Thursday, November 28, 2013

I Hate The Holidays

I do.

I hate them so much more now.

I hope, I do...

I hope someday I will look forward to them with a happy heart.

So here's to hope!

To Give Me Just What I Need


So many things are stacked up in me.  Things I am holding on to, illusions of myself and my life.  I try to sort them out and they slip like eel's through my grasp, hide in little crevasses, and zip out to tag me when I'm not prepared.  When I feel like I have it all dialed in, they let me know I'm a fool.

What is odd is I am developing a level of comfort with this.  Knowing I don't know shit about anything, can't predict the next five minutes much less anything past that.  Knowing I can't predict anything in my inner world is fine until I am struck with something and find myself trying to assess my responses much less being able to address the situation in a timely manner, or knowing if I am handling it well when I address it right away.

I am seeing things I couldn't see before, or wouldn't.  I am open now and they are there offered up, or shoved in my face in the most 'wtf where did this come from?!!?' way.  Things about myself, people in my life.  The most uncomfortable things I see, how others see me or how I come across to others.

I am comforted by Greg's seeing through my grief and my walls and my sadness, and seeing a woman worthy of love and respect and appreciation and desire to impart love to.  He's flew away today but he left a mark of hope within me.

I am saddened to finally understand a friend of many years is not and honestly hasn't been a friend at all.  It's so one sided, and now we seem to not understand each other in the simplest ways, but she's always connected in her need for unconditional acceptance when her life is complex and spiraling.  I painfully learned this on an already terribly difficult day, today, when she made a vicious and crazy personal attack of me.  It's horrible to realize our friendship, if it ever was, is absolutely over on a day when I am most deeply feeling loss of love and family.  Her attack is frivolous at best and twisted.  I know I did nothing wrong and I am finally in a place to, yes, still review my actions from her POV, and realize I did in fact did NOTHING wrong.  What is wrong is I have persisted in continuing trying to maintain a friendship with her over the years. I am actually concerned about her alcoholism and I feel it is a large factor in her behavior, along with the plain and painful fact she doesn't and never has had any respect for me.  It isn't just me she attacks, but today was just wrong and bizarre.  She might apologize at some point, more likely she'll try to pretend it never happened.  I'll find a way to forgive her when I stop feeling hurt, but I won't forget and I am not interested in being her friend.

Having been alone since John passed for the last year, I am very curious when I am aware of someone that finds me desirable or if I am approached by someone who does.  I pull back and I also want so badly to experience it, to see what they see.  I am afraid to let anyone in too close or at all, and at the same time I am getting closer to letting myself go there all the time wondering what it is I am waiting for?  I suppose someone I find desirable as well... but someone has been closer than others, others that in no way could be anything other than blink of a moment, or nothing more than a mind delving kind of plaything if I had the ability.  You know, to see through their minds eye, know their thoughts. 

And What is Really Strange is... it sort of IS there.  I see things, I just avoid acknowledging them unless they are blatantly brought to my attention. Like today with my friends attack.  Or if someone is forward in their attraction.

Why do I hold back.  Why am I holding back?

The Fury in me, that's the name for all the aspects of me I try to keep in check, named in a humorous story I wrote from another blog a long time ago.  Well, she is just tired of taking my 'friends' crazy shit and letting it go and letting everything be okay somehow.  I tried a little today to get a dialogue going, but 'friend' was out to injure, not give tough friend love.  I have other friends now, friends that don't use things against me for their cruelty.  Friends that I always leave feeling happy,and fullfilled after spending time with them... not vaguely confused and uncomfortable.  Friends the like me for me, let me be myself, mutual, wonderful women.

I wish 'friend' would get back together with her boyfriend and practice her dysfunction there and stop torturing her friends by blindsiding them and putting them on the defensive.  She can go back to keeping it in her tight little circle of hearth and home.

There is guy that's creeping past my walls. A big maybe I could go there.  I am wanting to feel, even if I don't feel it deep down.  I really have no idea until I go there.  But I won't know until it happens.  I think he sees my outer walls... He pointed out that not only do I have them but I let people know why they are there.  He said I don't need to do that.  I just need to have my boundaries drawn, not explain why, that with the why I give someone power to manipulate me.  He's so right.  I was embarrassed to have him tell me and at one moment I put my hand over his mouth.  I needed to hear it.  However, he can think he knows me, but the inner boundaries, those that protect my heart... that inner me that is being realized and is practicing Being... he has no idea she exists.  I do.  I recognize her more and more everyday.  Grow stronger with every little lesson, and big one.

I'm curious though, how do you get to know someone without knowing where they have been, where they are, where they might be going?  I have so much to learn.  I Am an open book.  I do let people know how I feel.  I Am 'A plan without a plan.'
*Interesting things he's said to me when he's comfortable and talking to me when he's very tired.

Those Fury aspects in me have needs. What are those aspects?  My instincts, my boundaries, my Moxie, my gumption, my visceral Joy, That spark of life deep inside me that has been battered by the people I should have been nurtured by and should have been able to trust at the core of my life. My anger, my Fighter, my self-protective inner strength...

I'm learning to embrace myself.  I am changing so much.  I am afraid to let it happen too fast, of making mistakes that strip me of the process... So much has happened in such a short period of time.  So much loss.  I've been trying to hold on to what I have left, be cautious about what/who I let in.  I really want to learn how to function in the world again.  I recognize I have this amazing opportunity to start over again, make a good life.


It seems I am still being tagged by eels.  I may always be, probably will be.  They might not always be my own.

I want to keep moving forward.

"Absorb what is useful.  Discard what is not.  Add what is uniquely your own." ~Bruce Lee~






Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Sometimes You Feel Like A Nut...

Sometimes you Know It.

Other times it's everyone else that's nuts.

And sometimes it's just that everything gets lost in Translation.


Friday, November 22, 2013

First Impressions



Last Friday my friend told me she was giving my number to a guy she was supposed to be going out on a date with.

Yeah, I thought it was weird too.  I wondered why, and I figured he wouldn't message me because he was interested in her.

Well, he did.
First impressions were varied.  He was easy to message, but that’s not a stretch.  He was attractive, though not really my type.

The messaging on Friday was unfocused on my part because I was finishing up work and focusing on getting out, getting home, and hitting the road by 7:30pm at the latest to go to Southern California to see my girlfriend and her family.

I closed off out messaging saying I’d see him Monday for our date and to have a good weekend.  The drive to So Cal was smooth, we arrived in great time.  I watched the movie The Purge with my step son, his girlfriend, Julie’s twin boys, and my sons.  I liked it.  The kids couldn't get over how stupid some of the characters were.

I crashed, and Saturday was a lazy day mostly spent watching Long Island Medium on demand in Julies bed with her and her daughter, all of us under the electric blanket because I chose the one weekend California weather decided to get cold, and windy.

Julie, her husband, her aunt, and I had plans that evening.  I've never been to a Casino.  It just wasn't my thing, that’s why.  I played the penny slot with a dollar and won six.  I bought us each a drink.  Under poured whisky for me and her Long Island was as drink the bar tender should have been deeply ashamed of.  The drinks were $15.  The people watching was priceless.  A crazy man sat next to me.  Yes, crazy.  When we were waiting for her husband and aunt to meet us when were ready to leave, a man was very focused on making eye contact with us while he actively and deeply picked his nose.

Earlier that evening I’d decided get ready several hours early so we weren't rushing and pressed for time, or at least I wouldn't be.  Then I kicked back in lounge pants and a soft t-shirt and checked my phone.

He’d messaged me that morning.  I returned the message and we started texting back and forth off and on the rest of the weekend.  Sunday morning he sent and early text and woke me from a nightmare.  It wasn't too much, he was complimentary but not overmuch.  It seemed we were on a good wavelength.

The only downside was he’d sent me some pictures.  You know, no shirt, buff work out guy pictures.  I couldn't help but wonder … is he going to be that guy that works out all the time and needs constant approval and appreciation for how ‘healthy’ he is.  I wasn't looking forward to being right.  I only have head shots on FB and my phone.  I sent him a few recent ones and tried to take a body shot, got the knees up in my trackies and blue t-shirt.  So he’d see, I wasn't a work out girl, but I was what I said I was, slender-curvy, soft.

Outside of that his timing was nearly miraculous.  Never too much, never too little.  He put effort in.

We met Monday, several hours earlier than planned as we were both free and he’d asked saying he didn't want to wait anymore.

I was early, he was moments behind me.  He did look something like his pictures.  A shorter, thicker, less muscled version of himself.  His face rounder, his clothing a bit sloppy I guess because he was dressed from the waste up.  To be fair he’d sent me a group photo of him at a Zombie pub crawl, not dressed up but certainly still thinner than the man who walked in and sat down.

I didn't obsess about it, but I didn't let go either.  I just noted it.  There are ways to make a first impression.  There are ways to wear jeans and a t-shirt.  He did it the other way.

We had a fun conversation.  We agree on a lot of things, but that can be expected on a first meeting after a comfortable level of messaging and attraction is achieved.  He was far more attracted to me than I was to him, but what the hell, I was drinking whisky, even if I was drinking it slowly.

I kept thinking he needed a haircut, clothes that fit better, and that if he was working out his pictures wouldn't end up being a total lie.  If he wasn't that was cool too.  He wasn't a work out dickhead, and his pictures of his sons gave me hope he wouldn't be turned off by mine.

I liked him.  There was no love at first sight, no lust a first sight, he was comfortable, attentive, sweet.  We took a walk and I liked the way he just held my hand.  I was intrigued that he is Cajun by birth and his accent only comes out when he’s with his family.  I was interested in seeing him again.

The whisky promoted a deeper goodnight kiss than I would have allowed otherwise, early goodnight kiss because we both had to get home to kids.

We messaged later and decided he’d catch me up on The Walking Dead as I’d missed three episodes.  We decided he come to my place the next morning.  I didn't feel the ‘wtf are you thinking’ effect until a little bit later, probably as I sobered up completely and got a clear head.  I kept thinking, ‘I don’t know this guy and I am having him to my home?!? He seems a little needy, what if he IS a creep?  What if He is the Stalker type?!?’

So like an idiot I cleaned house and still let him come over after setting a ground rule, which was No Making Out.

Ends up he’s not a murdering rapist, my instincts were right about that.  We sat together on the couch and watched the Walking Dead.  He had plans to meet his friend, and acquaintance of mine and a friend of my girlfriend that set us up.   So we had boundaries.  Though I do understand he could have raped, beaten, murdered, and stashed me in my home, showered and met his friend for lunch all in the time it took us to watch The Walking Dead.

Yes, I thought I shored up my boundaries better than that.  Evidently not.  Noted.

I like his hands.  He has great hands.  He’s the kind of man that would give me a back rub and not skimp on time or attention just to move it to sex or because he gets distracted by, well, the fact he isn't really into giving me a neck or back rub and he saw something shiny.  I also realize he’s uber attracted to me and probably wants to touch a lot of me and the neck rub was all he was getting because of my ground rule.  He didn't break the rule but he did comfortably mold me to him while we watched Walking Dead.  I think he even dozed off a few times.  I think I might have.

I found myself thinking:
His shirt smells like it was left in the wash a little too long, there is a slight smell of mildew, doesn't he notice?
He’s sweet, but when will his own personal version of asshole show up and is it an asshole I am willing to deal with or is it something nightmares are made of.  Like where’s the ‘Ahhhh, there you are’ guy I an waiting to reveal himself.
I’m not sure I am into him… I can’t work it out, why… it is that he’s barely taller than I am?  Am I shallow?
I’ll let things play out because honestly so far there is more positive than negative and the little things I am not into I'll think about why…

So I have been.

Our next round of messaging was less inspiring.  It seemed like things weren't as on as they were before.  Night before last he drunk messaged me.  I didn't like that.  I believe he was trying to compliment me, tell me I’m open and I let people know how I feel.  That I see.  I hear.  I feel.

My response, no shit.  It was a rude response because he was confusing me and making me uncomfortable because he was drunk.  He mis-wrote things, had tons of typos.  His initial attempt was rather insulting, though I looked at it and realized what he was, I hoped, attempting to type.  That I was an open book.  But it came out differently… something like I needed to read a book… and I am still not sure he was trying to compliment me or not.

The next morning he apologized but offered nothing more, no form of explanation, or offer to clarify his intent.  It put a bad taste in my mouth.

I was already struggling with my feeling comfortable but not overly attracted to him.  I’d been questioning myself.  Remembering my ex-husband, not a good parallel to draw.  Comfort, but not attracted.  Similar in build, though This guy is much more attractive.    But I also remember settling for my ex.  I remember how right after marriage he became a needy slob.  I could see that potential in this guy.

I thought about my last encounter.  How the other man made me feel something again other than grief or just the hollow numbness I’d been existing in for so long.

I asked myself, am I only attracted to assholes?  Is it just the guy with the devil in his eyes that lights me up inside?  Why am I not attracted to this guy?  Would it grow, would he stay all the good things I see now, is this just what he’s showing me?

I don’t want to go backwards.  I don’t want to settle for what seems like a nice guy and end up with my ex.
I don’t want to get blinded by lust with some guy that doesn't deserve me.

Nothing was really clear, maybe it was, but I thought to myself, ‘I’ll see him again, see how it plays out.’

We made plans for Monday to walk a trail at the park.  He cancelled.  He started to go kind of warm and lukewarm on me.  Again, messaging can be misread.

I think he wanted to have sex with me, enough to put effort into me expecting a quick response.  Wrong girl.  He should have stuck with my friend who decided to get us together.  She and I are different people, and maybe with a different man I would go there and either see it move forward or move on, but I’m not really built that way no matter how sometimes I wish I was, when I feel lonely.

He, in what for him was a random and lengthy  statement in a message, said that he felt he was pushing me to be close to him as he wanted to be with me and we should try to be friends first and if it develops into more great and if not no one is hurt.

Hmmmmm.  Other little things in the background came forward.  My girlfriend breaking the plans we all had for this Saturday with their mutual friend, this guy messaging me that he’d been texting her and he pissed her off when she mentioned she’d shut down her dating profiles, he said he had too and that it was sad.
That could mean two things, sad they shut them down, or the sites themselves are sad (as in creepy, something we’d talked about on our date).

Then her pressing me for feedback on how much I like him, whether we were going out again.

I don’t have much to offer.  We message, he was great at first, now not so much.  He misrepresented himself in pictures, but there’s things I like, things I am not sure of.  Yes, I was considering seeing how it played out…
Until the ‘Let’s be friends thing’

So I told her I don‘t know, I‘m still working out my first impressions.
There were just too many things to tell her if I wanted to, I felt it better left for a real conversation rather than her cryptic way of texting.

No answer was good enough.  I think she was feeding him information back.  It’s what my instincts tell me.

Today she asked me again saying she thought we were spending the day together.  No.  I am working, he’s working.  He broke our Monday plans and said he just wants to be friends.

“And What do you want?” she asked me.

I messaged back, “I want things to move and progress easily if they are meant to.  I’m not interested in complicated.  I’m absolutely not interested in forcing anything.”

“But all relationships take work.” she said.

“I don’t have a problem with work.” I replied.

“So what happened with him?” she asked

“Nothing.” I finished.

She’d asked me the other day if the other guy has messaged me yet.  I responded, ‘Of course not, LOL’ This man is 48 years old and asking his friend for a month is he should message me?

Sometimes I think it would be an education to follow her thought process.  To hear her thoughts.  I think they might be unkind in regard to me.  I think I am her non-judgmental friend when she’s in crisis, her occasional get out and have fun friend, but she often flakes out and she always invites someone else along.  It is a weird complicated friendship I hold on to because of our history, because of time.  Because of my first impressions of her.




I felt pressure from her to be ‘something‘.   This situation is just too damn complicated already and I have only seen him twice.

I haven’t responded to his “let’s be friends” text.  He’s messaged me several times today.  I suspect when he’s simply bored.

See?  The timing is off, things have skewed.  I am not going to waste my time being some guys part time, his bored text messaging.
I am not going to push myself into something that is falling apart before it began.
I may sound foolish but I believe something is blocking the process from going further.
If we end up going out sometime or meeting up that’s fine, but for me the moment, the opportunity he had has passed.


I don’t particularly like ‘dating’.  It feels false somehow, I don’t know.

I decided I don’t want to meet someone through my friends or co-workers or anyone.  I’m not into dating sites, they creep me out, more power to you if you are there is no judgment from me.  I just see my friends, my ex doing it and their stories are just, stressful or creepy.  And they communicate they feel this way.  They say at first it is flattering, then it is just draining.

 I get the same stuff IRL why add constant updates on my phone to my life?


So… I made a list of the things I want in the man in my life if he’s meant to be there.  I've heard it’s a good practice.  To write down what you want, kind of pray over it, then let it be.

I’ll say it again, I have the most fun just relaxing in my own life and going out with my girlfriends.  These other experiences have been draining.

I’m learning from these experiences.  It bothers me, the kind of men I've been coming across.  They all seem really weak to me in one way or another.  I mean concentrated versions of Normal.

I don’t mind vulnerability, I mean weakness.
I don’t believe it is just men.  I think people are addicted to being in love.  I get it.  I’d love to be in love… I’d love, seriously, to be in love, to have sex with someone, to be touched, to have Fun in bed and out.

I just want more.  I want something deeper than a few days or weeks or months, or like with John, years struggling to capture what it can and/or should be.

I’m not interested in wasting my time.  This one played itself out, I let it go a little further than I should have when my instincts knew better, just like with the other guy.

I’m learning, and I’m content.  That is I recover contentment after getting past the cagey feeling within a few days after the ripple effects dissipate.

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

A Pleasant Distraction

It was there all along, sleeping within me.  It was perfect.  Just enough.  Dark eyes and sensuous lips resting on a face I could read plainly.  My god, someone I am attracted to but not someone I could lose myself in.  

It happened right away, that little thrill of desire I ruthlessly suppressed and he gently persisted.  I was ready to give chase and it was fun to run, to be barely caught, to escape to run again.  Fun to be caught and when he touched me I didn't retreat like before when others tried to touch me. It wasn't forced in any way.  Why him?  The banter?  The look in his eyes?  Yes.  My body said yes and my heart and mind knew that was enough.  I didn't retreat.  That was enough.  He kissed me like I haven't been kissed in a very, very long time. It was he kind of kissing where all the promise is laid bare and even the kissing can be enough.

Interestingly he isn't even close to what I am 'interested' in, and not only in looks.  How does that happen?  Someone that could draw out those feelings but someone I wouldn't be interested in seriously.  That is unfamiliar to me.  It was good to understood right away he would be a pleasant distraction.

The way he looked at me, bold and unapologetic.  That I wanted him to look at me that way.  He surprised me.  He made me laugh.  He was fun and he made me feel that spark of life within me again.  A taste, a sampling.

He kissed me and I felt desire.  Nothing more.

Desire is something I haven't felt for a long time. I am pleased it isn't more than it was.  I felt desirable,  I felt uninhibited.  I was boldly honest, and felt I could be naked and it would only be pleasant.  I could imagine myself having more than his asking touch and his kiss.  I believe it would be like a fire, hot and bright and consuming - yet I have no desire to know beyond what I already knew.  I believe it would be hot and bright and consuming.  I also believe there is little fuel to have it burn for long.  I don't believe he has what I want or what I need.  I could try to satisfy the initial attraction but I feel it would end in disappointment.  Why ruin it?

This pleasant distraction was enough.  Perfect in the moment.

Enough to let me know there is desire within me.  Enough to let me know he isn't enough.  Enough to let me know I want more.

I want more and I won't waste my time trying to make a pleasant distraction something more than it was meant to be.

He doesn't know what he wants.  Even if he wanted me more than than just desire but actual value of me, even if he had a clear path to pursue me I don't want him.  I don't want to be a catalyst, to simply be sand rushing out of his grasp, or a fragrance that quickly dissipates if he tried to pursue me in any real way.  No I am not that to him as much as he is not that to me.  I am content to be a vivid moment that perhaps awakens his mind from the dull acceptance he is allowing his life to be.  Acquisitions and mergers.  Settling for that.  We all have our paths.  I've been on that one.  It is not my path.

After seeing him I arrived home, I changed my clothes, washed my face, brushed my teeth, drank a glass of water and poured another.  While doing this I listened to the echo of his words.  Thinking about how when he kissed me I wanted more.  I wanted to lose myself to sensation and its good it was nothing more than kissing.  I came home and when I was laying there remembering his kiss and his touch and the desire I wasn't left wanting more.  I simply  lay prone beneath the weight of blankets feeling how cold my bed was waiting for it to warm.  Knowing if I was to have it warmed by another I wouldn't choose him.  I wasn't burning and unfulfilled.  I didn't feel the need to finish what we'd started.  The fire was banked, I wasn't restless as I had been during the day or the days since I'd first met him.  I simply fell asleep, content with the pleasant distraction and feeling no desire to repeat it.

It is freeing to not feel tied to him and his ability to have drawn that out in me.  He's the only one since John that has.  It seems to me I should want more with him considering he did, and I am happy that I do not.

It was nice to feel desirable, to feel beautiful and sensuous under his hand, to feel his mouth meet mine.  It was empowering to hear him say the words he spoke to me, the watch him look at me, and to know I didn't need more from him.

What a pleasant distraction.

What a nice way to come awake again, to come awake to the woman I am becoming in the aftermath of everything that was.








Sunday, November 3, 2013

Quarter Past

I don't know what that title means.

It's Sunday.  My day to do absolutely nothing.  It's 10 o'clock(ish) and I have a little list of things to do and I might do them, I might not.

Change my bedding, do something with the messy piles in my room I've allowed to accumulate.  Tackle some laundry.  Go out and try to buy a pair of jeans.  Remember to drink water and stay far away from the yellow cake with chocolate frosting I made last night.

Simple things.

The weekend of the sixteenth I plan to go and see my girlfriend Julie and my 'Niece and Nephews'.  Pay down my debt with the extra $ I have this month.  Pretend like December doesn't exist.  It's so appropriate John died in December.  I have always hated that month, now there is one more reason.

I have some little goals... get my heath and mental health going in the 'full gas tank and long road ahead of me mode'.  That's where the drinking water mention comes from.  I realized I wasn't drinking very much water and that I was stress eating easy foods aka bread... hand to mouth sort of stuff.  I've gained weight.  Nothing anyone else seems to notice because I'm blessed with even weight gain... LOL, yes... LOL!  I don't get just a big ass or a big belly to signal I have to make changes.  I distribute.  This is not such a lucky thing as you may imagine.  Nope, I just notice my head seems to get smaller.  *giggle
It's not really funny, but it is. My clothes are a bit tight and I am not going to just go buy bigger me clothes.  Screw that.  The jeans... well, I need a pair of jeans in general and a pair of black slacks simply because it is getting cooler.  Something a bit more tailored for work.

Surprisingly water is essential for physical and mental health.   So is getting off your ass to take a walk.  That's step two, pun intended.

I am struggling to wake up, to start taking care of myself.  I want my life back. I like that I want my life back.

I've finally stopped thinking about myself in the sense of having a relationship.  I'm not sure how to explain myself.  I'd think about myself and John... about myself and relationships in the past.  Relationships in general.  Friends, family, men.  After John died I wondered how I'd be in six months, 10 months, a year. I've wondered about being in love, being with someone again. In the sense of being afraid of repeating myself, in the sense of being with someone as a distraction from my life, or as a covering for fears as opposed to facing them.

I've found I am different, but the same.  I find I am content now.  Content with my life and my relationships.  I don't want to have a relationship with a man.  John changed me.  I was watching a silly series, catching up online.  There was a line about never forgetting your first love, never really losing that love for them.

There was a boy when I was younger, that magic age of 17.  All the best songs about young and vibrant life are about being 17.  Actually I was sort of like those songs.  I was going wild at 17. Well, I thought I was in love with an idiot named Jay, Jason W.  My first love?  Another life moment that didn't deserve my time... But he didn't change me.  Greg didn't change me.  He changed my location, I went right back to it.  He was the first guy I'd ever lived with, before my ex-husband Steve the Pathetic One, and John.

Looking back it is so very clear that John is the only person next to my sons I have ever Loved.  I didn't really know what love was before my sons and John.

I have learned so much about myself in the past (almost) year since his death.  John profoundly changed my life, my view of myself, my expectation.  I'd started changing and learning the moment I met him.  This is something I have never experienced before on this level.  I have had those painful reflections of myself.  Seen things about myself I want to retreat from and can't.  I suppose it is easy to see the failings.  I am still learning to appreciate myself, see what is good, what I have to offer this life and understand my purpose here.

It could be different now simply because I am in my 40's, a mother, experienced my first loss attached to my heart.  Sure.  Life on a whole new level.

My sons helped me focus.  Becoming a Mom, I had to be something other that what I'd been.  John is something else, similar but different.

I lost myself in him, and I am gaining myself.  When he broke my heart, nothing short of losing one or both of my sons could make me feel that shattered again.  John's death, the fact he doesn't exist the way I knew him is still hard to grasp.  I still feel like he'll walk in the door, drive by me on the street, turn over in bed and pull me close.

My life is quiet now.  There is no drama.  My sons are growing up, which I want and dread equally.  I really enjoy my career, though, with out child support I don't make enough to survive. Yet.  So, if I have drama it is financial fear that plagues me.

Knowing my fear, I work daily as much as I am able in that day, to move forward and to better my circumstances.

I have spent a lot of time until recently thinking about relationships.  This is reflective post... this is a recent change, a recent letting go.  I am unfamiliar with this new me.  I'm a little embarrassed of the me I was before John.  I am/was ashamed of the me with John (after he hurt me).  I'm a different me after John.

I have a different standard.  I like my life the way it is.  I don't care to just let Just Anyone in, and I am not just referring to men.  I'm content in my life and can't see myself involved with anyone.

John's sister asked me if there was anyone in my life.  It bothered me.  It bothers me.  Why would there be?

Sometimes I crave intimacy.  I can't say I haven't kissed anyone.  Once I chose to because, well, John would have I told myself.  He would have used the distraction to hold off the pain.  I tried to go that route.  Well, I ended that before it started.  I've given my number to a few idiots I thought maybe I could practice on.  You know, go out for coffee... learn to be social, to simply play at dating.  That proved to me the kind of men I meet are socially retarded at best.  I had a bar hopping night with a few girlfriends and one of my girlfriends invited a guy and he brought a buddy (bar hopping, something I don't do, and I did just to do it and I had fun) and drank enough to say to my girlfriends guy friends buddy asking for my number (who didn't deserve my number) "What the hell, I'm drunk enough to give it to you.  Any yes, that is my actual number"  I kissed him later that night, and let him know it meant absolutely nothing to me, but that he was a nice kisser, thanks.  While this sounds crass, he is jerk that is involved with another woman and tried to play me by saying 'What if it isn't that serious?'  Meaning his relationship.  I told him what are we in Jr. High?  I don't have time for that kind of bs in my life and that I wasn't interested and maybe he should go home.
It must be nice being a man.  I know women that are like men.  I just can't really wrap my head around people like that.  

And, it's true.  I'm not.  Had I not been merry of heart with whiskey I wouldn't have let him touch me.  But it was fun being drunk and letting someone flirt with me.  Feeling attractive.  Not enough to need to do it again the next night, or the next week though.

Back to, 'sometimes I crave intimacy'.  I do.  It's a physical thing.  A desire created by hormones and loneliness.  And it is so quickly passing I hardly remember what it was when it has passed.  Initially I wanted to emulate John.  Lose myself in the distraction.  He wasn't very discerning.  Well, he had a type... anyway, that isn't me.  Sometimes I wish it was.  Sometimes I wish I could just meet someone, have a tumble. Let them help me forget.  There is no shame in that, no judgement.  I wouldn't judge myself for it. Sometimes I wonder why I can't scratch that itch.  Play that game.  Then it passes and sometimes I can't remember what it was I wanted to scratch. Sometimes I know it is because there isn't anyone, anywhere I am remotely attracted to enough to go there. Unless of course I am barhopping and drinking whiskey I guess.

I want more.  I want more and I don't see it happening.  So I am content with myself.  For the first time in my life I enjoy being home, going to work, going out sometimes with a girlfriend ... and having no internal agenda of Mr. Next.  This means I am in the moment with my sons, at work, with my girlfriends. This is a first for me.

These are the things I am learning about myself.