think that I am.  Part of me gets like Missy Higgins lyrics at times as well. “I’m a little tired of feeling like the bad fruit nobody buys.”  I know that I will be fine on my own and without a partner, but it does get old.  Very old.  Having not tired of single parenting to the degree that I would be with someone who says awful things to me and thinks of me in disrespectful terms, I won’t respond to her or do I want her back per se, but I do feel a bit hollow.

I think that it is honestly time for me to embrace this part of my journey anyway.  I should reflect on everything that I learned from this seven-month relationship.  In fact, I think that before I go to bed, I’ll read one actual handwritten journal entry that I completed and then I will reflect on what I learned and how I have evolved.  I know what I’m looking for and most of it still entails compromise.

Unsettling to me is that both of these last two women (3-years of my life) have been control freaks.  I don’t want that aspect, but rather want to be with a woman who talks through things with me.  I think that I backslid with my last one, actually.  The drunk did want to do what was right for all parties, but she couldn’t.  My last ex thought that she had all the answers.  I’m fine with learning and discovering.  I think now it’s time for me to learn and discover what I have gathered from my last relationship so I can heal.

by

I’ll bet you miss me

So, I’m selfish and negative and can’t be light, but who won’t stop communicating with me?  I wanted to punch her in the face tonight for e-mailing.  The worse thing is that now I owe a good friend a microbrew tour.  I thought that she’d respect it, but I was wrong.  She doesn’t know my schedule anymore or she doesn’t realize that she had a Monday, but she only managed 5-days.  Better get used to it, _____, because I will send you a birthday card.  That’s it.

I think that probably this action can be construed as competition, but it is more that I don’t want to give mixed messages.  Completely cooling our contact until the end of summer will mean that for me, and I’m hoping to be rid of the toxicity by then so I can move forward completely.

I actually–shameful–missed the drunk on Sunday and a little today, but I realized that it was not, in fact, her who I missed, but it was rather that I missed how seamlessly we got along when she wasn’t craving or just over the line with one too many swallows.  Except for days at a time, which would turn to my talking to a stone or getting lashed out at, my most recent ex and I did not have times like this consistently.  In fact, those times sustained eventually stopped after the New Year.  It was waiting for the guillotine.

I’m looking for consistent.  I’m looking for balance.  I will not do anything that throws me off center or involves toxicity.  I’m done with this chapter and incredulous that she and I will ever be anything but two people who were once deeply and madly in love, but could not make a relationship work.  And I really don’t need anymore friends.