The Interlude

This morning while I slept I dreamt I was in Mexico.  I had done a little tour of the city, just wandering around, and I'd met a Jewish man (he looked like Matt Craven, only much older) in this little touristy place that was selling religious goods.  There was holy water stored in these little plastic rabbit bottles.  The rabbits were smiling and had bow ties on which were molded into the plastic.  He bought me one saying it was very expensive anywhere else. 

Later he visited me in the villa I was staying in.  I had laid down on my stomach on the bed and was sleeping with my face turned to the outside of the bed.  The little lamp on the bed side table was on.  I felt his hand on the small of my back and I opened my eyes from sleep as I sensed him sitting next to me on the bed.  He asked me if I was well and I smiled and said yes, and I was glad he came.  I lifted myself onto my elbows and he leaned forward with a book open in his right hand.  It was written by a Mexican philosopher he'd spoken to me of when we'd met.  He pointed to a passage and read aloud to me one part and as he read he traced his finger along my lower back under my blouse, barely touching.

He read, "It feels like death.  It seems like death.  But it is only Living."


'You see my Dear?  It is only living... you must... do you understand?  It is only living you must do, however it may look or feel or seem.  It is living.  Simply living.'

I remember smiling and how his touch felt and how I wanted to be touched.  Then we were in the sitting room, the chairs were heavy and wooden, dark wood etched and carved but not overly so.  The man was with his friend, a white man with white hair and blue eyes and also old.  They each had a glass with a small amount of liquor, the lamps cast a soft warm light.  My Jewish friend was holding my Holy Water encased in the dingy plastic rabbit.  He told me it as corrupted and handed me another bottle that looked like mahogany with brass stud and inlay work about the length of my forearm shaped like an extended pyramid.  He said it was pure and that his friend there had procured it for him at great cost from a monastery he'd been to but that they wanted to make me a gift of one of the bottles.  I held it in my hands wondering why but accepting the gift.  We were smiling quietly at each other, the other man lifted his glass as if in reply and sipped, I held the Holy Water, and my friend stood by the lamp as an old Mexican woman that looked a little like my grandmother came to sit with us.

And I woke up thinking I heard rain but it was the quiet sounds of battle coming from the living room, my son is playing Call of Duty. 

One Year

It's been a year.  This weekend is a year.  I still don't know what to think, what to say...

I still, more often than not, feel like I am in a haze, in Limbo.

I went to dinner with a friend.  We'd walked around and talked about nothing for a while.  I realized in comparison I am in limbo.

Maybe some of us never get out.  Maybe it's just this weekend and I'm a little depressed.  I keep pushing myself away from it, even though I am floating in it... like on a raft drifting, I keep toeing away from the edge and staring at the sky.

My Heads To The Wall

I've changed so much and when I consider how I am different I'm pleased.  The situations I review are not something I find particularly pleasant.  I am practicing putting things aside.  I tend to run over things in my mind, over and over.  When something is fresh, or emotional, or something that is challenging me, this over thinking can be as exhausting as the situation itself.  Then it passes and I start to find my level place.

Some situations are best left to themselves, to not feed them or poke at them and draw them back to see if they will bite you or not.  They will.  It's frustrating to walk away, to not do those things and have them pursue you, nipping at your heels looking for a fight.

The last piece of my past, in drama saturated fashion, is passing away.  The drama is one sided, and appropriately juvenile in execution.

Looking at it, not responding, and watching it grow on itself with no involvement from me has been an education, and a little depressing and draining.  Each time it nips at me, and I find myself thinking about it, avoiding being engaged, and move past it, she'll message me or text me with these superior and fatalistic statements, and I am at the beginning of processing it out again.  I'm reminded of John and my mother.  They'd each provoke and swarm like red ants biting, biting, stinging until I'd respond out of simple self preservation.  The look in their eyes of triumph was always disturbing.

When I cut my family off, when I finally left John despite still being in love with him, I changed. I no longer allow people to draw me into those situations.  That thing in me that would pull for me to respond, to defend against things I didn't need to defend against, to fix, to find a peaceful resolution.  I'm done.  Don't get me wrong.  I can't help but see it, I understand it is happening, I might even try to have a real conversation at first if it seems worth it... but someone that is out for emotional blood, for battle for the sake of battle... I don't play along. 

I have personally observed and learned people like that are seeking a release.  Creating the situation, putting someone else on the defensive, causing the drama but not taking responsibility for it but forcing someone else to, gives them a release.  A sense of winning.

I don't operate that way inside myself, I know some do but it doesn't help me understand it.  Now I don't need to understand it.  I recognize it for what it is now, I also won't be drawn in anymore.  Unfortunately I still find it in my head while they continue to try to worry at the rag they've ripped from the foundation of the relationship to rape and pillage and wear out. 

So that sucks. 

I've been waiting for her to make good on her promise to be okay with us not being friends anymore, to delete me from facebook, to not contact me anymore.  I refuse to give her the excuse to put it on me, so I am won't tell her to fuck herself, but I am tired of her badgering me.

It would seem the catalyst was Brian.  Her interest in whether or not I was investing in him was too strange.  But I don't think that's what it was.  Brian doesn't matter to either one of us.  The truth is she's over our friendship for whatever reason, she's created this, she's projecting her bullshit life onto mine so she doesn't have to deal with herself honestly.  She's using me for a release because she hasn't attacked me in a while, because I was always the non-judgmental friend that would defend and try to fix it.  Because she figured I was a safe and easy target.

I haven't responded in the ways I know she's expected me to and it feels good to not be that girl anymore. 

I just wish I didn't feel tired or affected.  I'm not hurt, I'm not overly sad, I'm not feeling a strong need to respond.  A few times I've started to.  Had my say.  Then deleted it.  I've learned to respond is to feed into it.  Then it is all consuming and nothing is accomplished but that other person gets what they need, the release.  Not responding doesn't mean I am not aware of her perverse need to try to get one.  I finally see it for what it is and I'm that person I was before in our friendship.  Maybe that's why.  I'm not a  pawn anymore. 

Here I am writing about it.  She's still managed to get me thinking.  That annoys me and I am learning to put it off more quickly, but it's there right now, and she keeps inputting it working for a response she can grab onto to turn into a fight.

It's sad and freeing to realize she was part of that last connection to my past.  To that person I was that could be manipulated that way.  I could keep her in my life, play into it, but I'm changing.  I don't want to, I don't need to. 

I've worked damn hard to be this woman I am now.  I like myself.  I am stronger. I want more for my life.  To enrich and to be enriched.  To not cast my pearls before swine.

I have learned from these three, mirrors of each other: Mother, Friend, Love

I feel I learned the most from John.  I believe it is because I loved him.  I really loved him unconditionally and for a time that was a very beautiful thing.  It was selfless, without expectation.  Then still loving him I had to choose a better way.  Making that choice changed something in me.  With my mother I was a child she didn't like very much, her definitions we rigid, her issues projected onto me, and me with a hunger to be loved as a child should be by her mother.  With my friend wanting the same acceptance I gave, wanting to be able to be just be myself and loved in friendship.  With my mother and my friend there was a sense that it should have been what it was meant to be.  Was that sense there with John? Of course.  But something with him was different, I can't qualify it.

Having known that love I had for him magnified the lack of it in certain other relationships.  I learned to expect more than just scraps tossed down to me while I gave so much of myself away.  It actually changed everything.  I'd learned to make the hard decisions, to stand on my own. 

The relationships I am developing now are more mutual and the difference is astonishing. 

Like with Brian, looking back over what I wrote about my experiences the last few weeks I see it.  I don't want to settle.  I learned from him what I was intended to learn.  Things are starting to move that way, situations I am actually learning from and it isn't taking Years to sink in, merely moments.  I'm allowing things to go that are Meant to go.  It's been difficult.  I have lost so much over my life, but quantity isn't necessarily quality.  I've learned sometimes the value I'd placed on certain people or things was far from accurate  I don't have to hold on for the sake of holding on so I don't have to lose something.  Sometimes losing is gaining.

I'm trying to come to terms with how to move forward.  I'm basic.  I have my routines: home, kids, work.  When opportunities come up to do something I take them when I can so I can have a sense of forward momentum.  The last few days I am tired.  I felt a little like I wasn't moving forward anymore (like I was moving backward) because I was struggling with these two people's behavior internally.  Without engaging in this drama I am still sort of worn out.  I'm learning hard lessons, losing someone I felt was a friend of 25 years.  Allowing myself to dump a guy even though he's going through a lot.  That was empowering for me.  I didn't allow my empathy to cloud my needs and overshadow importance of the things I am trying to built for myself.

I don't expect calm winds and following seas, but I am ready for some.   

The Comedy Of It All and The Close Call

  

Your Cadillac has got a wheel in the ditch, and a wheel on the track.

Alabama, Neil Young

The devil does fool with the best laid plan.  Good thing too.  It's a better thing when it seems the devil fucks up and God is left laughing.  

I can't say for certain God or the devil are involved here in my little Comedy, their rolls are lighting, sound and stage, script changes.  I just have to roll with it and make my own decisions and improvise.

I will NOT be having sex with Brian.  Surprised?  I'm not.  Considering it was worth it though.  Considering was a step forward.  A greater step forward is understanding that I won't. Particularly before regretting actually having done it.

Why?  Well I will tell you.  Not only did it all start to fall apart on itself but he did little things that became the things that broke it all instead of made it.  And, I'm not sure he'll be surprised either.

I don't want a project.  I saw it right away.  His life is in a tailspin right now and where he ends up landing and how will be entirely up to him.  I waited much longer to come to this conclusion than I should have, it was taken care of for me right at the beginning truth be told, the exit presented and I was through it before I  knew what happened, but I looked back... I drew myself back to it only to have extract myself out again in short order.  

Brian and I met this evening for a movie.  We met at World Market.  I enjoyed myself there until he showed up. He was in a jovial mood.  That isn't why I stopped enjoying myself.  It was because he was sort of all over the place, but he'd said he'd had a good day and on a new job with a lot of responsibility that can be an occasion for rejoicing.

We left the store so he could put some things in his car.  He had a plastic cup with straw and a soda which he topped off in the cup.  He offered me some and let me know there was rum in it.  No thanks.  Not a fan of rum and cokes, I have my reasons.  I realized rather quickly he was swimming, gill deep.  Even when I am drunk I don't like drunk people.  I don't appreciate the sloppy silliness and the lack of focus.  We decided on the film and went in.  He was all over me.  Sitting close, hand holding, over nuzzling, terrible kissing.  And he's a fucking talker during a movie and he had to go to the bathroom several times.  For that I was grateful, it gave me a break.  But I can't.  I just can't be patient with a movie talker.  There is a time and place for kissing and touching, and he doesn't get that either.  And... He smelled like alcohol, it was rolling off of him.  Big fuck up with me.  If you are drinking enough to reek of it I'm out.  Deal breaker.  Last night I thought it was that smell on his clothes ... the front load washer smell.  I think it was that and alcohol. 

It gets better!  I'll sound like a Straight Up Bitch now and I am okay with it, it is just too much for me to process.  It's too complicated and feels old when it should feel fresh and be shiny.  It's more than I want to deal with in the wee early stages of knowing someone, and the instant consistent sex thing was only working because I was interested in having sex.

The Ima Bitch part.  While we were watching the movie he got up yet again to use the restroom.  He found out a friend of his passed away.  I believe he was sent a text message of the obituary.  He couldn't stay.  He let me know he was upset and had to leave.  I went to leave as well and he told me to stay.  I did.  For about 15 minutes letting the movie wash over me, the thoughts tumble through my mind, the feelings crest and fall, flat flat flat.

I'd been thinking on the drive, and since I arrived home how could I break it to him that I am done when he's going through so much crap and feeling bad but knowing it was going to have to be done.  How I could word the truth.  Not the observations.  That I figured out.

But I'm thinking ... it isn't even necessary.

Ahhh, handled.  He messaged me just now asking if he can see me.  I replied, I don't think that is a good idea.
Okay was his reply.

I dodged a bullet. 

Layne On A Path

You have your way. 

I have my way.

As for the right way, the correct way,

It does not exist.

~Friedrich Nietsche~ 

A year ago today my life should have been beautiful.  I was deeply in love and had been for years, it was supposed to be a fresh start.  The days were sunny and fresh, the rain soft and balmy, the leaves were changed to bright fire and drifted down like embers in the side-way light.  And like an ember it flashed bright with hope, with potential, and un-nurtured it crumbled to ashes and succumbed to its destruction.

Day after tomorrow.  Tomorrow night.  Just a few weeks from now.   These days just a year past ... I was existing in a burning hellish world.   I was enduring and trying to survive.  I was painfully thrust into a new beginning.

Perhaps I have accomplished a lot.  I thought I had.  I'm not so sure most of the time.  It simply is what it is.  I have learned to be content with that, to go with the flow of it all.  Inside I question, I fret, I balk.  Outside I roll with it, or I roll away.

I have a hard time interacting with people.  I speak, I laugh, I share, I socialize.  I've gotten better at it over time.  Work is easiest.  It's controlled, there is expectation I can meet, the time is structured, I get lost in my craft.   When I would go out socially I would sit and observe.  I liked myself better then.  I didn't say much.  I was quiet.  I hated it, still do, when I shared too much.  I didn't care to add anyone to my life, so no one really mattered, except my few girlfriends.  I met a few men that proved to me I was right to avoid it all.  The drama they were capable of causing, I couldn't handle it.  So I didn't.  But slowly, like peeling away damage to reveal new fragile tissue, I have become more comfortable going out socially.  A small, imperceptible shift happened sometime about two months ago.

I went out and my 'No Fucking Way' barriers seemed to melt and turn to vapor under the dark focused stare of a short impish Mexican-American.  I laughed and had fun for the first time in Years.  No one to answer to, no mold encasing me that night. I was freed for a few hours by whiskey and the devil and it was sublime to float above my destruction, and the things I've been struggling to rebuild, and the path so ingrained in my psyche.  Free.  Free enough to let him touch me and not cringe out of guilt and fear and longing.  And his touch shattered the numb grief I've been existing in.  I wanted more.  

I am struggling with myself. That impish, charged, and swarthy man above unearthed parts of me I thought died with John.  I'm struggling with feeling confused that I felt that way, that I met someone else and he'd been capable of making me feel something too.  And Different again.  That fun-devious man a few months ago feels different than the man I am experiencing now.  

I'm struggling in my thoughts and responses in regard to this.  I suppose I can be as honest here and I am in my head.  I haven't been with anyone in year.  The intimacy John and I shared had been disintegrating, due to his health, stress, and the fact he could be prime, grade A asshole. The intimacy with him, in all honesty, was always a struggle.  Being in love with someone like that can do damage.  To be built up and broken down time and time again by someone that is broken is something I wouldn't wish on anyone.

My girlfriend and I have talked about hang ups.  I'm certain I have them, but how deep they run, how long they'll be there I have no idea.  I have this quality deep down, a strength, a me, that always abides.  I think I'll heal, but it's the healing that hurts as much as the things that caused the wounds.

So I am sort of seeing someone.  I say that because it's weird and not really, to me, serious.  Dating is not something I do, and honestly, I wish I was seeing someone else too, several someone else's.  Maybe I could send them all away.   

Hang up number 1 identified.  I don't like letting anyone too close.  I have already learned so much about myself interacting socially lately, and with this man.  I see things in myself, things I adopted from John, ways of assessing people.   I also see things about myself I'd love make into allies instead of enemies. 

Yet, I find myself in this situation and I'm uncertain, though I suspect I know, where it's going.  

There are little lies it's being built on so it won't go far. 

Little lies amounting to little doubts, which is absolutely unsurprising.  

Hang up number 2, trust issues.  I have them.  I hate having them.  Hate it so much I've often ignored my instincts and feelings and ended up being in situations I could have avoided.

Is this one of them?

Little lies.  Pictures.  Why, why, why, why do people misrepresent themselves?  I understand, we all want to be the ideal we were, but it is an overcoming or a deal breaker for the other person when Inevitably the truth is revealed face to face.  Why bother?  It is bizarre to me.

So putting aside the reality vs. his ideal of himself, the self he's trying to re-realize and very well might if he'd focus, let us move on with the understanding I am setting it aside, Not ignoring it.  I already mentioned in another entry his first impression... not like the pictures, a bit out of shape, shorter than he likes to describe himself as, and his clothing carries the fragrance of 'front load washer needs to be sanitized'.  The main reason I don't want a front load washer btw.  Yes, I told him last night.  I can't let that one go.  

It's hard to not compare him to John.  John was clean, put together.  Even when he was a mess he was lethal, gorgeous, undeniable.

This man is so different.  I worry he's a slob.  I do.  I'm setting it aside because I figure there are things I like too and his circumstances might be feeding into this.  Not making excuses, just allowing a concession for now.  First I didn't misrepresent myself.  I sent a face shot taken maybe a day or two before when we tried to figure out if we'd ever met as we are acquainted with some of the same people.  No.  He'd checked my facebook but there are only four head shots available for viewing, my facebook is closed to anyone not a friend, and I don't have body shots, I don't know why, I just don't.  So I took a picture, as well as I could, in my girlfriends bathroom the moment before I sent it to him.  From the knees up in velour black trackies, and a long sleeve soft draping fitted blue baseball-cut t-shirt.  I look good in my clothes.  Slender curvy as described.  I'm like John in that respect.  I usually look reasonably put together.  An ex-coworker once said John and I were two beautiful people together, a beautiful couple.  I was very flattered because I have always seen John as the beautiful one.  Naked I don't mind looking at myself, I know my flaws and I'm not overly excited about having anyone else see them.  Perhaps hang up number 3, but what woman doesn't have that one?  I don't think a man would notice unless he was the coldly scrutinizing type or gay.  John liked me naked.  Actually, John like me in lingerie, he had his little kinks like everyone else.  He made me feel sexy, but sometimes I felt like a doll... He'd get lost in himself during those times we'd have sex... like a boy experiencing the body, not the woman.

Brian and I have things we like in common.  Each of us like many of the same things, each of us has things we could introduce to the other.  We talk easily to one another.  Both of us like to read.  This is a good one because when I read I don't particularly like to be interrupted.  He likes to cook, I used to until my sons became pedestrian and picky eaters.  I cook well and I am creative, they are just suspicious of food.  In this I feel they are not my sons.  I have always been adventurous.  It must be the German in them.  Though my youngest is more adventurous than my eldest.  Back to Brian ... and since the first date, we know we can kiss each other well.  I think I am better at it.

He doesn't set me on fire like the other man just before him.  But my head does start to swim. 

And this is where I start to freak out.  I am like two people.  Fury wants to get proper fucked, and I think yes, I'll end up proper fucked.  Trust Issues are irritating.

I think he could make me cum, probably again and again.  He has wonderful hands and he likes pleasing a woman.  This is something I like about him, he makes love to the Whole woman, he's turned on by Her.  Her body, her responses, who she is... that is undeniably working in his favor. 

Each time we've kissed, three times now, he gets better.  I like a little aggression.  If it's sweet, I'll give sweet back.  If it's hungry, I'll hunger back.  I'd like to note, only if I'm into it.  Not into it you couldn't do anything to change it.  

I'll cut to it.  I'm doubtful it would be anything more than friendship and sex, sex, sex.  Honestly, I'm not sure it would be anything more than sex, sex, sex.  Sex enters the picture and being friends can be, complicated.  I can't decide yet with him.  I think maybe... but I'm not worrying over it.  I don't pick up that he's a gossiping man bitch anyway.  I just think few men are capable of being friends post having sex.

Before I met him he let me know I was 'hot'.  Fair, blunt, obvious.  After we met and he told my girlfriend it was a great first date, that I am beautiful (nice transition from Hot), and it was the best goodnight kiss he'd ever had.  Sweet.  Better than ur hot.  I allowed it and still went on the date because I am clear that I need practice.

He keeps his eyes on me.  He's attentive, not shy about it.  He's not the jealous type.  I wore a dress last Thursday.  I love it, I feel pretty, it's sexy but absolutely not obvious in any way.  What's that quote, tight enough to show you're a woman, loose enough to show you're a lady?  He wasn't the only one looking. Even I noticed.  He mentioned it and seemed proud.  I liked that.  John was shockingly insecure and to compensate arrogant and controlling.  I feel it was the saddest thing about him.

He saw and commented on something I don't like about myself and I Needed to hear it.  He mentioned my eyes are solid, I give nothing away.  But my mouth is easy to read.  I show my emotion there.  Something I can now be aware of and try to work on. 

I believe he isn't past trying to play me, to manipulate to get me into bed.  After all, he is a man and desire makes men focus on realizing and satisfying that desire.  I KNOW he wants me.  I think he thinks he has me dialed in and he's patient to a point.  I do and don't like that about men.  If I want to have sex with him I will... I guess it IS a bit of game.  I'd like to play it better... but not to Play someone. 

Last Wednesday he kissed me good and proper, he used his hands... it's a good thing his situation and my situation prevented us falling into bed because I am certainly not going to fuck someone in my car the first time I break this celibacy.  I like the little boundaries, they are pacing us.

But it's looming.  Last night we met for a drink when he was done with work... knowing his situation I understand he desperately needs a distraction.  

He is in such a similar place to me when I'd met John.  Only he's a man and men are different in their responses to these situations.  He's been married forever, separated and still living with his wife.  He has two sons, close in age to mine now, just a few years older.  I am certain it is absolutely brutal on all of them.  I know this particular tidbit isn't a lie as I know people that know his circumstances.  If I didn't know this for a fact I'd decide he was lying and a cheater, so there is some comfort in understanding where he is right now.   Damn it, I think friends on both sides just want us both to get together, to at least get laid.  Why is that?  Why do my friends want me to get laid and why am I so damn resistant?  Why can't I allow myself to just have fun, to let sex be FUN.  I've been there before, many years ago when I was younger.  I think some part of me though was looking for a happily ever after.  I'm different now.  I am viewing things differently now.

Well, I think I am headed in that direction.

When I kiss someone I get lost... I lose myself to sensation.  Whether I am deeply attracted to them (as in seeing a potential) or not.  It has been lovely to be kissed recently by two men that know how to kiss.  John couldn't kiss well.  I taught him by taking over in that department, and sex with John was good, but it was... idk, something different and I described it better above.  Sex with my ex-husband was just sad.  

I'd met someone when I was separating from my ex... perhaps similar to where Brian is in his life now.  He was possibly the best sex I have ever had.  He was wonderfully freeing to be with.  There was no expectation, we had so much fun, we were well matched, and there was no possibility of either of us falling in love.  Then John happened and that was it.  John was one of the great and palpable shifts in my life.  He was an Epic Event.

I was, and I still am, happy to have experienced that.  Yes John, but I am referring to the man before John, his name was also Brian.

Brian's circumstance (the once I am seeing now), like mine was, desperately needs a soothing balm... a touch, a kindness, an oasis from the horror of what is happening in his life.  He's a man, and men are different.  It is easier for them to fall into other relationships, essential to their egos.  I envy it a little as a woman because it is so much more difficult to disconnect the emotional aspect.  So, two months ago he had an interlude with a girl half his age.  A delightfully funny and honestly rather sexy reveal on his part.  I like learning things like this, I like learning anything about someone.  It adds a richness in the interaction for me.  We'd been talking about masturbation and I wish I could remember how the conversation started.  But this reveal started because he told me it turned him on to watch a woman make herself cum.  I'd asked him how he'd learned this, when, and many women he'd experienced this with, he said she was the first.  So it's a new IRL turn on.  I admitted I've never done that with anyone.

He'd run into her a few months ago.  She used to work for him at another place he'd managed.  He mentioned he'd be willing to hire her at his new establishment he is general manager for.  This is his story, I'm just retelling it.  He said she didn't think it would be a good idea because of the sexual tension.  He indicated he was surprised.  No surprise, they hooked up.  He said she told him masturbation was the only way she could cum. I envy how younger women today are more assertive in their sexuality, less shy.  He said after she told him he watched her masturbate then he made her cum without her toy and that was the end of it.  He said she was way too young.  He also said she gave terrible head.  How is that possible?  I mean I suppose it is but... if a girl is in touch with her sexuality enough to be uninhibited in that way I'd think she'd be better at oral sex, IDK, maybe she's not Orally inclined.

That would take me back to me.  I like sex... I like that heady power of making someone else lost in sensation too.  I like mutual sex.  I like to draw it out.  I like a man to be a little aggressive, it helps me be more open.  Otherwise I tend to become introverted and shy.  And that is where I remember who I was before crazy church, my ex, and then John.  When I was younger I was freer.  I wasn't  slutty in any way, but I had a very healthy sex drive, I was less shy.

John I loved unconditionally.  Sex was great because of my feelings for him.  Then his pathology and his actions systematically destroyed us.  I still loved him very deeply when I left.  Then he died shortly after.  It's a shadow inside me, and the years of loving him and living within that life will, for a time, be something to work through until I am past those things. My ex was the whole sad religion thing, a poor poor match.  Both men very insecure, very selfish.

I'm worried, almost scared to take that step.  I'm  frightened of how I will respond to someone else.  I can't predict my responses.  I can't help but look at Brian and wonder if he's just another version of my ex-husband.  I can't help but wonder if I am doomed to end up with another version of my ex, or John.  How sad it is that I feel I am doomed to just those two types of men.  How ridiculous is that mental conversation I have with myself?  At least I recognize it.

However... considering these ridiculous thoughts I am finding myself on yet another path.  I have these wonderful boundaries with Brian.  I get heated kisses on the driver side of my car, a taste.  We can't make it happen because I have my sons at home and he has 'complications' and his home isn't free either.  I might have sex with him, I might not, I can't predict that.  I can say it is likely. It's nice though... these immediate impediments to actually having sex.  I have time to warm up to the idea, not feeding the impulse too quickly and ending up questioning after.  If I choose this I won't regret it and I'll know it doesn't have to be more or less than it is.  I am a little worried he's falling in love with me.  I could be wrong, but that would be unfortunate.  I want a mutual experience, or a mutual falling for one another.  I don't want to be hurt and I don't want someone hurt because of me either. 

I'd prefer right now that we are able to experience one another.  I can't see myself with him long term, I can't see anything long term.  I'm thinking I'm not meant to.  But really I don't know, and I don't want to have to think that way.  And why is it I have need to struggle with that... I have had this thought that I have to hold out for something else.  What something else?  What.  It seems unrealistic.  I think I could open up at this moment and at this time and have sex with someone I like, that would end up being very good sex and not have to worry about it ending in a decade or more of my life like it did with my ex, like it did with John.  I am trying to figure out how it is I have defined myself sexually, emotionally, as a woman... residual effects of that church (Christian rights and wrongs) and having trained myself to behave towards men in a way that would always make John feel safe?  And he really, really didn't deserve it, he didn't try to make me feel safe, he didn't make me feel safe.  Yet whether I was with him or not, I became good at sliding my eyes past men, setting a 'oh... don't bother' boundary so well it became automatic.  It didn't make a difference, it didn't help in my relationship with John, he was so insecure and he jealous of the unknown in regard to me. Regardless, I became so good at avoiding other mens interest.  I shut them out so effectively.  I have been trying to learn how to NOT have that automatic habit now.  I am learning for now it was the man the across the table from me, assertive in his attraction.  I simply wasn't allowed to avoid noticing him and that drew me out.  I couldn't simply look past him, and he made me laugh that night, and he surprised me in his behavior several times and it was lovely being noticed and returning that awareness.  And Brian... a blind date... again, sitting across from me, having a conversation.  I couldn't pretend it wasn't there.  I won't lie too, just meeting Brian out I wouldn't have considered him.  But on a date I noticed his eyes.  A neutral green.  I learned we had things in common.  I learned I'd go on another date.  I learned on that other date his hands are amazing and he kisses well.  I learned I liked his touch.  Felt soothed and desirable.  Kissing him a third time I learned I could very much desire him back as equally as he did me.

Last night I asked him if this was just sex.  I think he perceived I was asking for an assurance, and he seemed a little taken back.  He said,  no... we have a lot in common, we talk all the time...  Yes we do.  We are also a little hyper focused on sex right now.  He perhaps needs an Oasis, and I need to just get on with my life and start breaking down some bullshit barriers, learned or self erected in what I believe to be in error.  Maybe we'd be good for each other right now.

I want to move forward and learn about myself.  I am tired of denying aspects of myself.  I am not saying I believe having sex with Brian is going to miraculously open me up to who I am as being fully realized but I think it is a step in that direction.  I want to be the one to define myself, I want to see certain things change and I want to avail myself of opportunities to achieve those changes. If I hide from myself from life and experiences, avoid taking chances and getting to know what makes me passionate I'll never grow.