Tag Archives: Truth

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That was a record

I sent her a little encouraging, well-wishing email yesterday, and I got back a corpse-like response right before bedtime.  It wasn’t even signed, “Love,” and was formal and business-like.  It’s saying that we are not working for her and that she knows some of what it is, but it’s not helpful to email.  I am leaning toward just leaving it at “Ouch,” and that I didn’t see it coming and feel foolish.  I’m not known for brevity, so it’s not like I didn’t write more, but I’m not inclined to having a conversation about it.  That’s where I am when I woke up.  I feel like if you write a Dear John email, it’s not only distasteful, but it is also slightly mean.  I was very kind to her and her family.

I texted the woman with whom I had that emotional affair and told her that the worst thing was that I have to tell my son.  I got some clarity while talking to her via text.  I don’t have to say much of anything.  I can keep saying that she is busy, because she is, and that I don’t know when he will see her little boys again.  And, I don’t.  When he pushes me, and he will, I will just say that she doesn’t have time to tend to a relationship.  Honestly, I think that she is either not gay enough, or not well enough with where she is on her journey to attend to a relationship.

I learned that I love being at ease with someone.  I do too.  It’s easy and pleasant, and I love to laugh.  I also am open to another mother, but would prefer that it is not one who I already know.  I have compassion for her and enjoyed my times with her.  I definitely love her, but had not fallen in love, so it’s unlikely that I will even shed a tear.  I will always have some love for her even if I don’t see her again or for a long time.  It’s not dramatic for me.  It’s just sad, weird, and not stable.

Here is what I dreamt.  It was another vivid one.

I was talking to her in her house, and she was mostly matter-of-fact.  It wasn’t sterile, because she still smiled and laughed a lot, but it was not warm or sexual at all.  I finally had to talk through what it did to me.  I told her that it was like a “brain scramble.”  Meaning that I thought one thing and then felt very fucked over and it happened so suddenly that I couldn’t make any sense of it.  She seemed to not be following what I was saying, so I used a gross metaphor, and motioned as if I had a wooden spoon above my head and was stirring my brain.  I said it basically to let her know that it was like mindfuck.  I also told her that her disconnection that seemed like a slow demise was like thin rock sheaths being stripped off of my heart in layers.  I told her it hurt.  That seemed more salient for her, but she didn’t apologize.  She seemed sympathetic, which just annoyed me.

Then I had to gather my son and say “Goodbye” to her boys.  I really love her baby boy, and he and I seem to have a bond.  It hurt too.  Then in the dream, she actually had four cats.  (She does have a couple.)  She was insistent that we take a ginger brown one who was docile and sweet.  I emphatically said, “No.”  I kept having to explain that I don’t want a cat and that I am not sure that I could take care of one well and that our dog bothers cats.  I got away from her and the cat in a towel, but she brought it to my house.  I told her that I didn’t have time or inclination to train my dog with a cat.  I told her that I would foster him for a little bit and then adopt him out.

I’m not going to push anything on her.  I’m not going to pursue her.  I’m not going to win her back over.  I don’t even care to hear her side of it.  I thought it a strange way to show up when she hadn’t emailed me back in over a week and texted me only a handful of times.  Then this is what I get in response to my innocuous and gentle one.  Fuck that.  It’s just not stable enough for me to seek out or invest energy investigating.  I didn’t like it.

I deserve good treatment.  I know that I am a helluva catch.  I’m glad that I had some ease with strikingly beautiful woman for 6-weeks.  Would have been nice to have slept more than 3-hours last night though 😦

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Nebulous and flowing

I talked with my friend who facilitated my being able to be with my girlfriend.  My artist.  She says that she is my sherpa, and I don’t get that.  I don’t know why she says that she is my nomadic, mountain woman.  I will tell you that I miss her eyes, touch and laugh right now sitting on my couch sipping a beer.

I was smoking pissed and hurt with this same friend when she cancelled on my artist and I a month ago and then sent me mean texts that remind me of my ex.  Explanation points and telling me to fuck off was not what I wanted.  That has faded.  But, I am still much more comfortable doing my own thing at my house.  I’m liking my house a lot and have cleaned up a lot of closets and the like.  I’m going to do that more today.  I don’t want to write.  I’m going to get up at 3:30 and do that tomorrow.

Right now, I want to write about what my friend (who connected my girl and I and also cancelled) said about my dreams.  She agreed that I was working through limits that I have set with friends who are on the periphery of my life, and she said something really interesting to me about the dream about my ex.  She thinks that I have finally “closed up shop” so to speak and she said that it is because I am in love with my girlfriend.  She didn’t use that metaphor, but it meant “done and done,” which is how I felt even before I hung out for a night with my artist.  She told me that the themes in the dream were of children, because my ex, if she did ever contact me again would want to appear carefree and childlike.  Well, she is NOT.  She is dark and angry.  She has passion, but the other side of that passion is fucking scary.  I can’t navigate her moods or her pawn making.  That was when I had the beginning of the emotional affair that I did.  Of course, I was talking outside and as I rounded the corner, there she was!  She was walking with her two kids.  Of course she was.

That is when I put my ex to bed.  That night, my son and I fought like crazy because he was hungry and we couldn’t find the restaurant.  While we fought, I confronted my ex on why she was forming a friendship with my cousin and her kids.  That was low, and weird.  While she would only say how it happened, I realized that there is no why with this woman.  There are only linear, sequential stories in which everyone wants to be close to her.  That’s her.  When I got to my car again, after my son and I ate, made up, wound up having a good night, and I was driving back home, I had heavy flirtation from this woman.  This interaction culminated in a two or three-day emotional affair.  That was the night that I got the goods who my ex is, laid her to rest, and realized that I could have heavy passion for another woman.

And I did.  That’s gone.  She has a beautiful voice and eyes, but I would never want anything with her.  It’s just not there.  She was my “closer” for the end of my ex.  And there she was when my friend was analyzing my dream, and telling me that I am in love with my girlfriend and that I am dreaming about her, because I was in love with her, and now my heart belongs to someone else.  Could that be true?

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Probably just a little weird

Vivid dreams are typically unsettling.  When I was little, and I mean really little, I dreamt about knives and assailants all of the time.  They were violent and graphic; although, I can remember them, they are not worth writing in here due to the gratuity of media.  Those are best for a conversation and like many, I don’t think that I’ve had those even with my psychologist who I saw for years.  I get that I work stuff out in my dreams.

The company had taken away my car insurance.  They had raised the amount to $1000 monthly if I wanted it, and then it would have to be underwritten and approved if I was ever to get it.  A lawyer called me and said that I could no longer drive, and if I did, I would be incarcerated.  My mother was there and was signing documents, and then my ex-husband came in and said that he wanted nothing to do with it.

There are financial issues.  They are not insurmountable, but I will have to see how my business launch for side work goes this summer.  I also need to teach every term in a blended class.  That seems to be the wave of the future, and although I prefer everything being f2f, that is not the way that the world works in the wake of this economy and social shifting as a result of computers and Internet.

I think that there are people who I just don’t want to engage with.  I think that shadow aspects were explicit in this first dream.  I don’t want to be leaned on so heavily that I lose myself or have no reciprocity.  I have told three friends over the last month that I don’t want to hang out right now.  I don’t.

The other dream was real too.  I woke up and at the top of my Droid there was an icon that is typically in the window of settings in an actual camera.  It was a video camera icon and it meant that someone had sent me a video recording.  I opened it like it was a message and it went into a video shot in a pasture with fences all around.  The film quality were those muted colors from the 70s.  A little, short-haired, blond, freckled girl was jumping onto a saddled horse.  There were men in stetsons all around her who were clapping and encouraging her, and then the shot got more macro and she was riding around, but I closed it and deleted it.

It’s a good thing to not hear from or be bothered by my ex.  However, there is something energetic that I feel right now.  I don’t know what it is, but I do know that she is more moody than usual around the holidays.  I would never reach out, because I don’t want her show.  That’s what she does.  It’s a well-orchestrated performance which includes everything that you’d ever want to hear, because she is an incredible listener and also a chessmaster.  It’s so different than standard manipulation.  It’s surrounding yourself with pawns who do your bidding because you have “goods” on them or know exactly how to motivate them.  I know her deal.  However, she showed up in my dreams.

It’s all time.  It’s just waiting and seeing.  I love my girlfriend, but I can tell that I’m not in love.  I don’t know if we are building anything.  I trust that we love each other and have positive feelings for each other, but I have no clue what the next several months will entail.  I suppose it doesn’t matter.  Right now, I love her, am hopeful, am not involved or overextended in anything, and can write and go to class because she is not possessive or does she expect much time with me.  We enjoy each other when it happens.  We shall see what the ceiling is on what could be.  That could take months, but I love being with her when I can.

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As you age

When you have a seven-year-old, a nine-year-old, and a twelve-year-old in the house together, and you have been raising an only, it has some “dynamics.”  I think that I may be dropping my son off today at his best friend’s house.  It should be my ex-husband’s weekend, but he has flu, so I don’t think that I will be able to get my normal time. Given that my boy had a lot of trouble not driving the bus with a card game, and wanted to change the rules so nobody could follow it, and really just wanted to play video games, I should take him on a long walk with our dog today and then have him read.  He is truly the quintessential only child.  I do rather wish that could change.

She ran up and kissed me and said, “Baby!” when I came in the house.  The woman who connected us was right behind me.  My girlfriend has a way of making those things just work again.  I have only been with two middle children.  I like that.  They are natural mediators.

You know how you have something in your head that doesn’t happen and it’s hard?  I just wanted her to hold me when I came in.  I asked to hug me when we were leaving and she was exhausted and I traced the top of her back, which is really beautiful and moved her hair off of it.  It’s like drinking her in when we are that close.  I also like feeling where her sit bones are against my thighs when I lay sideways and she bends her knees over my legs. Our connection is good and many times our affection is sensual and is always tender.  I was glad that we connected even if we had another girl there and our little boys.

I was supposed to see her and the little boys again today for a Halloween activity, but I don’t know if my son will cooperate.  He gets scared with costumes and has always been terrified of animatronics. I will probably just drop him off at his best friend’s house for a few hours.  He has a game today, and I’ll definitely enjoy that, but then I want some time with my girlfriend and her little boys, if that is a possibility.

I’m ready to settle down.  I wound up in a str8 marriage as a child, and continued it because I’m loyal and he was my buddy.  Then when he continued the path of anger and rage toward me, I just didn’t want that anymore.  I didn’t want to be with him, and we separated, he moved to AK, and I did the solo thing in the big house.  I sure have gotten good at keeping up with this place, and the funny thing was that it was before our son!  I would have left him then (2005), but I suddenly got pregnant and thought that we should try.

I want to put out the intention to be living with someone after I turn 40.  I want to have family, navigate situations with a few kids, and have arms around me when I wake up.  I want to nurture and connect to a woman who has my whole heart, and connects me to the world.

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Balance 8.22.08

I can’t believe that I wrote this entry five-years ago.  Until I reached the age that I am right now, I had no idea what people meant when they talked about how quickly time passes.  Five-years…  This one is a re-blog, but I want to look at it, because I feel as if I am finally getting my balance with where I’m headed in my life.

Balance.  Do we even know what the hell this word means?  I cannot believe the way in which everything is overdone: work, activity, even the way in which we approach relationships.  I’m kinda sick–I sneezed and my nose ran all day to day, but it was a decided improvement upon the incessant headache and sinus pressure that I’ve had for over two weeks.  When colds finally hit me, I feel a sense of release that is foreign.  I think it’s because I don’t actually let go too well.  Americans even take Yoga about 3 times a week to practice “letting go.”  Isn’t that utterly ludicrous?!?  How the hell do you practice that?  People talk about moderation, but I’m sure that I have not mastered it.

I am going to hike with my son tomorrow.  Desiring grocery shopping is not what I would call part of my evening, but it is necessary.  I may hook up with my friend and her son, but am cool if I don’t.  I am cool with most things these days.  I have to be…

I would like to have some physical intimacy…  Would I overdo that?  I think that my goal is to actually ensure that I am varying my activities and letting things unfold as they should.  I’m sure that I’ve said these statements before, but they are starting to make increasingly more sense to me.  I think that I understand that I need to be patient with myself to fully listen to others who I truly love.

PS.  I get it.  I understand what balance is too, as I have let go of extremity and fervor.  It’s little smatterings of the things that I used to enjoy more than I do now, and connecting to those who have an energy level that matches mine.  Enjoying whatever unfolds without expectation is helping me too.  No poison.  I’m not anyone’s therapist who knows me either.

I am not overdoing sexual intimacy, and in fact, I am not able to overdo connecting with my current girlfriend either based on what she has going on in her life as she focuses on strengthening and balancing her energy.  I’m not overdoing anything right now, but I must embrace that as I have come to center, that I can connect with people only when it makes sense.

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Time to unwind

Work was just slightly weird today.  I had too many meetings, I think.  I was exhausted by the time that I left and then I had to come home, switch over laundry, help my dog stretch her legs, pack up tons of food and head to my parents house.

While I was cooking, I needed oil and vinegar.   That was it.  You’d have thought that I was ruining their lives.  My mother also stared at me while I cooked, and was wiping the counters around me.  That combined with the fact that my Dad was upset that I didn’t bring over take out put me over the edge.  That’s the way that I grew up.  They were always in my ass and it never ceased and nothing that I could do was right and they had to monitor and “show” me what I was doing wrong.  I’m going to have to figure out something else to do with my son on November 11th.  He can’t be around that, and frankly, if I hadn’t had a beer while I cooked and my Dad was saying that he couldn’t play with my son because too much was going on–meaning my dog smelled him a couple of times and he had to get the olive oil for me–I couldn’t have either.

It was a difficult 45-minutes of cooking, but the food was good.  My Dad commenced to eat nearly all the food as soon as I put it all out.  We had sockeye salmon with tarragon and balsamic vinegar, a nice salad, the best brussels sprouts in the world, and saffron basmati.  I asked him if he’d eaten today and he said he had oatmeal and four prunes.  When you’re Bipolar and your blood sugar drops, you are a real treat.  It’s amazing at 73 that he doesn’t manage his calories better.

I hugged my son and I left.  Poor guy.  I’m glad that tomorrow is his last day off from school.

I ran about 2.25-miles on the treadmill and felt soooo much better.  Then I walked my dog around the lake at night to do an outdoor night warm down.  I dropped off some materials at a colleague’s house and talked to my best friend from graduate school.  Her cancer may be back, and her best friend there has stage 4 colon cancer.  Now, those are real problems.  Mine with parents is just sad.  They feel better when they can tell me what I do wrong.  I’m just fine.

I do miss my girlfriend.  She has been out of contact due to family stress, and she has her little boys this evening.  It’s ok, but I really, really hope that I get to see her again.  I miss having her arms around me and looking into those perfect hazel eyes.  I’m turning in.  I hope that she contacts me tomorrow.  I want to connect with her and don’t know how she is doing really.

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Honest

She had to cancel on being in my bed with me tonight, but I completely understand.  I will miss her smell and softness when I retire in a little bit, but I get why she can’t be around people anymore tonight.  She needs to take care of herself so she can take care of her boys too.

Something that I left out of the Thursday entry that I had written last was that she got probably five phone calls while we cooked and got the boys organized.  One included a conversation with her father and it was an intense relaying of some of what she is going through right now.  It’s too much.  She respectfully left out details that would have been alarming to him as well.  I was shocked that we had dinner together and that she ever texts or emails or gets on my FB during the week at all.  It made me feel loved to see that.

I feel important.  I feel respected.  I feel like we could be building something with a permanence, and that part doesn’t scare me.  I’m scared about doing right by her.

She had a truly horrible day.  It can’t even be written about, because it’s unreal.

My last three have just included too much running around in favor of being productive.  I like to get things done, and haven’t been able to very well over the last three days.  I’ve kind of felt like I’m just spinning my wheels, but it’s just stress.  It’s not anything bad.  She teased me relentlessly about it and then helped me reframe it.  I think much of it is that I’ve been around lots of people too often and my son has been getting over being ill, so that means that he’s crabby.  Nothing has been bad, I’ve just felt kinda pulled around and not able to get work completed.

I held her as tight as I could while being reasonably sure that I was not hurting her back.  I felt her tears on my cheeks.  I was moved on a deeper level than I can remember too.  Again, I feel important and loved.

Finally, we both were unwinding and she wanted to watch some tv.  I asked if we could read.  She read all the cartoons in her favorite periodical, and laughed so many times that I had a large grin on my face.  There was one in particular that was very odd, and was my sense of humor exactly.  My sense of humor borders on bizarre and is definitely droll and strange.  When she showed me it, I was surprised how she knew something instinctively about me.

We didn’t get very physical.  I had to tell her that I’m at a point wherein I’m nervous about making love to her, and I told her that I think that part of that trepidation is an energetic thing that vibes from her.  She talked to me about being ready at some point and realizing how excited that she was to see me when she was driving home, but that did not include sex, and I said, “I really don’t think we should.  We are both sexual people, but the thing is that it shouldn’t be planned and should just be an organic development when we both are moved that way.  It’s going to be a big thing when it happens.”  I’m not ready either.

She told me some other things from her experiences too.  I think that I’m starting to really get where she is right now, and it’s funny that the timing is in our favor from both standpoints.  After awhile I just said completely easily, “Listen, ______ , I love you and I want you to know that.”  She said without skipping a beat, “I love you too.”  There was a pause and then she added, “It’s real too.”  I told her that it certainly is for me too, and I would not have said it had I not meant it completely.  She said, “I know.”

 

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Organic Flow

If what you’ve done is a good predictor of your future behavior, I say to that, evolve with it too.  I was getting a little in over my head with my artist.  Now, it’s time to slow myself down a bit.  Monday is not that bad to wait to get together.  She is not champing at the bit to make weekend plans to me, and I would gather that because she had a long and difficult week at work–about which I know no details–that she just wants to connect and nest with her little boys.  I tried her on the phone last night and she texted that she was sorry that she missed my call and that she was making dinner.  She ended it with, “I miss you!”

We have plans for next Monday and Thursday.  So, I’m not going to obsess.  I’m going to revise Chapter 3 and I really need to run.  I may run after work tonight.  This weekend I should consult with a gardener about my lack of lawn in my backyard, since it is all cleaned up back there, and I should write like crazy.  I always have people who want to see me.  I’m not going to watch football at my cousin’s house on Sunday though, because I may not be gay.  I don’t like watching professional sports.

My workout partner said, “You lost yourself for a bit in this.  You sound solid now and MUCH better.”  Lesbian relationships are different, and mine aren’t in the Date 2: Move in, and Date 3: Get the donor ready, but they still match that intensity.  I realized that what I know of her, I could read in her book that she is editing.  It’s not the stuff of her.  Hell, I don’t even know her custody arrangement.

I know that when we are together it’s much better.  It’s connected.  It’s easy.  We have chemistry making meals together in the kitchen.  Our boys get along.  I feel really good when my head is on her left shoulder and I lay on my side and she puts her legs bent over mine and rubs my left arm.  We have magical kissing.  That’s all a pretty good start, but it’s a start.  Now it just has to flow, because you can’t bend the river.  It goes where it shall.

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Occupational Hazards

I fear the question, “What do you do?” when I’m dating a new woman.  And, I had erroneously thought that my new gf knew what I did, because I have known her for 10-years.  But she didn’t and she said, “Oh.  Wow.  What makes THAT appeal to you?”

There is a gamut of responses:

  1. What am I thinking right now?
  • I actually have no idea, because I’m not clairvoyant

2.  How fucked up are you that you went into that?

  • It’s just what I do for a living because I was interested in psychology

3.  So, do you just diagnose your friends and everyone around you?

  • No, I am not working right now, but now that you mention it, paranoia anyone?

4.  How does it not bother you?

  • In that way, I’m kinda like a guy and when I’m done with work and leave the building or office, I don’t take anything home.

5.  I could NEVER do what you do, because I could not be around people.  How do you do that?

  • I don’t hang out with anyone long who needs group 🙂

However, my career has affected my dating, and I’m not going to pretend that it hasn’t.  She and I need to talk.  She is sweet and tender and honestly would never do anything to hurt anyone or is she motivated out of cruelty.  However, because of my ex baggage, that I really need to honor, I crave consistent.  I need some ground rules around it too.  I had to call my workout partner and took a solo walk to take a picture of a tree that had probably 7 different shades of red on it, because at that point I had to clear my head.  How can something that we said on Thursday be a trigger on Monday morning?  No one is born knowing how to treat you, and when you have conflict you are equally culpable for engaging in it.

My workout partner said, “______ , you have had a really bad day, so that’s effecting the situation.  And you know stuff that is going to come up because of _____ , so you don’t have to tell that whole story, but as stuff comes up, you owe it to both of you to talk through those things so they can improve.  Don’t jump to conclusions.  Have a conversation.”

I realized that although I took two months longer than what relationship and family therapists say you should take after a relationship that because I have had no relationship, I had no idea what would be triggered in a new one.  What I mean is that I was with my ex off and on for 15-months and I didn’t kiss anyone or even seriously consider a girl for nine-months, so I just needed a new relationship to see what has affected me longterm.  I did wait more than half the time of our whole relationship, but I had to be in relationship to see what I have become.

Well, now I go to how WYSIWYG you are right away.  And that’s not it.  My artist has been naked vulnerable about who she is and what goes on for her.  It’s really my turn to tell some of that, which will include the impact of the only two times that I have been in love.  I guess that I’ll start that convo here.

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Surprises

So, I knew that we were having dinner together on Friday, but I didn’t know that she would be staying.  I took my son out of practice, as it was running over, and went to our house–she had already arrived.  She started making out with me in my garage.  Ok, then.  Then my son and I helped her get all of her bags in the house.  She said, “It’s completely presumptuous, but I am staying the night tonight.  I have to work a little and don’t want to drive home.”  I said, “I think that is a wonderful idea.”

No shaving, no landscaping, sleepy, and after dinner and putting my son to bed, we are both sitting on my couch.  She had to work a little, so I straightened up my kitchen and took my dog for a walk.   I couldn’t believe that were going to wake up together.  When she was done with work, she read some of it to me, and I liked that a lot.  We went to the kitchen to get drinks and she kissed me and after we pulled away she said, “I don’t think we should have sex tonight,” and because I have wanted the first time to be special and we don’t really know all of our dynamics yet, I said, “I am in complete agreement.”

She cuddles a lot all night–I’m not used to sleeping close like that all night.  When we first got into bed, she did start kissing me pretty intensely and then she had her hands on the fronts of my shoulders, so I felt like I had to say, “You can touch me.” When she did she gasped and said, “You have incredible tits.”  I laughed.  That settled why I was wondering why she wasn’t feeling me up.

It has been a really long time since she has been in a relationship with a woman, and the one that she did have which lasted a year sounds like one in which she would just be moved sexually by this woman and wind up in her bed with her.  She had a non-serious bf at the time, and the other girl did too, but eventually went exclusive with him, and that result broke my artist’s heart a little.  I guess, from what I can gather, she is just ready to be in relationship with a woman.

In this case, and I told her this, I just hope that being with a girl works for her.  It’s different.  It’s emotionally complex and involves a level of intensity that seems unique.  What she has gathered is that if we just go slow, that stuff will work itself out.  I think more than that, it’s essential for me to give her space for reflection, and also just follow her lead with anything physical.

I think that’s good.  I have slept with women way too soon almost every time.  I told her before we all left the house that what seems to be building is a solid friendship.  She said, “We are.”  I actually think that it’s healthy.  Now, I do honestly want to take off every stitch of her clothing and feel her skin on mine, and kiss every part of her that is not covered by a bathing suit until I can do more, but I won’t.  I don’t really want to either; although, I fantasize about it.  I want to wait until it’s not only special, but it’s right.

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Communication and “Stuff”

I know that inadequate or misinterpreted communication has been the kiss of death with me and the ending of all my relationships.  However, I didn’t realize until yesterday that my ex has kinda fucked up the way that I see people and what I will tolerate from anyone as well.  There are things to reflect on and try to alter slowly.

My friend connected me and my artist, if I’m being honest.  It would have been circuitous and next to impossible to talk with her had I waited on one of my best friends to connect us, and as I have written earlier, I would have never had the guts to approach her anyway.  I have noticed this past weekend, however, that she like most drop-dead beautiful women who has her own stuff relative to the way that she sees herself.  I’m sure much of that comes from what Ani says, “And everyone harbors a secret hatred for the prettiest girl in the room.”  I digress.

To be concise, my friend, who connected us, slowly cancelled plans over the course of Saturday.

My birthday was somewhat challenging, and the experience relates to my Saturday this weekend.  I was juggling a book, leftover soup, and my wallet.  I had left my cell in my car.  While trying to hug my parents and our friends, I asked my son to  hold my wallet, and he did, but when we got home, it was gone.  I called the restaurant.  I went to the parking lot, and then I called my friend who’s been in my life for 12-years and we searched my car with flashlights.  She was cool and nice and said, “I’ll withdraw cash, we will buy you a new wallet for your bday, and we will get together Saturday night and make sauce and have girl time.”  She is a big promiser.  It’s just her thing.

With her too, you can’t always be sure much will actually come to fruition, because her life always has roadblocks and things that she deals with constantly.  For example, I was SHOCKED when she and I did a long summit which was over 15-miles this past July.  She has been “climbing” with me for years, but it did actually happen, and we completed a summit this past summer.  That’s good.  Dinner did not happen on Saturday, and that’s not shocking.  I got a text from her early in the morning saying sorry that she didn’t check in on Friday and that she probably had to cancel cooking because she had a friend coming.  I said, “Let’s all get together,” and then when my artist asked what I was doing on Saturday, we both felt like we didn’t want to be apart after I left to watch my son’s game.

In summary, I was hanging out with my artist and her youngest son on Saturday morning and it was obvious that she was thinking that she should join, and I wanted it too.  So, I texted my old friend and she said, “Of course.”  All day she got more lukewarm on our plans in general.  Then late in the afternoon that became a complete cancellation due to a “bad mood.”  I honestly think although she denies it, there is some jealousy here, which I confronted head-on.  She has a child boy toy who is 17-years her junior who now has a gf and has dropped off the face of the earth, and I am currently dating her friend of nearly 25-years.

We couldn’t have a rational conversation about the way the cancellation went down and it was all weird.  She cussed and used exclamation points via text.  TRIGGER.  I realized our conversation was completely unproductive so I asked her to table it, and she went into MY ISSUES.  I have some for sure, but the whole thing was odd and was based on the time that I had to cancel hers and my plans when I didn’t have a penny to my name for ingredients for us to cook with, or for screen patches that we were going to use to do a home repair.  One time that I cancelled.  I’m not getting into that.  Space is better.

I can’t text fight.  I can’t read cussing, which is directed at me, and exclamation points.  I feel badly being brushed aside and really was upset that these plans being cancelled effected my son, and my artist’s youngest kids.  These feelings all result from dealings with my ex during 2012.  I have really high standards now with respect to how I will be treated and what I’ll tolerate.  I’m not going to her house again and I am not getting in touch with her.  It was toxic.  (If she wants to hang out again, we can do stuff at my house.  She never comes over here and was furious that I dropped off DVDs and told her that I’m not her boy toy.  I actually said, “I’m not ____ .”  I still know that there is something more than wanting to be alone here, but she doesn’t want to talk about it, so I’ll just take space from her.)

I wound up bringing food to my artist’s place that I bought thinking that we were going to BBQ at our mutual friends’ house.  I bought stuff that was kinda difficult to cook indoors, but we made it work.  After dinner, which was fun and some games with our boys, we did the dishes and talked.  She grabbed me from behind at my waist and her fingertips were in my spine and she said, “Now, that is a nice spot.”  I haven’t been touched by anyone the way that she touches me.

I have a pretty assertive presentation, so unless you are physical with me, you don’t note that my dynamic is also one of “green light” waiting for signs or first moves.  That is just me.  I certainly would not have made out with her in her dining room while we were setting the table, or would I have felt the muscles in her low back.  When you run, those get really tight and defined.  I certainly noticed them on my ex, and it felt great to have her notice mine on me given that I have worked really hard since March of 2012 to get into good shape and stay healthy.  After I stopped pressing her against her sink and burying my head in her hair, we played a game.  We laughed hard.

Before I left, I told her that I know that when I was writing here and in my journal as well that it was like a soul reach.  I know it is her with whom I’d like to explore a relationship.  I told her that I waited for her.  After the night waned and morning came, these assertions resulted in her feeling scared.  She told me, which is good.  But what I don’t get is why it scared her.  She started these things with emailing me back after the wedding and said, “Not to scare you, but I have only seen that expression in one photograph of me and it was when I was with my ex and I was in love, but trying to hide my affections.”  OK.  Then she wrote the most genuinely loving message on my FB wall on Thursday for my bday with the words “love and kisses” in it.  OK.  She told all of her boys, her sister who is local, and her Dad that we are dating.  OK.  So, I told her where I am, and it scared her.

What was my result?  I figured that she does “push and pull,” and that we don’t work.  So, after church, I rode 20-miles on my road bike.  That helped.  Then doing laundry and cooking dinner for my workout partner helped even more.  I just need to have this tough conversation.  It will have to be this weekend if we do take my son away, or at a later date, but this stuff is ripe and should not be buried because I do know that letting it lie can lead to resentment.  I don’t know how to have these conversations.  I still struggle with whether or not I deserve to stay in relationship.  My ex has fucked me up and I let her.

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Love and Gratitude

I am 39 today.  That seems like an important birthday.

I’m going to try to call her and see if my Dad will cook dinner for me.  He really wants me to see his old professor friend who is in town only tonight–this guy teaches at American.  I will make an effort to drive over there; although, I don’t have much gas and don’t know if I have any money in my account.  It would help me get my son fed too, and because my Dad is stable, and has been for four-years, my son has a wonderful relationship with him that I am glad to get to see.

My father called me twice yesterday when we were meeting with large team regarding a hold that was put on a child who was unsafe.  I had to work really late as a result, and my cold took over my body.  That meant that I had little energy, so I took my son out to eat quick Chinese and then we traipsed around a used book store that we like.  I’m still on the prowl for a Disney anthology from the early 60s that has an abstracted version of “Old Yeller” and “Toby Tyler” in it.  I couldn’t find it last night, and I still have no idea why my aunt won’t let me have the copy that I read all the time that my grandmother had.  Who knows?  Now, I still need to meet with my Boss (I was way too sick last night), as I was supposed to last night, but couldn’t because I felt really sick.  I need to get that scheduled in the next five days so I can keep up with my dissertation.

My artist is a good difference and contrast to any of these things.  My son embraced her so tightly in church on Sunday when he came back to us and left Sunday school.  I miss her.  I know that I saw her Sunday, but I really miss her and last Thursday was such a powerful date.

She has admitted to me that she has not made it 7-years with anyone.  I have not had anything approximating serious less those two different relationships that I had during the years of 2009 through 2012.  Those were short though.  Both were about two-years, but had break-ups in them, so they don’t feel sustained enough to actually call them longterm relationships.  I can’t imagine where I’ll be in 7-years.  I’m just setting weekly goals right now.

My goal today is to get ahold of her for a few minutes on the phone.  I’d like to ask a boring question regarding her custody arrangement with her little boys.  Mine is basic.  I have him always less every other weekend.  She knows that.  She also knows that I have love and gratitude for her.  I sent her a CD and wrote a love letter in it.  I didn’t say, “I love you,” because I want to say that someday in the future, in person and unplanned.  I did say many things that I love about who she is though.  I also wrote a paragraph about my gratitude for her opening this door for us, because I know that with a woman this beautiful, that I may have not been able to do so even with the knowledge that she is bi.  She was touched by the letter and CD.  I’m glad, because my workout partner cautioned against this effort and gesture.  I’m just doing what is in my heart right now, and following my passion.

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Did I ever

It’s difficult to put into words; although, the words shall unfold as I write.  I went over with skewers of halibut buttressed between purple onions, zucchini, summer squash, and asparagus spears, and grilled caramelized apples with pineapple on the sweet skewers.  Then, of course, I made my salad.  She was simply thrilled with the food.  We talked easily and about everything, and then she looked over at me with her huge hazel eyes and said, “We have time, and when I’m with you, I want the time to slow and I just want you to know everything.  But, we really have all the time in the world.”  But, then the bomb in my soul dropped through when she said, “Two big things.  First, you know that I’m bi, right?”  I told her that until Saturday, I didn’t and that I would have been talking to her in an entirely different way had I known, and she threw back her head and laughed hard from her tummy.  I couldn’t have a table corner between us anymore.

She gave me the tour of her half of the converted school house that she lives in and I felt my body come alive on the deck.  So, we sat there in this ridiculous rain as she told me more of her story and we noticed the lines between the sides of the old school house, and she told me about the renovations.  I felt like being outside there with her was a gift, and we talked easily and openly about everything.  There was a simply huge sumac tree in front of our view separating the sides of the home–one side had industrial siding and the other was softer dark blue stucco, while much of our surroundings was natural.  We admired and looked at the end of her garden on one of the final days of summer, and took in the other trees in the background while we talked and I stroked her legs that she had laid across my lap.  We talked for an hour out there and then when she was completely vulnerable, I told her that I wanted so badly to just hold her, and not in a lawn chair.

We went into the largest room in the house and cuddled on the couch in front of the fire.  That is when awhile later she asked if I was going to kiss her.  My lips fit under hers and we have magical kissing.  After some heavy kissing wherein I kissed and bit her neck, and lay my mouth in the notch at the base of her throat, she laughed again and said, “We have sooooo much fun ahead of us.”  And we do.

I really did wait for her.  I know that we can start small and be mindful, but she is more than my girlfriend.  I waited and have found my one.

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Good luck with that

Well, she and I have been emailing a bit, and I told her that I would take her away on a weekend trip if she could find this blog.  It’s too bad much of this one currently is about my shitty experiences with my ex who was the Master of Push and Pull, but that just lead me to where I am now.  I’m thinking that she will give me some new material 😉  I like this stage.  It’s exciting, it makes my heart race, and is pretty scary, because I know that I’m in trouble with this woman.

How do you say, “You look beautiful,” to a woman who has probably been told that more times than are possible to count.  But, she really is.  She has a way of carrying herself too that is incredible.  I wonder if she will find me and my blog.  I don’t know how feasible it is, but if she should–and good luck–she should know that I can fully embrace that I may very well fall in love with her.

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You haven’t got it so figured out

I had a wonderful day Saturday completing the summit with the woman with whom I had an emotional affair.  She and I talked incredibly easy regardless of elevation gain, and she is the most suited climbing companion that I’ve ever had.  That’s sad.  We talked through the pointed flirtation at several intervals after the summit.  I held her twice when I dropped her off and told her that I wouldn’t mess with her and that she needs to get her shit together.  We are super compatible.  We talk, joke, laugh, are both inappropriate–especially in terms of our sense of humor, both love kids and working with them as our primary clients, we are both highly energetic, have good vocabularies and think that being outside and then following it up with a beers and a burger is one of the best things that there is.  We talked more about the lack of us on the way back down.  I told her that it didn’t matter how compatible we were, and if we made this–whatever-the-hell it is–into physical that it would not only be immoral, but it would wind up fucking both of us up big time and diminish the level of connection that we have and what could be.

Then, I came home and made a cool mountain album to put up on FB and got ready, because I was going to a wedding.  It was the coolest wedding that I had ever attended as well.  It’s not because the Governor officiated it, it was because it was short, sweet, simple, and outside the couple’s home with the block sectioned off so that street performers could perform and we could eat BBQ and drink microbrews.  There were probably 300 people there.  One of my best friends who is like a sister to me has a friend who is a talented artist.  I had been to one of her art shows last year.  I guess that she said to my friend, “Are you with ______ ?” and she said, “Don’t you think I would have told you if I started seeing a WOMAN?  No, we have been friends for years.”  She said, “Oh, well, I think she is really hot.”  That was so flattering.  She is magazine quality beautiful.  She pulled me out to dance, which I hate, but she eventually let me off the hook.

We didn’t flirt overtly or out-of-control, but we had an intensity.  One of my friends from high school who knows both the bride and groom as well asked me yesterday morning if this woman was in love with me.  I told her flatly and easily, “No, but I am not sure who I will wind up actually dating next.”  She texted more and eluded to the level of sexual chemistry that could be felt when we were sitting with each other.  So, what am I going to do?  I’m going to email her this morning.  She has four boys.  She is a talented artist.  She has had pain in her past.  She looks like the child of Jane Seymour and Audrey Hepburn, and it was highly flattering to have her express interest in me.  It made yesterday very interesting too!  At least I won’t skip any workouts anymore 😉

After my friend from the swings got out of church, she called me.  We had a wonderful and good conversation.  However, the breakup with her gf does not even approximate clean.  They did an open relationship before ending their relationship, and the woman with whom she had the polyamorous connection is now pursuing her exclusively, but indirectly has shared that she will likely sleep with her ex for always.  I haven’t been down that exact road, but I know that I am not cut out for open.  I like stability in relationship and not wondering why I don’t give someone enough.  I’m smart enough and have been in enough classes to understand that sexual experiences and intimacy vary for everyone, but when she said, “We will have to be different now,” I did tell her “I don’t think that is possible.  You started off with only a sexual foundation and found each other seeking an open experience.  Also, the intention that you put out in the universe was that you a wanted polyamorous connection.  That was your intention.  I don’t think that it can convert.”

The sad thing is that this girl wants to continue an intense relationship with her ex.  My friend is done with her ex.  For right now, I’m done thinking about my friend in any other way than that she needs good friends, who like my climbing partner from Saturday, does not need to be fucked with visa vi a potential love interest.  She has a load of stuff to figure out completely independent of me.  Her mother and mother’s bf loved me.  I’m pretty good with parents in general, and it was nice to meet her mother finally and be part of their home.  I am going to write a Thank You Note to send this am after I have woken up with my coffee.

I can’t believe the wrinkles that get thrown up.  I kept saying that I would prefer not to date another mother if I didn’t have to.  I get that you choose who you date.  But, honestly being on the receiving end of that much attention from a completely beautiful woman was encouraging.  I’m going to email her and I would like to bring her dinner one evening next week before I leave town for my bday.  She doesn’t drink at all, which would probably be a good break for me too.  I am very much looking forward to seeing what is there.

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Weeding out

I sure am good at that!  I guess since I got so overextended for a couple of days, I had a small delusion that when this girl could get all her shit figured out and learn to parent on her own for some time that maybe we could date.  We exchanged some emails yesterday and I realized that we are on different planes of existence right now.  Plus, her kids are much like the kids who I work with, and not to sound like my most recent ex, but it wouldn’t be fair for me to expose my son to stuff like that.  She also told me a drunken story that happened this summer, and because of my old partner who moved, that is another thing that I would never expose my son and not myself to either.  I love microbrews because they taste great, and being a cook, I have a discerning palate so have beer preferences.  (I CANNOT drink the dog shit beers that my cousin does, for example.)  But, getting plowed is not something that I ever did much–unless, I was in a dark space.  So, again, no thanks.

So, no more flirting.  That is good anyway, because I’m not much of a cheater, which is kinda weird considering that I was married to a man for 9-years, but it usually just translated into my feeling an attraction toward a woman, and then avoiding her as if there was something bad that happened.  Well, there was.  I was plagued with my internalized homophobia being around her.  It’s not that I feel like I am above anything, because obviously I am not, which is evidenced by my letting inane flirtation just go and then wind up talking about sexual practices and other things, but I don’t want to invite in interactions that are 1) pointless, and 2) delays authentic interactions.  I don’t want complicated or someone who complicates things because of a variety of circumstances in her life.

I defend (initially) on Wednesday.  Therefore, I write all day today and have to make the observation rubric for my research as well.  I have feedback on it from my chair, but my other committee member must just be ready to give me my feedback during the defense.  That’s kinda scary, and I will only have four-days to make the revisions.  It’s just going to be a very busy week for me.  My poor son is not going to get much interaction from me this month, but then it will calm down.  Ultimately, given the shitty state of our economy, I will be lucky to have this particular degree completed so I can do side work that is pretty lucrative.  I’m waiting on a high-paying tutoring client as well to call me this weekend, so I will have weekly work for grocery money and such.

I have a new love.  My workout partner has been boxing in August.  She took me to a boxing class.  We did really fast-paced cardio stuff for some time and then different patterns that switched up all the time with punches and dodges.  It was amazing.  I have a membership to our regional and local centers, so I just googled which center has a boxing class.  I talked to the gentleman manning the desk and he found a class that works with my schedule twice a month!  So, Monday I go, and still have 40-minutes to get to work.  And it’s a ladies class 😉  I’m still holding out.  I’m picky, looking for both connection and passion, but given what I went through with my most recent ex, I also crave stable.  She’s out there.

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Chemistry vs Compatibility

One time I saw a girl in a bar and we locked eyes and a killer, but unmistakable I-don’t-care-that-all-I-am-is-trouble smile spread across her face.  Having told my buddy that night who is now my roommate that my intention was to have a one-night stand, I was very glad to have had that greeting when she walked in.  That is chemistry.  I’m actually very adept at talking to a girl and knowing if we will have excellent sex.  I guess that when I don’t feel it, I don’t try, but I know when it will be sparks and fireworks.

You can’t really confuse sexual chemistry with long-term qualities though.  If you don’t have similar values and interests, you can actually wind up only really connecting in the bedroom.  I was talking to a friend on the phone today and told her that how you show up in the world also has much bearing on how long you can comfortably date another person.  I guess that as I begin my new round of screening with girls, I need to remember who I am.

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Gearing up

I’ve been climbing mountains with my time.  Now, I have to write all day and don’t know if I can join my workout partner at a fitness festival tomorrow morning, because my son has been really tired.  I don’t think that I should get him up around sunrise on a Saturday.  I can watch them, but seven-year-olds really need their sleep.

Because I have wanted to feel connected to nature, I have seen a few sunrises far from home in the last three weeks.  Additionally, I walked around the peaks of two new mountains for me, and one of which is the highest point in our state.  Also, I went back up to peaks that I had previously climbed which are adjacent.  I had done one first in 2009, and then repeated it with both of the peaks being summited in 2010, so it was cool to go back up with one of the newer friends who I have.  You really bond on a climb, and we did.  Here is how my views have been as of late:

Taking a picture doesn't really do this kind of scenery justice

Taking a picture doesn’t really do this kind of scenery justice

I am going to meet 11 new girls on Sunday.  When I was first out of my str8 marriage, I hiked with my son with some of those groups and then last summer I played kickball.  I didn’t meet anyone of lasting interest and the latter caused my to blow my right quad, which I still have some issues with when I climb or walk long distances.  (I just couldn’t NOT kick the hardest pitches from a frat boy type of asshole, so I paid.)  However, I am hopeful that this group will yield some new people to hang out with for my last few days of vacation and into my fall.

My workout partner met one of my guy friends last week.  We had a lil’ BBQ and drinks on my back patio.  She is going out on a date with him tonight.  I am also orchestrating at least one, if not two, other meet and greets with guys who I know over the next several weeks.  She had a shitty experience with a guy from our gym–he is super hot, but is a drunk–and then a very scary thing happen early in the summer with one of our colleagues.  I guess some of these meetings; although, she asked to meet my guy friends, are like big sister protection.

My ex called me early last week, and it was very odd.  She said that she wanted to know how my summer was going and then she told me about a prank that she played on her friends.  I would never do something that could potentially scare someone as a joke.  I crack them all the time, but they are never at someone’s expense unless I really have that dynamic with someone who also teases me.  I also don’t make scenes, because I don’t like directed attention unless I am speaking for my profession, but then there is that “professional distance.”  I had been introduced to my ex via an old colleague who knew my ex’s best friend.  I talked to her on the phone yesterday and I said, “I guess she wants to be my friend.”  She said quickly, “______ , she doesn’t want to be your friend.  She is obsessed with the way that things were left and that there is someone in this world who does not have a favorable impression of her.”

That was interesting.  How can you think that if you are literally constantly giving negative feedback to your girlfriend or making slights and underhanded comments to her that you will leave it well?  Are you kidding?  When I was talking to my colleague, I told her that there was nothing that I could do well either, and she would always tell me how she was good at the same things or the best at them.  Now, I do get that her athletic abilities will always surpass mine, but I don’t care.  I don’t compete against anyone, and simply want to fit my sense of things, and I don’t have standards that require me to take chances.  I have turned around without making a summit four times in five-years, and walked around several obstacles at both of my adventure races.  I don’t have a sense of myself which requires me to prove anything.  I also don’t control anyone.  I don’t have that need.

Impressions that you give others result from your interactions.  With distance, I get that had I stayed with my ex that all my behaviors would have been attempted to be controlled and that if I did something, she would have to do it better.  In fact, there were things that she simply wouldn’t try, because she didn’t do them perfectly.  Last year my birthday trip required about a mile-and-a-half of steep hiking.  I climb up four to ten times that amount of distance and at much more pronounced levels of elevation gain as a hobby, so it felt like nothing even with camping gear.  One of her friends said, “Wow, ______ , you are just bombing up there.”  It was only until recently that I realized that is probably why she flatly refused to hike with me, and that is because it’s something that I do more, so I can do it.  Wow.

She can call me.  I’ll probably answer her calls if I’m not doing anything.  I won’t call her.  I won’t interact with her by choice either.  I made my peace with thanking her for the four things that she imparted to me.  I will not romanticize what is only a good show that lasted three-months and then the year-long fallout, which resulted as I actually began to know who she was and how she shows up in the world.

I can be persnickety.  I am not overly friendly with new people; although, I am helpful.  Even as an extrovert, I watch and observe before I make decisions.  I also like things that I do a certain way–especially food.  There have been times in my life that I have been attracted to toxic people.  They will join with you when you are feeling badly, but now I want to seek out positive interactions.  I don’t want to be around any poison.  I am looking forward to meeting some positive girls tomorrow and connecting to new people in a slow, organic way.  I’m done with extremity and fervor.

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Complimentary Set

For years, I would say, “Everyone has baggage, but the art of relationship is finding your matching set.”  However, now that I’m pushing 40, it’s not really a “matching set” per se, but it’s complementary pairing.  Sounds easy, but after you’ve had several dating experiences, you can see that it is not as simple as it sounds.

These go together

These go together

Given the imperfections and, in fact, rather annoying things that all of us tend to do, it’s exceptional when those flaws are not “deal breakers.”  Some things just simply go fine together.  Other things cause sparks and friction like you wouldn’t believe.  Actually, I think that you do (probably) believe it or have experienced it.

I tend toward odd worries and don’t always trust that things will eventually work themselves out.  I also put up with far too much for too long, because I figure, relationships are hard.  Accepting my journey has helped.

I think that there is a complimentary set for most of us.  I also think that we tend to seek out qualities that are either part of us, or those that we have somewhere deep in the recesses of what is our true selves.  Even when a relationship ends, we can reflect on what changed for us, note growth, and learn to seek again what made us stay or alter the way in which we see things.

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Working

I have been working way too much this week.  It will reach 60-hours.  I finish up my class on Sunday.  So, today in between some house repairs, running a carpet cleaner at my parent’s house, and paying some bills, I have got to go to the university to computer score two personality inventories, and I still have to write three reports.

I was child-free last night after my son’s game and meeting with my pastor about my sermon next Sunday, but I couldn’t go out.  My son brought home a simply hideous virus that is mostly just in my throat now, but there was a period of time that I had eaten two granola bars and quinoa salad; although, it’d been over two days.  Although I have hardwoods, I didn’t want to do what my son had done on the carpet at my parent’s house.  It’s been a helluva week.

I think that things are shifting for me though.  I would like to go out tonight and have a glass of wine.  I had to cancel my outdoor rock climbing class on Saturday because I’ve been too sick.  I have a beer festival though.  🙂  I’ll need to print those tickets tomorrow morning too.  I don’t have a client until 10. I told my roommate, who is NEVER home, that I don’t date anymore, but I pair down.  What I do is hang out, work out, go to my friend’s houses for dinner and such, or just meet other’s friends and kick around.  It’s like information mining.  Only my friends know that I’m ready to settle down.  Organic is my approach, and the last few girls have been easily eliminated as possible love interests after a little data gathering.

Shane was supposed to call my son last night, but I didn’t turn out having him.  I moved it until next Tuesday.  So, she’s been “going to call him” since January, and it’s going to be July.  Nice.  It’s more odd to me that she affects this close relationship fantasy.  She spent two weekends and two sustained weeks with him 2.5-years ago.  And the latter killed her.  She cried, she raged, she wouldn’t have sex with me for 6-days, and of course, she drank like a fish.  But, I always say, and I mean this statement, “People are doing the best with what they got.”  She can jump out of airplanes, but she doesn’t have 24-7 resolve to parent.  She can be an aunt who drops in and out.

I think that I mentioned that I had a good conversation with Bette.  I think that she will get to a point in the next two years when she can really start to address her moods.  She still says that now that she has had a year’s space from her grief that she is doing well, but in a same breath she can scratch the surface with the hurt that she has over her two older kids who don’t talk to her anymore.  I think that those demons will have to be addressed, and if I had to bet, I’d say that they will be in time.  That’s her journey though.

I’ve been writing about my brother.  He’d be thirty this year…  I can remember a lot of things about him, and always wonder what he’d be like now.  It’s a story that I’ve never really told in total, and now I’ll be telling it to a handful of people who I know, and others who are part of my church, the whole story.  It’s an exercise in being vulnerable.  That is good for me.  I’m on a track that is doing the best with what I got.

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Plague of insomnia

I have been with a headache for days and I think that it’s attributable to the fires.  I hate summer fires.  I took one of the evil meds, which seemed to work for sometime, but then got me all fatigued and tired, so I went to bed early.  I should be writing a report, and I may do that after I blog.  I just can’t sleep though.

Scrubs is something else.  I ran next to her–I was supposed to show her some weight forms at her athletic club–and we talked.  So, she has this ex who she really wants to settle down and make a life with, and I’ve seen pictures of her and she’s hot.  Also, superficially they seem to make sense.  She still does stuff with her, but has been put in the “undefined” queue a few months ago.  (I promise myself to tell a girl to fuck off if she ever says that bullshit to me again.)  It’s obvious how much she likes her though, but she has been going out on all kinds of dates with all kinds of people, and recently had a nice one with a man.  I told her, and I mean this, “If you can do that, it’s infinitely simpler, more conventional, and easier on the whole for others to ‘take.'”

When we went upstairs to the free weights, I did show her the forms, but she was interrupting me and talking and commenting.  Maybe it’s because she had to watch because it’s not good to do cardio on days that you lift, so I was simply illustrating the forms, but she was getting on my nerves.  I told her that she was a pain-in-the-ass.  She had talked to this girl before we started.  I’ve seen this girl out over the past few years.  After I ran through what this day of weights looked like, she talked to her at length again. When we got to the car later, she told me that she and that girl had a fling last summer.  I quickly did the math.  WTF?!?  I asked, “How does that work out?  I met your other fling on my bday trip in early fall…”  Then I realized that in addition to now-undefined girl, and trip girl, she was also doing gym girl.  AMAZING.  She can keep track of a lot, and seems to be a very good juggler.

Then I noticed her thin upper lip.  How she is wrinkling around her eyes very heavily, and that her teeth are pretty big and fairly crooked.  I guess I know what I’m doing with Scrubs…  I’m making a new friend who I can hang out with when I don’t have much to do.  She is TROUBLE.  When you see trouble, your brain makes her less attractive.  Thank you self-protection.

Then there are the entourage of the heavy drinking and sometimes fighting girls.  I’ll see one of them at the end of next week for stuff in my house.  That’s about all I want to do with them.  I don’t want a friendship with any of them, and when you are fighting with your partner and that gets pinned on me, and I didn’t KNOW you two weeks ago, I think, “It’s time for twelve steps.”

Everyone is doing the very best with what they’ve got.  It amazes me that what many do have is a path to destroy themselves and create pain.  I think that years ago, I would have tried to support these people in their internal struggles.  But, that’s the thing… Their choices are theirs, and they get what they need from making them.  However, I don’t have to get entangled in their choices with them by sleeping with any of them.  I think the clinical term is joining.  I don’t need to do that.  I’m holding out for true connection, excellent conversation, and health.

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Much improved

Monday pretty much sucked.  I also had a potassium fall and my left bicep was twitching all to hell.  I just have determined that no one should be electrocuted.  Very glad that I finished the event on Saturday night, but won’t do it again.  I like our little local 5-mile adventure race, and now that I know what to expect, I want to get a good time on that one next year.  No electric shocks and not running up blacks (ski hill) = more manageable.

Tuesday I actually even got a little work done.  Had some need to text Bette because I finished that race well.  So, now I’m going to have to write two more reports and then go to the art supply store for work tonight.  Wish that I would have slept more, but not really complaining.

I’m in my 4th month of continuing not to date.  I have been completely celibate for six-months as of Saturday when I did the race challenge.  I think that NOT dating takes up less energy and when you have a little flirtation mixed with possibility for fun hang outs.  It yields that you don’t have very much expectation.  I took a walk with my cycling partner yesterday, and I told her that I have no idea what Scrubs and I are doing.  I also reiterated to her that she needs to find out what she’s doing with her ex before I would even consider kissing her.  I am teaching her how to complete my Day A weights on Thursday.  I look forward to hugging her.

Lez Children must be avoided.  Pride Sunday was really strange and I told my workout partner that I felt like I was in a throwback to five-years ago when I was newly out.  I just don’t do well drinking all day, and it frankly reminds me of my relationship with Shane as well.  Not enough goals and things that make you happy, imho, if you prefer to pound alcohol the ENTIRE day.

I haven’t had a summit yet.  I would like to get one of those one.  I think that I want to plan a climb on July 3rd.  I’m not even sure which one yet.  I’ve only done eleven and think that if I can fine jumping off platforms, I can increase exposure.

I have only Bette to thank for this level of fitness, so I did so.  Then she said that she wanted to send me pictures of her race, and I said no thanks.  She sent me some school stuff from her son.  I do miss him.  He is a cool kid.

Pre-screening is the only thing that I will do while I am NOT dating.  I don’t want to get involved with a woman in anyway that’s physical unless I really know her.  Then you can ignore things under the pretense of “getting to know you,” because you are already getting o’s and all the dopamine.  No more of that for me.  It may mean that I’m single for a year or two, and that is just fine by me.  I don’t want to gamble or be an ex collector.

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Remember

I went out last night and bullshitted with the bartenders and talked to one girl at length.  She was super butch, but funny and smart.  I enjoyed myself, went to the car with a spring in my step, and talked to my workout partner and then slept like a baby.  I have a job interview in just over an hour, so I need to pop in the car and then head up there.  One of the bartenders knew where I was interviewing, because his father used to work there.  I don’t subscribe to or endorse coincidences, so I thought that was cool.

There was a time a few short years ago when I’d leave the lesbo bar and would feel so badly.  I hated the way that I felt.  I believe now that most of it was because I thought that I should be with someone.  The thing is that I met Shane in a bar four-years ago on June 19th, and that yielded a summer of fun and then all kinds of weirdness after she fell in love with me, and I convinced myself that I should make something work.  Why make something work?  Those efforts are for 3-5 years down the road when stuff hits and you have to navigate it.

For argument’s sake let’s say that there was a super fit, light-eyed girl who was single who sat with me last night and we chatted.  We can go farther and say that she got my number.  I’d still be who I am now.  It would have been exciting and interesting, but I’d have figured that perhaps she was pissed at her girlfriend and went to the bar to make her jealous.  I also would have told her that we should meet for a bike ride sometime in the the next month.

Bette was so important to me for close to a year.  When she started her stuff of breaking up with me, and then really needing to sleep with me, and then engaging in fights with me, and then calling me or showing up to make plans for sex, I just kinda let my heart die.  That’s not the kind of love that I want.  It sounds a lot more like a relationship sponsored by the sensationalist and fear-based media in which anxiety prays on what I would lose without her, or how alone I would be if we didn’t talk.  I’m alone.  No one texts or pursues me.  I’m fine.  In fact, I know that girls who I know don’t contact me because they are not the right girl for me, or am I for them.

It’s good to come home and talk to a dear friend and go to sleep.  This friend of mine only gives advice when I ask, and we know many deep, dark secrets about each other.  I would never let those go in one direction.  I don’t fire questions at someone to get data, so I have a way to keep them needing me.  There is a genuine, open, and honest experience with others.  It’s authentic. That’s the path that I walk.

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Begging to be told

I have some little things floating around in my brain… I want to tell it and talk about what these random thoughts are percolating in my head that is probably mostly a consequence of only working part-time and adjusting to that schedule SUPER FAST. I went to pick up the girl who I wound up caravanning with on Sunday night and her niece was in the kitchen. This girl is more upperclass than what I’m used to and I think also comes from money, so although she was in scrubs, she said, “Would you like a beer?” I told her that would be something that I’d never decline. Her niece who had been watching me said, “You sound like my mother.”

I said, “Ew… That’s definitely a Top Ten List something that I don’t want to hear,” and I looked at her again, and said, “There is probably no way that I could be your mother.” Then she said, shudder, “My mother is sixty.” I took it wrong though. Without skipping a beat, I said that was perfectly charming. We laughed and started up a conversation with my date who opened the beer and handed it to me. Rich girls do have very good manners. I think that there must be a difference between those who come from money and those who have made money. Bette doesn’t have anywhere near that level of finesse. The present girl then said that she was heading upstairs to change.

Her niece kept watching me. When she did we talked easily. She asked how old I was, and when I told her that I was 38, she said, “You look good!” A little color rose to her face, and I figured she was about the age of a graduating senior, so I said, “Oh, remember, I’m 60,” and then I winked at her. She flushed more and continued to talk. She then asked if I was single, and I said, “Very. I haven’t even been with anyone in 6-months. It feels good to be on woman detox.” Then she said, “I should ask ____, about that because I’m pretty curious.” I said, “I think that it’s kids in your age group. They don’t really see sexuality as an issue at all, and then girls, in general are always socialized well; therefore, being allowed to touch each other and holds hands and such. It seems like a natural extension. But…” I had to glance at her a little more while she was casually drawing and sitting down across the counter in the kitchen from me, “I do think that you are straight.” Then she said, “But, I’m very turned on by women,” and again more color rushed to her face.

Ha. That is some good stuff. Here is a child 15-16 years my junior who is all torqued up talking about women with me. I had this rebound thing last summer with Peter Pan when I was 37, and I found that her 31 was waaaaay too young. I highly doubt that any 23-year-old would hold an appeal for me, but it was fun, and it was interesting. I think that I need to grab a drink tonight. I have a damn job interview at 9:30 tomorrow morning, so I will have to take the boy to my folks’ house so I can do that. (I’m still not sure what I’ll be doing for supervision next school year.) I’m going to go out a bit and maybe even bar hop. I need to let these musings in my mind and body have a little life in them. 😉

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More See Saw

Dammit.  I was at my son’s End-of-the-Year Picnic when the Director of the Day Treatment called.  He said that he doesn’t know if he can get me adequate supervision next fall and spring.  I got upset and came home and did two applications, which wound up taking over two-hours.  In fact, it may have been 2.5 hours.  Lovely.  I’ll meet with him tomorrow.  My current supervisor will conference in on the call, which will be helpful.  We shall see.

I need a new nickname for the girl previously termed as “Lonely Girl.”  She is just like the rest of us, and doing the best that she can with what’s she’s got.  Honestly, she is newly divorced.  She and her partner have only been split for two-years and some change.  That is not enough time to get clarity with what you want, or how to co-parent divorced.  That takes time.  My ex and I have been not living together for nearly six.

I wanted to pick her up, but she was on call, so we caravanned.  My friend and she were from the same town, so that was a good connection for her.  She kept saying how cool they were.  My friend’s partner and she are in the same industry; therefore, she really liked them both given that she had something in common with each of them.  I do have great friends.

I don’t know.  She gives good hugs.  I had a date with a jailbait girl who I refer to as “Church Girl” last summer and I liked her hugs.  They are the same sign too.  I like water signs.  They have a good damper for my personality.  I just want to see what transpires.  What is meant to happen will.

I still like her dimples, and was very excited that she also wore a skirt (Well, mine was actually a skort, but hey!), and that I got to see her legs.  I want to meet some of her friends, I want to cycle with her and hike, and I want my workout partner to meet her.  Maybe we are each other’s wingmen.  Maybe we will be on a couch someday and start kissing.  I don’t know and trust that what is meant to be, will just develop.